Customer Service Automation for Tuition and Enrichment Centres
Tuition enquiries do not arrive evenly. They arrive at 10pm on a weekday, in the week after results come out, and in the fortnight before a new term. A centre with one person handling enquiries loses some of them simply because the reply lands the next afternoon, after the parent has signed up somewhere else.
This page is for tuition and enrichment centres anywhere. It starts with the six workflows worth automating first, each linked to its own page with a description you can paste into AeroChat. Then it covers the messages that arrive, the channels parents use, the public data, two recipes you can copy in today, and the plan a centre of your size typically fits.
Workflows you can automate
Each one links to a page with the flow, the description to paste, what to connect and what you still decide. The reasons for this order are on the ranked tuition centre workflows page.
- Book a trial class from a parent’s WhatsApp message. Matches level and subject to your timetable, takes the trial fee and confirms.
- Answer class times, seats left and fees from your timetable. Shows registration and materials separately.
- Enrol a student and take the first payment in the chat. Records the enrolment in your Google Sheet for your team.
- Arrange a make-up class within your policy. Offers classes at the same level with seats left.
- Hand progress and teacher questions to a person. Collects the child’s name and class first.
- Sign up for holiday programmes with a payment link. Fills places from your programme Sheet and records each sign-up.
What automation does for a tuition centre
- Evening enquiries answered in the evening. A parent asking at 10pm about grade 5 maths on Saturday gets the class, the time, the seats left and the fee before they close the app.
- More trials booked. A trial lesson booked and paid for in the chat turns “we will think about it” into a date.
- Peak weeks stay organised. After results and before term, every enquiry, waitlist request and returning-student reply is recorded in one place.
The messages a centre gets
Almost every first message asks the same thing: is there a place for my child, at their level, on a day that works, and what does it cost.
| Message | What the workflow does |
|---|---|
| “do you have grade 5 maths saturday morning” | Maps the level and subject to your class list, gives times and seats left |
| “my son is in year 9 maths, any advanced class left” | Same, and treats standard and advanced maths as different classes |
| “how much for 2 subjects per month” | Quotes from your fee table, with registration and materials shown separately |
| “can try one lesson first?” | Books a trial, with a deposit if you take one |
| “class full? can waitlist?” | Records the child, level, subject and preferred days, and notifies your team |
| “my daughter is struggling, should she change class” | Hands to a person. Progress conversations stay with teachers |
Three things parents will not accept. A bot discussing their child’s progress. Being unable to reach a person before they commit. A fee quote that turns out to be wrong. So any message about how a child is doing goes to a person, the route to a person stays open, and fees come only from your real fee table. Sibling rates and discounts are rules you set, and the system applies them. See live chat handover.
Channels parents use
WhatsApp, by a wide margin. Parents message from their phones, often late. Facebook still produces enquiries for centres running ads, and those ads work better pointed at a conversation than at a form, because a parent who taps “message” is one sentence away from giving the level, subject and day. See click-to-WhatsApp ads. Messenger, Instagram and web chat can land in the same AeroChat inbox, so nothing sits in a staff member’s personal phone.
What the data says
Families in many countries spend heavily on private tuition, and they compare centres before they commit. The figures below show how fast the first reply needs to be.
| Figure | What it measured |
|---|---|
| Nearly 7 times | as likely to qualify a lead when a firm tried to contact it within an hour, compared with an hour later (1.25 million leads at 42 US companies) |
| 42 hours | average response time to a web enquiry, across 2,241 US companies audited |
Source: Oldroyd, McElheran and Elkington, The Short Life of Online Sales Leads, Harvard Business Review, March 2011. One author led a sales software company.
| Figure | What it measured |
|---|---|
| 73.3% | of consumers prefer messaging when contacting a business |
| 67.7% | agree a response from an AI chatbot is helpful |
Source: Meta, State of Business Messaging. Kantar survey of 11,056 adults in 22 markets, commissioned by Meta, which owns WhatsApp, 2025.
The HBR study is old and American, but its point holds for a parent choosing between three centres on the same evening. The centre that answers first with a real class and fee usually gets the trial.
