Policies and Payments

Crafting Clear Cancellation & No-Show Policies & Providing Replacement Lessons

Students need to know exactly what's going to happen if they can't make it to a lesson, and know that they'll still get the value they paid for. However you need to set your own guidelines to make sure this isn't abused.

Despite our best intentions, life happens. 

Sometimes things come up and we can't make it to the lesson. Sometimes those things even come up just moments before the lesson was supposed to take place.

As a business owner, it's up to YOU to have a backup plan for these types of situations, so that (a) YOU are protected and (b) you can still provide the value that the student paid for and have a chance to be the one who defines what form that value will take.

There are really a handful of scenarios which boil down to the following:

Now, suppose ANY of these happened, and you didn't have any policies regarding any of this.

What do you think the student will expect?

That's the default expectation. Yes, even in the case of the no-call/no-show*, the student will most likely expect you to simply give them another appointment. 

* As unreasonable as it seems on the surface, remember that this person has already demonstrated that they're okay with taking your time for granted, not showing up & not even bothering to tell you. 

And rude as this is, this is because the person sees you as just a "business," not a person. So it should be no surprise that they WILL almost always expect you to simply give them even more of your time.

That's why it's IMPERATIVE that you have policies in place for each one of these situations in case they happen, because eventually, they ALL will. And in most of these cases, it's unnecessary.

Your business runs on appointments, and like everyone's time, yours can't be replaced. So at the very least, require 24 hours advance notice for cancellations.

If they cancel with less notice than that, give them a video replacement lesson, relevant to their needs. If you don't have one, use their lesson time to record it — simply use that time slot to record exactly what you would've gone over with them. 

The video doesn't even need to be the length of the lesson time slot, either. 

Remember — lessons require the student to play, make mistakes, ask questions, get feedback, and improve. That's what most of the time is there for. You're not "selling hours" — the TIME is not what they're paying for.

If they aren't present, then you're not doing anyone a favor trying to add "filler" to the video just to prioritize making the video match the session length — the replacement video only needs to be however long it takes YOU to explain and demonstrate everything.

And if/when they ask you why the video isn't a half hour or full hour long like their lesson normally would have been (because they very well may), simply tell them exactly that — the half-hour or full-hour is there so THEY have time to do all of those things in the lesson. And since they weren't there in person, there is no need for that extra time. 

Plus, they can STILL ask their questions via email as their arise, record a video of themselves practicing and send it to you if they really want feedback, or just ask you really quick next time they see you. And a bonus is that they can also re-watch the video over and over — something they can't do with the in-person lesson, so they're actually getting an extra benefit from replacement lessons they wouldn't normally be getting (unless you're supplying recordings of the lessons, of course).

1. The student must give 24 hours notice before cancelling if they want an in-person lesson.

2. Lessons cancelled with less than 24 hours notice will be provided as video replacement lessons. One replacement lesson takes the place of one in-person lesson included in the student's membership/enrollment plan.

3. Students who do a no-call/no-show will be given a video replacement lesson.

Sometimes YOU may be the one who needs to cancel or miss lessons. The varieties of this scenario should be explicitly addressed in your policies as well. 

There are really 3 main scenarios where this will happen:

In each case, you can offer the choice of a make-up lesson (an actual new appointment time/day) or a replacement video lesson. But the replacement lesson format is almost always the format I'd advise, unless meeting in person actually IS less trouble for you.

In the case of make-up lessons, bear in mind that offering this comes with several things:

• It creates the perception that the student has not received a lesson until they meet with you in person

• It offsets the student's lessons by one or more weeks, which is likely to cause them to want to pause payments to re-align their payment/lesson schedule. And once payments get "paused," it's all to easy for them not to get UN-paused.

• It takes up more of your time slots later when you're available.

• It DELAYS your students' progress UNTIL you're available in person, instead of ensuring that they continue progressing at the same pace no matter what.

PRO TIP:  If you know in advance you're going to be travelling or otherwise away for an extended time, you can prepare video replacement lessons for every single lesson you'll miss, and SCHEDULE them to be sent directly to the student AT their lesson time. 

I did exactly this when I got married in 2010 and went away for 3 weeks, and again when I went to Scotland for 3 weeks in 2016. Here's why — 

   • I strategized their lessons well in advance, 

   • created all the videos, 

   • uploaded them (UNLISTED) to YouTube, 

   • gathered and organized all of the URLS, and then 

   • used a website to schedule prewritten, automated emails to be sent at the exact time and date of each student's lesson/class for the entire period while I was away. (This feature is much more common now, so there are multiple ways to set up scheduled email sending. Here is a Google article about it, for example.)

I also added an invitation to each email to EMAIL ME with any questions if they get stuck, so they could still get help if they needed it.

No one missed a single lesson, and no students dropped off. In fact, they were happy that I put so much thought into helping them keep moving forward even while I was gone and had done so much work for them. 

And not long after the first time I did this, I adopted "Nothing is going to stop me from helping you get better at the guitar, including my absence" as my official stance, and even used it as a selling point. There are few things that show a teacher's dedication on that level.

I've even had a handful of hospital visits over the years as well, and even then I used this same system to keep things running.

If/when they ask you why the video replacement lesson they've received isn't a half hour or full hour long like their lesson normally would have been (because they very well may), simply tell them exactly what I said above — the half-hour or full-hour is there so THEY have time to do all of those things in the lesson. And since they weren't there in person, there is no need for that extra time. 

Plus, they can STILL ask their questions via email as they arise, record a video of themselves practicing and send it to you if they really want feedback, or just ask you really quick next time they see you. And a bonus is that they can also re-watch the video over and over — something they can't do with the in-person lesson, so they're actually getting an extra benefit from replacement lessons they wouldn't normally be getting (unless you're supplying recordings of the lessons, of course).

If you have a question, simply hit the "Contact Us" button to reach out to our team.

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