Hi there. In this post I go over customer types in the private sector of educational services. The private sector in educational services include private tutoring and after school learning programs, educational centres. There are also language schools but I do not cover that here as I am not knowledgeable with that.
I could make a separate post on different student types. For this section, I provide a brief overview on this.
You can categorize young students at a private education/learning centre as preschool, early age (grades 1 to 4), middle school, high school and such. There is also categorizing students by ability, motivation and personalities.
There are students who love learning and are self-motivated. You have the group of students who get distracted easily and need people to tell them to stay focused. There are students who do not like learning as it feels like work. They are sent by their parents and the kids resist by not doing work. This case is unfortunate as the kids are wasting their parent's money and not getting much in return.
One group that educators have to be really mindful of are those with learning disabilities and mental health issues. Extra care for these students is crucial.
Prices for educational services from places like Kumon, Mathnasium, Sylvan Learning Centre and such can be expensive. Those are on a tighter budget do want their best for their kids by investing in their education. They may also want to get good value for their money. Parents who see their kid(s) being distracted or who are not learning much may want to have important discussions with their child or may even cancel paying for learning services.
Families whose parents are highly affluent may not see spending a couple of hundred of dollars on learning services as a lot. They are comfortable with spending that much money for investing in their kids.
There are families out there who have many kids that send their kids to private learning centers. For convenience, the siblings attend the classes/sessions all at once. This is assuming that spots are available.
Sometimes the siblings distract each other when sitting next to each other so it may be a good idea to separate them. Sometimes siblings work okay sitting next to each other. There are cases where an elder sibling acts as a leader or role model for the younger siblings. The elder sibling may keep the younger ones focused. Be aware that siblings may fight each other during disagreements.
The private education sector is a part of the service sector. When it comes to service you can get bad experiences from staff and also from customers.
There are cases where customers can ask for a bit too much from a company or just be outright demanding. The mentality can be from something like "I am a paying customer so I should get what I want." Some customers may request help with specific topics which may not align with the education provider's normal procedures.
You never really know the type of customers you get in any service oriented field, not just education. At my Mathnasium work, some of the customers include:
Some of the customers do have a bit of money to spend on educational services for their kids. If some of the parents can afford private school tuition for the kids, they can easily spent a couple of hundred dollars per month for after school learning services.
There are customers who do not send all of their kids for learning services. They try out a certain program like Kumon with one child. If it is the right fit for them, then they would enroll with a second child.
Thank you for reading.
