The Spring 2021 busy season is mostly complete. To better report on how that went, we heard from 26 Kenyan and 37 Indian freelancers. They gave us feedback on their experience in StudyGate. We compiled their responses to create this article.
We are going to cover disputes, how to get your first job, and address common questions many people brought up. And there’s a surprise at the end, some updates we think you will like!
Keep reading!
We All Hate Disputes, But Here Are the Numbers On Them…
From January 1, 2021 to May 13, 2021, students have filed 97 disputes. In contrast, StudyGate has completed 4101 questions.
So disputes are occurring on this system 2.3% of the time so far in 2021.
Before we get any further, let’s highlight the StudyGate refund policy . This is our standard for making sure satisfied students come back over and over.
You might think to yourself: why is this important?
The answer is because all disputes get judged by this standard. Please don’t continue until the refund policy has been read. If a student files a dispute, the first step is to contact them and try to find out the real problem.
In most cases students filed disputes because they are dissatisfied with your solution. So the first step is to message the student in the inbox to find out what really happened that made him/her to file a dispute. You can seek out from the student their suggestion on how to solve the dispute.
In Western education systems, 80% is the minimum score to reflect above average results. If you did not attain that accuracy, students are entitled to a full refund. We explicitly outlined what to do when a question is in dispute.
This is the truth about disputes:
Most disputes get resolved in favor of the student. This is because they are our customers. So please pause and read the article above. The video below also shares our personal perspective on the matter [click to view]:
If the student does not respond to your messages, go ahead and offer a settlement to avoid complaints on your account. Outline the steps you took to resolve and recommend a resolution.
You need to resolve the dispute within 72 hours. It is better to offer a settlement than a justification unless you can prove the student changed the instructions after the bid was confirmed.
The most important thing is to fully own mistakes and apologize to the student, look at the dispute as a learning opportunity, and refer to the StudyGate rules and regulations while settling the dispute.
OK. But I Haven’t Even Won A Bid Yet! 🆘
So how to win your first bid? We measured participant feedback to see how tutors engage in StudyGate. This is what we found:
As you can see in the pie charts above, our Indian freelancers tend to text first more often. Premium and Ivy tutors who reported answering at least 30 questions tend to text first too:
Wow!
Top tutors know that getting work starts with conversation. In general, a direct bid should only happen first if the question is clear and obvious how to answer. Let’s dive into how top tutors actually chat with students.
Check this out:
“Acquiring clients means you follow best practices for placing bids and engaging with students.”
-Sang Cheruiyot, former Ivy tutor on StudyGate
Sang’s experience in StudyGate as a recruiter, tutor coach, and expert freelancer shows a clear path for getting work as outlined below.
Here are best practices for placing bids:
- Text the student and acknowledge that you have read the instructions of the assignment. For example: if a student has posted a question on financial ratios.
- “Hi, I am a finance expert.”
- “I have checked your assignment on financial ratios and I can handle it very well.”
- “I can handle the assignment for 100 USD, please let me know if you are okay with the price so that we get started.”
- If the student responds to your message then you can chat with them. If they do not respond to your message, go ahead and place your bid. Make sure your message is informative and can persuade the student to trust you.
- “Hi, am a finance expert with vast skills in working on financial assignments including: financial ratios, investment analysis, stock analysis, and many others. I have checked your paper on financial ratios and I can work on it very well. I have done several similar assignments on financial ratios, and thus, I can guarantee you quality work which will earn you excellent grades.
- “Please accept my bid. Thank you very much”
This is the truth about the bid system:
If you decide to place your bid before messaging the student, make sure you send a follow up message. This ensures they receive your bid.
This is very important since if the student has ignored your bid, they might give you a second chance and check on your bid.
For more information on how to message students, check out our chat scripts.
How Do I Price The Question?
To make sure your budget is within the student’s range, check on the complexity of the assignment and its urgency. As explained in the fair bid article , you estimate your price by the following formula:
desired hourly rate * number of hours it will take you to complete the assignment
This helps you avoid the rookie mistake of assigning the work of pricing to the student. For more on that, click the image below for a quick video on the sales process.
Focus on how you intend to work on the assignment instead of its price. After years of studying how top tutors interact with their customers, we have found that most of the tutors focusing on price negotiation miss out on the important aspects of assignments and get disputes anyway. Good work will always be rewarded. Don’t promise a good grade without confirming the content beforehand. Remember, the StudyGate rule is already 80% and above.
“Make sure you can deliver on the assignment, or else you will not get paid!”
-Sang Cheruiyot, former Ivy tutor on StudyGate
We also wrote an article that we update every year with more metrics and information on what to do if you have 0 reviews and are still looking for work.
So in this section, we’ve covered how:
Pricing: 🥈🤑😳
Work Quality: 🥇😍⭐️
FAQ
Let’s dive into some of the common questions freelancers are asked in our survey. Answers below are organized according the frequency they were asked.
30% seems like a lot to charge for transactions, why so high?
Our ultimate goal is to charge a minimal fee per transaction, but we’re far from the amount of volume needed to achieve that at this time.
As volume continues to increase on the system, we will actively pursue lowering costs. We use 30% to reflect the time investment required to maintain a small staff of admins and developers. This cost reflects the cost of acquiring clients for you as well. While anyone can set up a website and acquire a domain, the years spent optimizing the site and generating paid traffic reflect decades of collective training.
As you build out your account, you will earn badges that lower transaction costs as well.
Next question please.
14 days takes forever to complete, why so long for question approval?
I’m not going to lie to you.
We acknowledge similar platforms allow 3 days for delivered work to complete. And we used to offer 7 days for approval. But the standard was changed in late 2018 to protect our customers.
StudyGate offers a direct approach to homework help that requires verification for quality. We account for the fact that our students are not always sure of answer accuracy. Many of our tutors help students in international locations that they have never been to. 14 days gives our clients enough time to verify the results. As quality goes up and disputes go down to under 1% (remember, they are 2.3% right now), we will reconsider this policy.
To expedite answer approval, consistent communication after the bid is confirmed often unlocks faster approval after the question is answered. StudyGate freelancers report that they share assignment progress as shown below:
For top tutors in StudyGate, this standard is even more true.
What’s the bottom line?
You are the service provider for your account and offer customer service as well. If you want a question approved quickly, keep your student informed while you are working so they could feel at ease once the answer is provided. This is especially important for projects.
Happy customers will make your wallet grow!
In what ways does StudyGate support me?
We’ve built StudyGate to value customers and tutors who deliver what they promise. To support your growth, we offer you 3 main resources:
- Tutor help center
- This contains two parts
- FAQ section. This answers basic questions that typically require one sentence answers. Here are some of the most important FAQs:
- Knowledge base. These are more extensive articles. Here are some of the most important articles we haven’t already shared earlier:
- For a full list of FAQs and knowledge base articles, check the footer of your account dashboard.
- This contains two parts
- StudyGate is on YouTube
- Learn the bid process with more nuance to closing the deal
- Discover more about negotiating through disputes
- Build the ultimate bio students can’t take their eyes off of
- Tutor coaching
- Talk to someone who has already tutored on StudyGate
- Get customized feedback on how to build out your account
- Message [email protected] to set up a call
Concluding thoughts and a Thank You!
You’ve made it to the end! Thank you to all who provided feedback for creating this article and for your support during the Spring 2021 busy season.
Based on input from our top tutors, we’re adding the following options to improve StudyGate:
- We will expand monthly withdrawal limits from 2 to 3 for all freelancers.
- We will expand the file size sharing limit from 5MB to 50MB.
That is all. If this article was helpful to you, please share it with others! Thank you!