Playbook, online course
The list is for a date, and the material is available now
Nothing has run out here. A cohort list exists because the provider chose to run the thing twice a year with a group of a certain size, not because capacity was exhausted, and that changes what may honestly be said to somebody waiting on it. It also means a good share of the people on the list did not need to be.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for waiting lists holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- There is no scarcity to explain. The constraint is a date and a group size somebody chose, so the reassuring language about queues and places does not apply and would be untrue if borrowed from a trade where it does.
- The same curriculum is usually on sale right now in its self paced form, which makes the most useful reply the one that tells somebody they are waiting for the group and the dates rather than for the material.
- Joining a launch list means agreeing to be emailed, which is a marketing consent rather than a reservation, and treating it as a booking produces somebody who unsubscribes in irritation before enrolment even opens.
- Between cohorts the honest uncertainty is price: people join expecting the figure they saw to hold, and it may not, so saying once that the price is set when enrolment opens is cheaper than defending it later.
How it arrives
- when does the next cohort start
- how do i get told when enrolment opens
- is the self paced version the same content
- will the price be the same next time it runs
- am i guaranteed a place if i am on the list
- how many people do you take on each cohort
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The published cohort dates, and how far ahead they are set | The dates you have committed to and a plain statement of how far in advance the next ones are announced. Where nothing is fixed, say that instead of implying a schedule, because an assumed rhythm becomes a complaint when it slips. |
|---|---|
| What joining the list does and does not give somebody | That it is a notification rather than a reservation, whether list members hear before the public, and how to leave. The second half of that sentence prevents the message four weeks later asking why nothing has happened. |
| The self paced version, described next to the cohort | Whether it is the same material, what it lacks, and whether somebody who buys it can move onto a cohort later. That last point is the question everybody on a list has and almost nobody asks out loud. |
| Your position on the price between cohorts | Whether the figure currently published holds when enrolment reopens. If it is not decided, publish that it is not decided. Both answers are fine and only silence produces somebody who feels they were kept on a list under false pretences. |
The reply
The published dates for the next cohort are on the enrolment page, and joining the list there means you are emailed when it opens rather than holding a place, which is worth saying plainly [1]. If what you want is the material rather than the group, the self paced version covers the same modules and is available now, and the page sets out what the cohort adds on top of it [2]. I cannot add anybody to a list, tell you where you are on one, or say what the price will be when enrolment opens. If you want somebody to tell you where the next cohort stands, leave your name and an email.
It kills the reservation idea immediately, because every follow up message in this pair comes from believing there was one. Offering the self paced version is not a redirection to something cheaper, it is the answer for the person who was going to wait five months for content they could have had that night. And it declines the price question rather than implying the current figure holds.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor asks to be added, asks whether they have a place, asks to be held one, or is deciding between waiting and buying the self paced version.
I cannot add you to anything or see who is on a list. Leave your name and an email and say which cohort you are asking about, and somebody will tell you where it stands and when enrolment opens.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never say somebody has been added to a list, since nothing here writes anywhere and they will stop checking.
- Never say a place is held, guaranteed or reserved for anybody.
- Never give a date for a cohort that is not published, or say the next one is nearly full.
- Never say the price will be the same when enrolment reopens unless your own page commits to it.
Questions
- Does pointing people at the self paced version cost us cohort sales?
- Some, and it gains you the buyers who would otherwise have drifted away over five months. The people who genuinely want the group and the dates are not talked out of it by learning that a cheaper version exists, because they already knew.
- Can it tell somebody how many places are left?
- No. It cannot see a list, a registration or a sale, and it should not reason its way toward a number. Saying that plainly is better than a vague answer, because a hint about scarcity that turns out to be wrong is the kind of thing people screenshot.
- Is publishing that the list is not a reservation off putting?
- It is less off putting than the alternative, which is somebody who believed they had a place discovering at enrolment that they are buying like everybody else. One sentence up front costs you nothing and prevents the entire conversation.
Keep reading
- Everything for a online courseWhat is included, how long access lasts, refund and cooling off rights, and the honest limit that it cannot see a learner's own progress.
- Handling waiting lists in generalExpectation setting is the whole job: how the list is ordered, how contact is made, and whether a short notice cancellation can reach them.
- The money left the account and nothing arrivedThere is nothing to ship, so this is a missing welcome email. The reasons it did not arrive, in the order they turn out to be true.
- Six places, and a spreadsheet from somebody in securityA small training purchase can attract a full vendor assessment. What a course business can answer from published pages, and what it cannot.
- Course refunds, where your policy is not the only rule that appliesDistance selling rules and immediate access do not sit comfortably together. State both, and the exception you rely on.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.