“Scheduling is the Spinal Core of our Business.” ~Sean Alexander, Alexander Tutoring
The Challenge
Sean Alexander started Alexander Tutoring with a mission to deliver engaging and effective math and physics tutoring to high school students. Today, Alexander Tutoring is the San Francisco Bay Area’s most highly rated tutoring center, employing 10 tutors who across 6 cities.
One lesson Alexander learned early on was that tutors can teach more students if classes are held in a public location instead of in students’ homes. But coordinating multiple tutors in multiple locations became increasingly difficult as his business grew, and he needed a software solution with more robust scheduling capabilities. Alexander tried over a dozen online scheduling solutions and even paid $5,000 to develop a custom solution before discovering TimeTap, Lumaverse Technologies’ online scheduling solution.
“If you know San Francisco, you know people won’t drive across town for anything,” Alexander said. “By partnering with local libraries for class space, we reach students all over the city and eliminate travel time between sessions. But our scheduling challenges became untenable.”
The Solution:
Alexander switched his scheduling platform to TimeTap in October of 2019 because it was the only solution he found that let him efficiently coordinate across multiple locations.
“I researched dozens software solutions. TimeTap blew them all out of the water.”
Today, tutors submit their schedule to Alexander and his staff, who upload it into the TimeTap booking system. From there, parents can view tutors’ locations and availability, schedule their child for tutoring sessions, view upcoming sessions, and change/cancel sessions.
Tutors, parents, and students receive notifications confirming their sessions, a 24 hour reminder, and a 2 hour reminder. Sessions are also automatically synced to most online calendars, including Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, and Outlook, so a tutor can see his schedule for the day directly in his personal calendar.
The Results:
Alexander estimates that he saves several hours a month with TimeTap, but says the real benefits come from happier customers thanks to fewer over-bookings and better communication over cancelled sessions.
“The better informed the parents are, the smoother the whole operation,” Alexander said.