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Up-selling private tutoring within an online course

Increasing revenue with the private tutoring up-sell

    Grow Your Revenue

    Creating additional value

    Our commercial training client wanted to generate more revenue from their training platform. We explained that to generate more revenue, it’s often easier to provide additional value and services to existing customers, compared to bringing in more customers (which is often subject to marketing costs).

    One such way to offer greater value and generate more revenue from existing customers is to up-sell private tutoring. But how did that work in practice, and how did we implement the complex technology without significant cost?

    Setting the foundations: self-management and offer placement

    We created a booking page that allowed learners to book private tutoring for up to two weeks in advance. Our client made tutors available for up to three hours per day, and our management tools allowed tutors to manage their own time. They could set specific days and times they were available or even set repeating schedules.

    Crucially, we placed a button to book private tutoring in a prominent position on every course in which it was available and charged users £45 per session.

    Fully integrated chat, phone or video

    We integrated chat, phone and video-calling technology into the learning management system, allowing learners and tutors to communicate from any device and through any preferred format.

    Since it was fully integrated, we could brand and customise it and add unique functionality according to our client’s exact requirements.


    Video-calling technology is both tricky to pull-off and expensive to run. To deliver this at a feasible cost, we licensed an existing solution from a leading communications company and integrated it into the LMS. This means that hosting and maintenance are handled by the third party, reducing time and cost investments from our client, and reducing the initial set-up costs significantly.

    Moving tutoring to recurring subscriptions

    The move was such a success that we then bundled private tutoring within the upper monthly subscription tiers, allowing us to significantly increase the subscription fee. This created additional recurring revenue, rather than the one-off up-sells it was originally planned to be.

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