Tutors, at your request we have opened up a forum for you to share your ideas in. A forum is a better place for brainstorming and threaded discussions. We will be migrating the Faculty Lounge to the forum asap. You can find the forum at:
Perhaps the most important market metric of tutoring quality & effectiveness on Ziizoo is the ratings and feedback you bring in. Even just the number of ratings can be critical, since it signals both Ziizoo experience, student usage and student impact (since a student with a neutral impression of you won’t be driven to give you feedback). So here are some basic keys:
It’s 1:03 am in the evening and a student initiates a session with you.
Student: Hi there!
You: Hi. What’s up?
Student: You think you can help me with an algebra problem?
You: Sure thing! What do you have?
Student: Ok. So I need to figure out the roots, vertex and axis of symmetry of x^2 + 2x - 10. I have no clue how to start, and it’s due tomorrow! 
You: We’ll see what we can do. What have you learned about quadratic functions in school?
Student: Umm.. I don’t remember much at all. It’s all so confusing!
You: Let’s start with this: what makes a function quadratic?
Student: Arrgh! Can’t you just go through the steps of solving this? Pleease?
You: I think it’s better if we understood the concepts involved, so you’d be able to find the information you need for ANY quadratic function, or handle any curveballs a teacher throws at you during an exam.
Student: I don’t have time. And my brain is fried this late at night. Come on! I can easily give an unsatisfactory review, you know. 
How would you continue this session? Do you think the tutor “You” has led this session appropriately given the situation? Have you ever encountered a situation like this before?
With the recent deployment of the new session interface tool (v2.0), there is an expected incidence of disruption and transitional dissonance because those last few platform bugs need to be fixed and only mass-scale testing can identify them. If these are a given, the main issue at hand is how to best handle initiation requests that don’t work the first time, or how to handle a session that fails early on or midway. Hence, the need to identify and establish best practices for Ziizoo CRM (customer relationship management). I don’t know all the right answers, but I believe this forum can help us tutors pool our insights and develop a strategy and a way of doing things that make sense.
For a startup venture like Ziizoo, CRM is at the very crux of business survival because the cost of catching the attention of a prospective customer can be astronomical. You’re not only wrestling attention from “the powers that be” but also trying to evince some flair among the clutter of online advertising. So once you grab someone’s attention, you’re already in the phase in which you’ve got only a modicum of time to demonstrate what you do AND that you do it well. From the customer’s (student’s) point of view, they want to be confident that they can easily access a tutor who is effective in answering their questions. This requires the harmony of two things: (1) a stable, smooth connection with the tutor, and (2) a dedicated and capable tutor committed to their craft. Ziizoo’s business model is designed to select for the better tutors, but when the connection fails, the tutor needs to mitigate the situation as best as they can, because those customer don’t just potentially belong to Ziizoo; they potentially belong to you as well! And it is this idea of customer “ownership” that should motivate you to salvage and manage a “crisis” when they do occur.
What would I do? First thing is to follow up on the student immediately. Usually, when you first get the session request, you can see the student’s name, so keep that in mind. A simple site search on the name should access their profile, but it’s a bit harder if the search comes up empty (usually if the student just registered on the site). If you’re lucky enough to have had some connection, then you should easily have a link on your account “dashboard” tab which records all successful connections. If not, I’d let the site co-founder Robert Einspruch know (can search his profile) since he can easily pull up the profile link. Once you access their profile, the only way to contact them is to send a message through the messagecenter explaining that there was a connection problem, apologizing for the mishap (which is obviously not your fault but still…), and proposing either of the following: (1) have the student re-initiate the session to see if it works the second time, (2) answer their questions through the messageboard, (3) or for drastic measures, working with them off Ziizoo (either through AIM, MSN, Yahoo or GTalk) hoping to bring them back in once issues are resolved. Sometimes a little goodwill is needed upfront to retain a customer and the goodwill you show is likely to come back to you in the form of the student’s favorable impression of your efforts.
