Teacher Services - Terms & Conditions Update

goulnik
 April 23, 2009, 11:27 AM posted in General Discussion

I received the following email from ChinesePod yesterday :

Dear ChinesePod User,

As part of our continuous efforts to maintain and improve the quality of the ChinesePod Teacher Services, we've updated our Terms & Conditions. The full text can be read here, the main points are as below:

  • Guided & Executive subscribers may reschedule their phone-based lessons at no extra cost, providing they give at least 24 hours' notice to their teachers.
  • Classes shall be rescheduled at a time convenient to the student and within ChinesePod normal working hours. Rescheduled classes will be taken with either the student's personal teacher or, if necessary, a replacement ChinesePod teacher.
  • A limited number of postponed classes may be carried over, to be taken at the end of a subscription. A limit of between 2 and 6 weeks' worth of classes may be carried over, depending on the length of the subscription.

    • Your thoughts and feedback on these updates are most welcome, and we would be glad to answer any of your questions.

    I haven't seen this discussed, though I guess this is of general interest. I guess I'm a prime target, scrambling to complete my 1-year executive plan with much delay, I've done so many business trips recently that it's become hard to keep up. I think I've been well treated, however, the new terms and conditions should  :

    • on longer-term plans (6-24 months) allow additional rescheduling to cover subscriber's holidays etc. 1-2 solid weeks for 6 months, 4 weeks for 12 months etc.
    • explicitly cover unavailability of teachers because of their own holidays, illness or any other reason unrelated to the subscriber.
    • and to be really comprehensive, the total number of sessions should be indicated (is a month 4 weeks x 5 times or 22 times?
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    fordbronco
     April 24, 2009, 01:23 AM

    I don't think CPod's Terms and Conditions are quite long enough. Try this.

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    matt_c
     April 24, 2009, 07:57 AM

    @goulnik You bring up a valid point, I will look into the points you brought up this coming week and make some additions. Thanks for your attentiveness. :-)

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    matt_c
     April 29, 2009, 09:32 AM

    @goulnik I've just uploaded the following adjustment to the Teaching Services Terms and Conditions. There will be future additions to the document:

    Counselor's annual leave

    Lesson schedules are occasionally affected when our teachers take annual leave and sick leave, or ChinesePod is closed for Chinese national public holidays. In such cases, the following applies:

    Subscribers will be informed by their teacher as far in advance as possible, and postponed lessons will be added on to the end of the subscribers' subscriptions. Alternatively, depending on teacher availability, subscribers may choose to take the scheduled classes with a replacement ChinesePod teacher, either at the scheduled time or at another point during the same day.

    In order to ensure consistency and to maintain ChinesePod's service standards, teacher-initiated class postponements should not exceed four week's worth of lessons per year. If for any reason a counselor is unable to continue teaching, a replacement ChinesePod teacher will be arranged.