The average music studio has under 56 office hours per week. The delay of getting back to inquiries during closed hours loses registrations. By fully registering students 168 hours per week, the amount of intake potential for a studio triples. Families register on weekends, holidays and evenings. A large number of registrations occur between 9:30PM-11:30PM when 2 parents are together and not distracted so they can make family schedule decisions because the kids are in bed. You strike when the metal is hot. Because of this increased ability to get new registrations 24 hours a day, studios quickly add the 3 additional students needed to cover and justify the cost of StudioAutoPilot.
With StudioAutoPilot automatic actual lesson billing, parents are billed each month for the correct number of scheduled lessons. This simple “what you see is what you get” system is easily accepted by current and new families. This billing system benefits studios by allowing them to bill for 5 lessons in July and 5 lessons in August, increasing revenue by 20%, when summer registrations are lower. It also assures a studio that a family will never get more scheduled lessons than they are billed for and then quit before any flat rate billing averages out. The net yearly result is more revenue collected and no unbilled lessons due to flat rate averaging.
In studios, uncaught entry errors, lesson changes, increases of lesson length or complicated adding of multiple siblings and lessons cause hundreds or up to thousands of dollars of underbilled or unbilled fees. StudioAutoPilot eliminates this by accurately linking all registrations to payment methods automatically. There are not multiple steps for admins to forget or miss. The system is strategically designed so you can’t “pass go” until you pay your $200.
Because of automation, studios have been able to reduce or eliminate the amount of staffing hours needed to answer inquiries, calculate pay and respond to parent customer service requests. 25% of beta studios in 2021 confirmed that they were saving over $500 per month in reduced staffing hours after running more efficiently on StudioAutoPilot. Parents like the ability to DIY self-manage lesson details because there is no lag time or delay to get routine items done by an admin. This is especially important during holiday office closures or outside of business hours.
StudioAutoPilot easily and automatically allows you to offer time make-up credits to parents who you are unable to find a sub for. These time credits can be used by the parents to self-book a private make-up lesson in available last-minute gaps (you set the booking rules). This change eliminates the need to financially refund or credit parents for teacher missed lessons, which means more retained revenue and profit for a studio.
Since parents pick the ideal teacher online based on their picture and bio, there is an instant, better fit instead of guessing if your “matching” choice will work. Teachers quickly start using the messaging and practice assignment system which lets you fully view and monitor all communication. Messaging is done without any personal contact information being shared on either side. This “close enough” bond between the teacher and family increases retention by parents seeing constant notifications of practice assignments that their child’s teacher is posting and the easy ability for parents to securely interact with teachers about student progress. Practice notifications also make sure that the parents actually remember the teacher’s name too;).
The StudioAutoPilot auto update/retry system automatically retries declined fees on the 4th, 8th and 12th of the month. It politely but firmly makes parents update their declined or invalid cards and retry their own payments in real time to get an approval. Admins love this automated feature for payment “repeat offenders”. Parents are constantly going into their account to get practice assignments from teachers, so the pattern of account usage is already established. StudioAutoPilot also automatically notifies parents of their upcoming card expirations on the 20th of the month before the card expires and gives them a convenient quick link to update their card before it expires and declines.
This system eliminates awkward conversations and interactions while keeping fees up to date. According to collection agency statistics, the longer a debt goes unpaid, the greater the chance it will never be paid. StudioAutoPilot tactfully and automatically manages and protects your studio from losses in these unpleasant but necessary situations.