Success Story

Chidolingo

Online School for Spanish

A look at how this online tutoring business uses Simply Schedule Appointments® to streamline their lesson and teacher booking.

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We've noticed that switching to Simply Schedule Appointments has improved the user experience, which convinces the student to buy more lessons in the long term. I think it has a professional appearance and it's helping us keep our customers happy.

Uriel Benitez, CEO and founder of Chidolingo

What Chidolingo Had to Say

We interviewed Uriel Benitez, the Founder, and CEO of Chidolingo, to gain some insight into how Simply Schedule Appointments is helping his online business.

Tell us a bit more about your business and how it got started.

Chidolingo teaches Spanish through online lessons and video calls. Our team has put in a lot of work to custom-make all the material for our platform. Every lesson has its own private page, including PDF material, videos, and examples, along with students getting to work 1-1 with our teachers to practice speaking Spanish.

Before I started the business, I used to teach on another platform. I had two students who had been using Duolingo for up to 300 days but still weren’t comfortable speaking in Spanish. So I chose to start a new platform where students could begin their Spanish learning journey by prioritizing speaking and interaction. My two original students invested in the company, and now here we are.

How does your team work? Are your clients all local?

We tend to work with people in the United States but also have students worldwide. All of our lessons are online. We provide private online lessons, and we sell them in packages.

One of our most popular packages is a service where you buy 36 lessons, and if you take them in less than three months, you get a refund of 30%. The student also interacts with three different teachers to practice different accents.

Right now, we have eight teachers, including myself. All of us work on lessons every day with our students. We all work remotely, although most are in Mexico City.

What made you decide to use a booking system?

The booking functionality is one of the main aspects of running this business. When we first started, we had someone build a highly custom booking system and website. We began to develop the website two years ago, and it took us around a year to complete it.

We did not like the booking system we were using before because if there was ever a problem with it, we needed to hire a specific person to fix that problem. This would turn out to be like $300 every time we needed a developer to fix something.

One of the challenges we had before was the time zone. Our students would book their lesson in their timezone, and our website would say a completely different time. We would run into situations where our students would be waiting for us on Zoom, and we would end up looking unprofessional.

We also tried Calendly for a short while, but it was expensive because they charged me per person. I knew that in the future if I wanted to have 15 teachers, I would have to pay $12 per teacher per month ($180/mo). And their customer service was horrible because they never answered my emails.

How does your business use Simply Schedule Appointments' booking system?

After a student signs up for a lesson package, they receive a new account on our Chidolingo website. They log in to see the dashboard where they can book lessons with our team.

We set it up so the user selects the teacher they want for their lesson. After booking their lesson, they’re redirected to another area in their dashboard to see the list of their upcoming appointments.

The SSA time zone handling helps a lot too. I like that it’s a completely automatic process that I don’t have to worry about. We can have students from Germany, seven hours ahead, easily sync up with our teachers in Mexico.

And we also have it set up where the new bookings go directly to the teacher’s Google calendar. That’s something that my teachers love. They don’t have to do anything special; they just have to check their Google Calendar each day.

Since our Simply Schedule Appointments booking system went live, we’ve booked around 800 — 1000 appointments so far!

How has your experience been with Simply Schedule Appointments so far?

It’s wonderful. It works perfectly for our website and our team.

We’ve noticed that switching to Simply Schedule Appointments has improved the user experience, which convinces the student to buy more lessons in the long term. I think it has a professional appearance and it’s helping us keep our customers happy.

Business Overview

Organization: Chidolingo

Location: Mexico City, Mexico

Edition: SSA Business Edition

Highlights:

Booking a free first lesson is the first step in the sign-up process.
This remote team allows their students to book with specific teachers for their lessons.
They enjoy using Google Calendar to stay organized for their daily lessons with students.

That's something that my teachers love. They don't have to do anything special; they just have to check their Google Calendar each day.

Uriel Benitez

SSA Highlights

Key Features: Team Booking

How Team Booking Helps: Allows the team of teachers to manage their availability for their Spanish lessons while they work from home.

Success Story Summary

A quick wrap-up of our interview with Chidolingo, including the Challenge they faced, how Simply Schedule Appointments was able to help them, and the happily ever after.

Challenge

Every issue in their previously built custom booking system had to be resolved through a $300 project through a developer. And, Calendly charged too much for their current team’s size of eight ($96/mo).

Solution

Simply Schedule Appointments allows this business to grow its team by enabling them to manage unlimited team schedules. And have the peace of mind that their yearly license fee covers any issues with the plugin.

Result

As a result, they’ve booked around 1000 appointments since launching Simply Schedule Appointments as the exclusive booking plugin on their site and currently host eight teachers.