Progress Academy is a music school based in the centre of Birmingham. They offer one to one tuition on a range of instruments in world class teaching studios.
One of the biggest problems music schools face is students forgetting to turn up to their lessons. Since students are likely to have their mobile phone with them at all times, a text message is the perfect way to ensure as few people are possible miss their appointments. In addition, if there’s an emergency and the teacher cannot turn up to the lesson for some reason, students can be notified quickly via text.
Music schools can also improve the service they provide by allowing students to feedback on their lessons. SMS surveys are quick and easy to perform; you could ask your students how well the lesson went, if they liked their tutor and if they would recommend your courses to a friend or not. What’s more, SMS surveys have higher completion rates than both postal and email surveys.
Every lesson is individually booked and their tutors work freelance, so regularity and customers obeying the 24 hour cancellation policy is key.
Progress Academy use SMS to send appointment reminders to their students because of how direct text messages are. Not everyone checks email regularly, and making individual phone calls is very time consuming, whereas texts are quick and typically read within five minutes of being received.
Textlocal’s API integration allows Progress Academy to link SMS to their booking system. This means that the system automatically personalises every message, including the recipient’s name and the time of their appointment.
There has been a dramatic reduction in late cancellations and ‘no-shows’, which in turn improves company turnover. Students have said that sometimes they would have completely forgotten about their appointment if they had not had the reminder.
Their customers also find that the SMS service adds real value to their experience with Progress Academy, as other schools don’t offer this service.
