It’s no secret that rolling out a Tuition Management solution at your organization will be a major boon to your business.
With many companies out there vying for your business, it’s more important than ever to be wary of the pitfalls they present.
Oftentimes, these companies have their fingers in too many pies, leaving their Tuition Management aspect as a tacked-on afterthought. You are best served employing a dedicated Tuition Management platform like TUIO instead. Software should be design-specific for your Tuition Management needs, built from the ground up. With this specialized platform you will be hard-pressed to find better features for your billing and payment needs.
So let’s take a look at some of the common complaints and assess how TUIO helps you avoid problems with your system.
Customer Service
Nothing is more frustrating than hiring a software company, onboarding with them and then getting left in the dust when you need help to navigate the software or get a question answered. You should never have to wait on hold for 30 minutes or more with support to get the help you need, yet this is a common issue we hear about in our outreach efforts.
Perhaps these companies cut costs during the pandemic by terminating customer service reps or maybe they lack the infrastructure to deal with a large volume of support requests. Whatever the reason, subpar customer service is unacceptable and you deserve better.
With TUIO, there are several avenues you and your families can reach out to for support – that’s right, your parents get complimentary support from us as well, they’re our users too after all! Customer service is our bread and butter and we pride ourselves in having best-in-class support.
We offer live chat, email support, web resources (article and video) and have a support phone line option from our toll-free 888-540-0160 number. Live chat is the best option in our opinion, as you can get the response you need on-demand with a live agent. Connect with us immediately right when you need to. Our live chat is available directly within our app.tuiopay.com SaaS web application with the help beacon. Email support is also a great option: we have staff waiting for email tickets at all times so we always get back to you within 24 hours if not much much sooner. In fact, our average email response time is <10 minutes. The phone line option is there to get in touch with us, but with live chat for instant help, and quick email response times, you never have to be stuck on hold ever again.
Alienated Parents
Parents getting onboard with using the software is integral to successfully launching a Tuition Management system.
When the software system is old and outdated, grey and unsightly, rigid and unintuitive, how can you expect parents to adopt it? If parents are forced to use it to pay, forced to setup distinct payment methods, even forced to pay for the school to use it in the first place, you are paving the way for them to complain and take issue with the school.
With TUIO, the software app is accessible from any device using a web browser. We are young, have strong growth and release new developments at least once every quarter. For parents we are user friendly, attractive to use, and truly flexible to an educational organization’s needs. Adaptability is essential; now more than ever with the challenges of a pandemic.
Importantly, parents are never forced to use TUIO, so if you offer offline payment options you can use TUIO to track those as well. Parents are also never forced to install a fixed number of payment methods. Instead, they can choose to set up a credit/debit card or a bank account for online payment, and they’re free to switch payment options between invoices.
We never bill parents directly to use the software. You can have them cover the reasonable cost of TUIO through Tuition or fees, of course, but as a company we do not charge your families specifically. We never have and never will.
Misleading, Complex Fees
Fees will always be a part of the Tuition Management software experience, as at the very least processing credit cards results in fees from those card companies. Naturally the school is entitled to pass on those fees and be compensated for them rather than bearing the burden of those costs.
Besides credit card or bank account processing fees that parents or schools might have to pay, we’re hard-pressed to find a good reason why you or your families should be automatically charged for any other fees. This often comes without fair warning or representation on an invoice, which is unacceptable.
These complaints about fees companies charge are warranted, as customers should have full transparency over what fees they are expected to cover. In many cases special circumstances arise where the fees being charged are not necessary in the first place. Having fees for every kind of payment discrepancy or outcome is predatory and bad business: there is more to the payment experience than meets the eye. Oftentimes these fees will just compound the issue a parent might be having and with the automation of payments in place these fees are redundant and cruel.
With TUIO, we do not have any hidden or unnecessary fees. Our fees are clear so that everyone understands exactly what they’re paying. In fact, parents have to be invoiced for anything extra than what was agreed to and confirmed in the program, and are requested to first give approval and consent for the charge to be taken out (this process is simple). So if you want to bill your families for late payment, for example, you can easily do it on TUIO just by adding an invoice. We feel like late payment is more a relic of the past with our easy-to-use automated billing solution, so we have no need to use fees as scare tactics. As the proverb says “you catch more bees with honey than vinegar”.
Conclusion
It’s comforting to lock-on and remain loyal to companies when you invest some time and resources into using them, but is that wise when there are superior alternatives available? You deserve a platform that helps to avoid the pitfalls or common complaints that arise when deploying a Tuition Management software. Digital payments are the future for schools, and you need the best solution to usher you into the new age. That’s why we are here to help: TUIO.