Any thoughts or experiences you guys are willing to share on this issue? ;o)
In the traditional tutoring business, you have scheduled appointments. And while that can also translate into the online space, it has been my experience that you tend to get more on-the-spot tutoring requests, whether stand-alone or a precursor to a longer relationship. It should not surprise you that this first contact (often generated from promotional free minutes) may actually be your one audition to demonstrate your capacities as a tutor and gain the trust of the student. Whether or not that proves true, one thing is for certain: you never really know when you’ll get “pinged” for that first contact. And if you’re really in it to win it (as the saying goes), then you’ll want to maximize the opportunity students have to seek you out.All marketplaces operate by bringing buyers and sellers together, so even as consumer demand (from students) mounts with the growing awareness of Ziizoo, nothing goes if the sellers (tutors) aren’t around (think about the collapse of the market for subprime mortgage-backed securities where there are virtually no takers). There is always a hesitation to be in the marketplace without knowing whether the other side will meet you there; students wonder whether they should bother with this site if tutors are rarely available, and tutors wonder whether they should be available without really knowing if students are around. But at least online, the cost of participating in the marketplace is really negligible. For tutors, it’s a matter of leaving a Ziizoo window open (even in the background, although not in an embedded Firefox tab) while you do what you normally do online. For students, it’s a cursory perusal through the site, among many others, in the search for school-related assistance. And if you do happen to make contact, the rewards can be promising for both parties–for the tutor, a new customer, and for the student, a new resource.
With the incipient launch of a brand new Ziizoo tutoring interface tool (that will be properly introduced soon), this site is pacing to go the distance. Are you ready to join in on the ride?
Note: In my own (extensive?) experience on Ziizoo, I find the best times to be available as a tutor on Ziizoo are Mondays through Thursdays from 4pm-1am, Fridays from 8pm-11pm, Saturdays from noon-10pm, and Sundays from noon-1am.
Season’s greetings, everyone!
While the holiday season might mean different things to different people, we truly hope one of those fonts of meaning is the opportunity to sit back and soak in the cozy nostalgia of being in the company of dear family and friends. Go figure that the first things I receive are tutoring requests from my own siblings and extended family! lol… But to be serious, this should a good time to remind your loved ones that you love them as well, and to realize that the gifts and blessings you receive today are merely droplets from the shower of support you receive all year round. Tomorrow is December 26, and I should be ready to heed your tutoring requests once again if you’ve got one! But as I suspect for many of you, enjoy your hiatus from school and the rest of your holiday vacation. ;o)
With glad tidings,
jeffrey seguritan & the rest of my ziizoo tutor-colleagues
One strategic question I’ve been pondering is what exactly is the current overlap and orientation of the online tutoring market with respect to the traditional, face-to-face tutoring market. Do they compete head-to-head, or is online tutoring just a niche segment? Are they just separate markets with marginal overlap? Are they meant to complement each other or are they bound to be distinct consumer choices within the same space? In some sense, the answer to this question should explain differences in market price, supply factors and demand factors. For one thing, it appears online tutoring has a lower equilibrium market price, generating an excess of student demand over supply of tutors for the moment. But this question should also make you think about how online tutoring can have distinct advantages over what can be accomplished in the conventional setting. Being able to identify and jump on these advantages should enhance your tutoring ability and your motivation to embrace this new platform.
Competitive advantage is really the driver of value and organic growth in any market, so if we seek to extract our own value through this mode of tutoring, we will need to identify and accentuate the features and capabilities that give online tutoring that extra edge! Is there anything else you guys can think of?
I’ve done a lot of tutoring in person, but I found that you definitely
have to adapt online. First of all, like Jeffrey pointed out, you have
to go a lot farther to make that personal connection. When I’m
tutoring in person I might go overtime by 5 min just to account for
time to chit-chat inbetween problems to get to know the student.
On ziizoo they’re paying by the minute, so I can’t really do that, but
I do like to throw in a little humor every so often to make it a little
more personal.
Also, not being able to read the student is very difficult–you miss
out on a lot of their thought process. If I ask them a leading question
to get them through the next step, I try giving them a minute or two
to mull it over, and then if they’re not writing or typing anything, I ask
if they’re still thinking or stuck. Some people take more time to process
and you don’t want to jump the gun and take away the chance for
them to get it themself, but on the other hand you don’t want to
waste five minutes while they beat their head against the wall
(unbeknownst to you!). It took me a few sessions to make the
adaptation, but now I feel almost as effective online as I am in person.
Sorry that I didn’t quote any classical philsophers, but hopefully this
will help some of you current or prospective tutors!
“… so does the stream of beauty, passing through the eyes which are the windows of the soul, come back to the beautiful one…” (Plato, Phaedrus)
Plato is often attributed for saying that the eyes are the windows of the soul, creating a vivid and beautiful metaphor of how the transmission and reception of light via our sight depicts our capacity to access the richness and profundity of that which lies at the core of our very being. There is also a form of sight that takes place on the internet that mediates how our online personas are perceived. It is qualified by a certain degree of caution and skepticism, but enhanced by the ability to form impressions that are disconnected from external appearances. Ziizoo offers us only a small window by which prospective students can form their own impressions of us, and the import of that impression can easily make the difference between a defining click or a nonchalant pass-over.
