What happens if I don't respond to a lesson request?

Students can request any lesson time 12 hours in advance for regular lesson and lesson package requests.

A teacher must accept or decline the request within 48 hours or the lesson start time, whichever comes sooner. Otherwise, the request will expire. 

If the student cancels the lesson request before the teacher has a chance to accept, this will NOT count as an expired lesson request.

If the student is new, it is always good to follow up with a personalized message so that they feel confident about their upcoming lesson.

Please see: I got a new lesson request! What do I do now?

If a lesson request expires

Expired lesson requests can be found among the canceled lessons on your lessons page.
https://teach.italki.com/lessons/sessions?session_tag=canceled

Expired lesson requests are a missed teaching opportunity from a potential student. Responding to students promptly is a great way to create positive connections with a student even before the first lesson.

On italki, students expect teachers to reply promptly to their requests or messages, and it is confusing to them if a lesson request expires with no response from the teacher.

italki Policy

Expired lesson report: Within one day (according to UTC time), the teacher allowed at least one lesson request to expire. A teacher starts off with 0 expired lesson reports.

Examples:

• In 1 day (UTC time), a teacher allowed 1 new lesson requests to expired (1 report )
• In 1 day (UTC time), a teacher allowed five new lesson requests to expired (1 report)
• In 1 day (UTC time), a teacher allowed 1 new lesson request to expire, and then the next day (UTC time), the teacher allowed 5 new lesson requests to expire (2 reports)

For each report, italki will send a message to the teacher.  

Expired lesson notices

1st report: Reminder

• italki sends a reminder email and message notice to the teacher. 

2nd report: First Warning

• italki sends a first warning email and message notice to the teacher. 
• The teacher's profile will be hidden from "Find a Teacher List". Teacher profile availability status is set to "allow lesson requests from current students" (current students and upcoming lessons are not affected).
• The teacher can indicate that they are ready to manage lesson requests again by clicking the link in the email. This will change their status back to "allow lesson requests from all students"

3rd report: Second Warning

• italki sends a second warning email and message notice to the teacher. 
• The teacher's profile will be hidden from "Find a Teacher List". Teacher profile availability status is set to "allow lesson requests from current students" and will remain this way for 7 days (current students and upcoming lessons are not affected).
• the teacher can reset their own status to "Allow lesson requests from All Students" again under Availability Settings after 7 days if they wish and are able to continue attending lessons.

4th report: Final Warning

• italki sends a final warning email and message notice to the teacher.
• The teacher's profile will be hidden from "Find a Teacher List"
• New students will be unable to request lessons from the teacher profile
  • Teacher needs to contact italki support with an acceptable reason for the expired lesson requests in order to restore their profile. Make sure that you have also sent the student a message to explain the reason why this request has expired. 

In force majeure situations (ie. car accidents, earthquakes), the teacher may write to support@italki.com to appeal the report. 

How do I find out my miss lesson request status?

You will receive email and message notifying you that you have miss lesson request(s). You will also find your miss lesson status in Teacher Settings>>Lessons and Availability>>Availability Settings.

You will be able to change your status to “Allow Lessons from All students” after the penalty period is over or by clicking a reactivation link in a missed lesson notification email, depending on the times of reports.