A few changes to the system > Complete function & reduced min payout

Dear All,

Just wanted to thank all of you who have transferred your profiles to the new system and especially those who have given us feedback both through this blog and through private email.

Also, one general announcement before going into the topic of this post. Cafetalk has now been released to the general public as of today. Last week we only sent notices to a thousand or so students who had signed up for our newsletter. And so some students may not have heard about the new system yet. Sorry we didn't make that clear before, and we apologize if that caused any confusion with any of your students.

Okay. Now for the changes... Based on discussions in this previous post (New Cafetalk Sneak Peek) we're implementing a few changes to the system. Hopefully all for the good from your perspective.

1. 5000JPY minimum payout reduced to 1000JPY
   Many of you thought the high minimum payout was a little uncalled for so we reduced this to 1000JPY. This has already been implemented in the new system. As we said in the earlier post, we thought some form of minimum payout was necessary because we need to pay as much as 420 Yen per transfer to a Japanese bank. And on top of that we give about 5-8 percent to credit card processing companies when customers first purchase the points. So, as much as we'd love to do away with the minimum payout altogether, we're hoping this reduced value will be an acceptable compromise.
2. "Automatic Payment Request" coming soon!
   As you know, in the new system you have to make a "payment request" in order to be paid. There was a little resistance to this also (and for good reason). So we are going to build some sort of function that will enable automatic monthly billing. However, we're kind of super-swamped right now so we're going to have to ask you to wait about a month for this. In the meantime, please bear with us and use the "payment request" function to get paid.
3. "Lesson Completion" button now available to tutors as well
   Tutors can now complete the lessons just like in the old system. But please, please use this only if the lesson has really been completed. I know this goes without saying but some of you have misunderstood this button for something else.

Most of these changes were made thanks to feedback from Mr. Spears and Zoe (and a few others who probably wish to remain anonymous). To see a detailed exchange of our discussions and the rationale behind each change please refer to comments on this post.

One more thing. The changes are not yet reflected in the Tutor Terms but we will be doing that very soon. Although they're not in the terms you can take our word that these changes will be made if they haven't been already.

Thanks again to all of you. Again, please do leave us comments if you have any issues or requests. I can't promise that all of them will be accommodated but we will make changes to the system as long as they benefit both tutors and students.

Cafetalk Team
Cafetalk here