1. The star-strike system is absolutely ridiculous. Ringle determines a tutor’s pay based on promotion points (which depend solely on student ratings). Promotion points are removed for cancelling a lesson, even if a tutor cancels a lesson 24 hours ahead of the lesson. Ringle also penalizes tutors for being a minute late to lessons or having a lesson acceptance rate lower than 95%. At one point, Ringle charged tutors for not showing up to lessons and continues to ban tutors after three “strikes.” Ringle also reduces tutors’ pay if they submit a feedback report late or if they experience network connectivity issues.
2. The rating system is probably the worst part about Ringle. Students will often leave negative (and often harsh) comments for seemingly inconsequential reasons (such as your facial expressions during a lesson or the price of the lesson). Instead of restructuring the student rating system, Ringle continues to insist that tutors are entirely to blame for the ratings they receive and offers little help besides asking tutors to check in with students throughout the lesson. Ringle offers no opportunity to remove negative ratings and even if an appeal is made, these appeals are often ignored. The most frustrating part about the rating system is that student ratings affect how much a tutor is paid. Promotion points, which determine a tutors’ pay, are calculated based on student ratings. If a student leaves a low rating, promotion points are subtracted. Ratings are also visible to other students and can affect the number of bookings a tutor receives. The rating system would also not be as frustrating if one could rate students as well, but this interaction is entirely one-sided. Students will also sometimes choose not to leave a review and instead, Ringle somehow calculates an automatic review. These automatic reviews can affect whether a tutor qualifies for pay increases at the end of each week.
3. Ringle is very inconsiderate of tutors’ time. Tutors are required to teach a lesson even if a student arrives 12 minutes late to a 20 minute lesson or 20 minutes late to a 40 minute lesson.
4. The pay is absolutely atrocious (~15-19/hour) given that they only hire tutors if they come from top schools (which already is questionable) . They depend on tutors for nearly all aspects of the website, including recruitment and content creation, and offer terrible compensation. There are “incentives” available (e.g. 5% pay increase for 10 lessons taught in one week) but these incentives are minimal considering that Ringle charges between 30 to 60 dollars per lesson and pockets over 60% of what they charge for every lesson. Ringle will also only provide these additional incentives if students show up to a lesson (i.e. if a student does not show up to a lesson, that lesson is not counted towards weekly incentives). The pay is also worse once you consider that tutors are responsible for paying social security and medicare taxes. This is because Ringle tutors are considered to be “independent contractors” and are given a 1099 instead of a W2 at the end of the fiscal year. The pay also does not include prep time, or the time it takes to complete feedback reports (which have a minimum word requirement). As Ringle has expanded, leadership has shown no signs of wanting to provide better compensation for their tutors, on whom they are entirely dependent on. It is also incredibly difficult for a tutor to increase their pay. In order for a tutor to be eligible for $19/hour, they have to teach 1500 (one thousand five hundred) 40 minute lessons, assuming they somehow get a 5 star rating on all of them.
5. There is no formal training besides a mock lesson with a member of the Ringle team and an orientation. Students come in with wildly different lesson requests. Some students are children who speak little to no English while others are graduate students asking for help with their PhD applications. It is impossible to cater to every single student’s needs given the lack of guidance from Ringle. This is particularly frustrating given the fact that Ringle penalizes tutors for cancelling or declining lessons.
6. The Ringle team is also not as responsive to tutor concerns as one would like. They only ever check in with tutors when asking them to take on additional responsibilities to grow the site, most of which are minimally compensated.
