“Go and see Dunkirk, it’s the best movie I’ve seen in a while …”
“Try the new Italian restaurant on the High street- it’s queued out the door. Can’t get a table for months…”
“Need a Maths tutor? Try Fred he’s great but get in early- he books up fast”
Word of mouth recommendations are pretty powerful things.
As online tutors we can’t have ‘word of mouth’ recommendations but we can have the next best thing: a written or even a video testimonial .
And a testimonial from previous students and parents on our website is like gold dust.
Why?
Humans aren’t very good at being the first at things – the knowledge that another human being has gone before us and been successful puts us at ease -Hello Trip Advisor!
And there’s a right way and a wrong way to get the feedback you want. Let’s look at the right way:
Ask for feedback rather than a testimonial. Then email them a form with a list of questions (See the Video )
Why?
- People are busy. If you leave the request open ended and unstructured, you’ll wait and wait..
- You’re a tutor/teacher, you write things all the time. For lots of people putting pen to paper is a real ask
Look at the difference between these:
Can I have a testimonial for my website?
OR
I’ve emailed you a feedback form with some quick questions. If you can take a minute to answer it’d really help me.
No contest.
What questions do you ask?
What concerns will parents landing on your website have about working with you online?
Cover these in the questions in your feedback form.
My first question I call Then :
‘When we first started working together what were you struggling with?
‘What kind of grades were you getting?
My next question I call Now:
‘ How has this (what they were struggling with) improved?’
‘What grade did you get in your final exam?’
‘What made the difference ?’
This last question allows them to sing your praises and for you to marry their ‘now’ and ‘then’ results in their own words.
The next big area of concern parents will have is the whole working online aspect .
Address this in your questions:
How was working online ? (You’ll find students didn’t have any concerns to begin with but parents might so ramp this up in the questionnaire you send them)
Would you recommend working online with me ?
You’ll have one or two more questions – about materials, about your teaching , ask too if there’s anything that they’d recommend you change or add or do differently- we always want to improve.
Deliver the Feedback Form using Google Forms: it couldn’t be easier.
I’ve made a VIDEO for you showing you how to do it all effortlessly: CLICK HERE TO WATCH
Once you’ve got the form back, edit it a little and then post the glowing testimonials on your website, on your facebook page, on social media and wait for the next wave of students.
Right, how did I do ?