How can you let students gain better access into what you’re all about? How can you convey that you should somehow stand out? Well, in the world of Ziizoo, you only have 200 characters (spaces included, give or take a few) and a mug shot. I say 200 characters only (despite some extra space on your profile description) because that is all that appears when your record is pulled from a search. If you want to make an impact, it is incumbent on you to maximize this opportunity to express yourself! What are the highlights that make you a little bit different from the next tutor? What unique attribute can you offer a student that is difficult to replicate? How does your personality make a good fit with any prospective student? Be direct, specific and charismatic, while managing the economy of your words. And… if you can at all, include a picture! Students just want to know that there’s a real face behind the identity you present online. This too is part of the formation of trust that is key in building relationships with students!
Let me break down how I wrote my 200-character description:
“I’m excited to help out! A 23-yr old ‘07 grad from Penn Engineering and Wharton (3.92 GPA), I majored in Bioengineering and Healthcare Mgmt, with minors in Chemistry, Biology, Math and English literature…”
What did I want to convey? What did I consider relevant to my aptitudes as an online tutor? Well… I wanted to start by speaking directly to the student, and assuring them of my passionate intent to assist them in whatever questions they had. I was hoping the exclamation point would accentuate that message! lol.. I also wanted to express what kind of tutor I would be–given my relative youth, I definitely did not have as much experience as many of the professional tutors on the site, but I wanted to turn this disadvantage into a key feature of my market positioning strategy–to identify myself as a young, hip tutoring colleague with a fresh perspective of the current educational system, being just out of school. Next, I know strong academic credentials are an important (though not definitive) marker of a tutor’s perceived capability, so I needed to articulate that, even going as far as taking the privacy-risk of revealing my undergraduate GPA. One of the burdens of coming from the Ivy Leagues is showing that you didn’t just get in… that you could also hold your own. Finally, I was also able to convey my passion in academics and my interests and commitments in a wide range of subjects by mentioning how I was able to pick up 2 degrees and 4 minors (from Biology to English) during my time at college. I believe it shows a nice balance across a wide range of disciplines and modes of thinking, while also demonstrating a depth of understanding in each of those academic areas. So… there you go! That’s how I thought about what best describes who I am and what best suits me for being a capable and fun tutor to work with. ;o)
Do you think your 200-character message best captures who you are? If not, how would you modify it to reflect the attributes of your personality that will grant you leverage in the eyes of prospective students?
Greetings everyone!
My name is Jeffrey and I very much appreciate this opportunity to communicate to other tutors (particularly prospective ones) about how I started out on Ziizoo and what I’ve learned thus far in navigating through the initiation stages of this online tutoring marketplace.
I first learned about Ziizoo after a serendipitous click of a Facebook link I found on the Marketplace application when it was still in its early stages, sometime in the middle of this year. I had gone through several tutoring gigs while at college and for the Princeton Review, and was curious by the very concept of “online tutoring”. On a first glance, it was a concept that seemed anathema to what we generally consider the best virtues of traditional tutoring–the face-to-face setting, the interaction of personalities, the ability to discern a student’s body language, and just the palpable sense of energy and charisma that can be displayed. That is not easy to translate into the ostensibly faceless, distant and virtual internet platform. But I soon learned that it is possible to mitigate, through experience and savvy, that perception and reality, while appreciating the incredible potential that unfolded before me. It is now possible to teach and tutor students in any subject from anywhere in the world at any time, adding more glue to the creation of a truly global community of which we are rapidly forming part of.
So what is the best way to be smart about entering the world of online tutoring? Some people have considered tutoring to be a science governed by some hard-and-fast rules and time-honored best practices, while perhaps a larger school of thought believe it to be more of an art that hinges on creativity and flexibility to adapt to the pedagogical needs of students. Surely it is both, but above all, the most important thing to keep in mind about online tutoring is that it is first and foremost a RELATIONSHIP. So is face-to-face tutoring, but this is the ultimate burden of tutoring online–having to raze those extra barriers inextricably erected in any and all online interaction. You need to have a rather transparent and vibrant online personality, and you need to do those extra little things that will cement that proverbial trust between yourself and your student–things like offering a free trial session, entertaining various ad-hoc questions and requests, being available at times convenient for your student, and not wasting their time in a session. You should aim to traverse the extra mile when it comes to exhibiting patience, subject expertise, cheerful optimism and simple faith in your student’s aptitudes, so that your student will come to realize your best intentions and your best attributes.
I’m eager to hear about many of your thoughts about online tutoring and how you perceive this experience and potential to be. I believe Ziizoo is making great strides to become the platform for online tutoring, and I certainly invite and challenge each of you to join me in making that happen.