Tutoring Cancellation Policy
Here’s my new, gentler, kinder cancellation policy. If you need to cancel, reschedule, or postpone a session, here is the amount of refund you will get, based on the amount of notice you give. To cancel or reschedule a session, email me at learn@vohramethod.com. No other method of contact (Slack, Text Message, etc.) can be used for this. Email only, please. Here are the percentage refunds you can get with various amounts of notice:
More than 7 days (168 hours) notice: 100% refund.
5-7 days (120-168 hours) notice: 90% refund.
3-5 days (72-120 hours) notice: 75% refund
2-3 days (48-72 hours) notice: 50% refund
1-2 days (24-48 hours) notice: 20% refund
Less than 24 hours notice: 0% refund
This policy also applies in reverse: if I need to cancel a session (which almost never happens), the same rules apply. So if I give 8 days notice, you get a full refund. If I give you less than 24 hours notice, you get a full refund plus a free session. Similarly, if I cancel with 4 days notice, you get a full refund + 25% additional towards your next session.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What if I get sick?
A: There are no exceptions for sickness. My Recommendation: get sleep, take vitamins, and take elderberry syrup daily to reduce chance of sickness.
Q: What if I have been a client for many years?
A: I have had many clients for over a decade, working with multiple children from the same family. There are no exceptions based on the number of years someone has been a client.
Q: What if I do multiple sessions per week?
A: Very few of my clients come in only once a week; 3-5 sessions per week is pretty standard, and many clients do quite a bit more than that per week. Regardless, there are no exceptions based on number of sessions per week.
Q: What if I am your sister?
A: There are no exceptions for sisters.
Q: What if I lose power?
A: There are no exceptions for power loss. Keep your laptop and phone charged; if you lose power, use your phone as a hotspot. In the worst case scenario, we can do the session just on your phone, using the Zoom app on your phone.
Q: What if I get stuck in traffic?
A: There are no exceptions for traffic. My recommendation: keep your phone and laptop charged. If needed, pull off to the side of the road, use your phone as a hotspot, and do your session from the laptop. If all else fails, use Zoom on your phone.
Q: What if I am in a traffic accident?
A: I’ve done sessions minutes after car and bicycle accidents. There are no exceptions based on traffic accidents.
Q: What if there is an alien invasion?
A: If there is an alien invasion, you’ll need education more than ever. There are no exceptions for alien invasions.
Why Have Any Cancellation Restrictions At All?
A common question is why I don’t just have free cancellations? Simply put: a free cancellation policy would cost you a lot more. My cancellation policy saves you a lot of money.
Let’s see why. My tutoring hours are inherently limited. I can’t magically make more hours appear in a week. When demand for my tutoring hours exceeds the supply of those hours, I have to raise prices. The other option would be to create long waiting lists for tutoring sessions, which wouldn’t work in the fast paced, always-on world of competitive academics.
Now suppose I create a “free cancellation” policy where clients could cancel or reschedule without incurring any financial cost. The number of cancellations would increase by a lot. My students face heavy time pressure; I would have 20-30 rescheduling per week. Even now, with my strict cancellation policy, I have several cancellations or reschedulings per week, which clients have to pay for as described in the above cancellation policy. In addition, I have several more requests per week to waive cancellation fees. I always refuse, and almost always the client decides to keep the session.
So let’s say I changed the policy, and now there are 20-30 reschedulings per week. Most of those will be from a small number of people, who either because of an unusually unpredictable schedule or some other cause frequently need to reschedule. The result will be that those 20-30 hours will be essentially gone from my schedule. The number of available tutoring hours per week will be reduced by 20-30 per week. At that point, demand will be much greater than supply, and I’ll have no choice but to raise my prices.
Now things get worse. A small price increase wouldn’t do much. Most of my clients are prince insensitive. They’re wealthy and also value education. That means that small changes in price may provoke complaints, but won’t change the number of tutoring sessions per week that they do. In fact, many of my clients are basically price indifferent. That means that it simply would not make any difference what the price was. Their substantial personal wealth and their choice to prioritize education above all means that they would pay basically anything.
That means that if my available hours were reduced by 20-30 per week, I’d need much more than a small price increase. I’d need more than a large price increase. I’d need a humongous price increase, likely tripling or quadrupling my hourly rate to maintain reasonable availability for tutoring.
There are many tutors who charge much more than I do per hour, but make much less per year than I do. Their loose cancellation policies turn their businesses into messes, with artificial shortages driving up price for no reason. My cancellation policy isn’t there to gouge you; it’s there to keep the prices down. By creating strong financial disincentives for canceling or rescheduling, I prevent my number of available hours from being artificially depleted, which would make the price skyrocket.
Simply put: paying for a session you don’t use is a lot cheaper than paying quadruple for every tutoring session because artificial shortages are causing price spikes. My cancellation policy saves you hundreds of dollars per session.