Recipe: class enquiry to trial lesson
Paste this into AeroChat (Skills, then Build from a description) and change the example values to yours.
Copy this into AeroChat
When a parent asks about classes, follow these steps.
- Find out the child’s level and subject and the days that suit them. Treat “grade 5”, “year 5” and “Y5” as the same level, and treat standard and advanced maths as different subjects.
- Check our timetable Sheet for classes that match, with the day, time and seats left.
- Quote the fee from our fee table exactly as we charge it: US$240 a month for one subject, with a US$45 registration fee and US$30 a term for materials (example fees, change them to ours).
- If they want a trial lesson, offer the next two trial dates for that class from the timetable Sheet. Take the child’s name, school and the parent’s name, confirm the US$30 trial fee (example amount), and send a payment link.
- When it is paid, add the trial to our trials Sheet and send a confirmation with the date, time and our address.
If the class is full, add the child’s details and preferred days to our waitlist Sheet, tell the parent they are on the waitlist, and notify our team. If the parent asks about their child’s progress, a teacher, or moving class, hand the conversation to a person. Reply in the parent’s language.
What to connect:
- Your timetable in a Google Sheet. One row per class with level, subject, day, time and seats left, plus a trials Sheet and a waitlist Sheet. Keep the seats column current.
- Your Google account. Connect it when AeroChat asks, and approve the access. AeroChat sets up the connection to your timetable, trials and waitlist Sheets from the recipe.
- Tutoring software, if you use it. Teachworks connects through its API: turn on API access in its settings, create an API token, and paste it in when AeroChat asks. The recipe then reads classes and records trials there instead of in Sheets.
- Your fee table. Uploaded to the AeroChat knowledge base.
- Payments. Airwallex is built in: connect your Airwallex account and AeroChat sends the payment link and confirms the payment. Money settles into your Airwallex balance, and AeroChat never sees card numbers. If you already take payments with HitPay or Stripe, both connect through their APIs with your API key. Payment links are included from the Growth plan.
- Your channels. WhatsApp and Facebook. Built in.
Recipe: term-start confirmation for returning students
Copy this into AeroChat
When a parent replies to our term-start message, check which class their child is in from our class list Sheet. If they confirm, reply with the class, day, time and the term fee from our fee table, and send a payment link for the term fee if they ask to pay now. If they want to change the day or class, offer the classes at the same level with seats left, and pass the request to our team to confirm. If they say the child is stopping, ask for the reason in one question, thank them, and notify our team.
What to connect: the same Google connection reaches your class list Sheet, and the fee table stays in the knowledge base. You send the term-start message itself as a WhatsApp broadcast, included from the Growth plan.
After you paste a recipe, AeroChat builds it as a draft with a checklist: connect your accounts, upload your lists, then switch it on. Any keys are entered in the dashboard and never pass through the conversation.
Using a different system? If it has a public API, it connects to AeroChat the same way: describe what you want, paste in its key, and it runs.
Can’t find your tool? Message us in the chat on this page and we’ll tell you how it connects.
What a centre of your size typically invests
AeroChat plans are priced on AI responses, the individual replies the AI sends. An enquiry that ends in a trial booking usually takes several responses. A worked example: a centre with about 10 enquiries a day in an ordinary week, at around five replies each, uses roughly 1,500 responses a month, and more after results come out.
- A small centre with one or two staff answering enquiries usually fits Starter: 500 AI responses a month and 3 team seats.
- A centre taking trial fees in the chat or sending term-start broadcasts needs Growth, because payment links and WhatsApp broadcasts start there. It includes 2,000 AI responses a month and 10 seats.
- A group with several branches usually fits Advanced: 5,000 AI responses a month and 25 seats.
In results week you can top up with extra AI credit instead of changing plans. What the investment does is answer the 10pm enquiry with a real class and fee, which is the one most likely to be lost today.
Answer tonight’s enquiries tonight
Upload your timetable and fee table, paste the trial recipe, and message your centre’s number as a parent would. If the answer is right, it is ready for the next results week.
Related reading: live chat handover, Click-to-WhatsApp ads, payment link, first response time, WhatsApp chatbots for educational institutions. All tuition centre workflows. All industries.