How to increase the check-in rate of community users?

For most training camps, punch-in rate is a metric that needs to be focused on. By tracking students' check-in data, operations staff can manage students' learning progress in real time, so that when students feel "slack and hard to persist", they can be brought back on track in time; they can understand students' mastery of course content, know which content students have fully absorbed, and which content still needs us to continue to explain. After all, only when students actually complete the course and clearly perceive the learning effect of the course can they enhance their trust in the platform, promote subsequent retention and renewal, and establish a good reputation for the platform and bring in more new students.

1. Manage students in different levels

1. Students who actively check in every day without reminders

We should focus on maintaining these students. When they submit their assignments, the operations staff should provide timely feedback, plenty of praise and encouragement. The content of the praise should be sincere, specific, and vary from person to person. You cannot just give a vague reply of "Wow, student XX, you are great" to every student who submits his/her homework. That would be too insincere. On the one hand, we need to give these students a sense of accomplishment and maintain their enthusiasm. On the other hand, we should make them role models for the community, motivating other students to follow their example and creating a good learning atmosphere for the community.

2. Students who occasionally miss a day or two

We also need to focus on maintaining these students. The students have not missed many courses at this time, so it is not difficult to make up for it. If we continue to fall behind, it will be easy to fall into a state of lying down, "Since I'm already missing so much, I might as well save it all up and make up for it some other day", or even "Since I'm already missing so much, I might as well just love whoever I want." Therefore, what we need to do now is to pull him back in time. First, affirm his previous dedication and hard work (make it clear what is good and how it is good), and then encourage him to keep persevering.

3. Students who have not checked in for a while

These students may have been "delayed by other things" or they may have been "simply tired and wanted to lie down." In order to distinguish them and prescribe the right medicine, we should first express our concern for their recent situation. "Classmate, I see you haven't clocked in for a while. Are you busy recently?"

(1) Students who have to suspend their studies

If students do have more important things to do and cannot spare the time, then we should express our understanding and comfort them, “It’s really not easy, you must have worked hard.” At the same time, encourage them, “If you have time next time and want to catch up, you can try to make up one or two articles every day, and you will catch up soon.” In addition, we must also always pay attention to the check-in status of these students. Once we find that they have started to check in, we must give feedback immediately, such as leaving encouraging messages under their homework or giving out small gifts when they return.

(2) Students who start to slack off midway

This situation will occur when a student drops the card once or twice, and if we don’t urge them in time, or if the urging is ineffective, the student will start to become lazy. As the saying goes, “It’s fun to lie down for a while, and it’s fun to lie down all the time.” It is still difficult to get these students to check in again, but based on the principle of being responsible to all students, we still have to work hard to arouse their enthusiasm for learning. "Student XXX, why haven't you checked in for a long time? Everyone is looking forward to seeing your work."

Then, I patiently explained to them the importance and benefits of punching in, and encouraged them to continue doing so. “Look, we have already accomplished so much. If we take a break now, all our efforts will be wasted, which would be a shame.” Similarly, once a student starts to check in, we should immediately encourage him, especially in the group, praising his homework from all angles and making him feel the joy of being recognized and valued.

4. Students who never check in

Maybe it’s because “after buying the course, I found that I don’t have time to study at the moment”, or maybe it’s because “I’m used to studying alone and don’t like being disturbed”. Our approach to these students is to be calm, occasionally urging them, letting them know that "we are always here, they can come to us if they need anything" and that "they are always welcome to return to the team", and then focus on the students who actively cooperate.

2. Personalized reminder card

In fact, if the assignment is designed reasonably and the preliminary work has conveyed the value of the assignment to the students well, then most students will actively do this, and we do not need to spend a lot of time and energy on it later. In the later stage, you only need to remind and urge a few students who have not yet developed a study habit and often forget to check in.

1. Time for punching in

Regarding the clocking-in time for all students, we can make an agreement with them before the camp officially starts. You can provide several time points for reminding students to punch in, and let students vote to make their choice. Once they make a choice, the operators must abide by the agreement and not disturb the students before the agreed time. They should only remind the students to clock in after the time has passed.

As for individual clock-in times (i.e. 1v1 private messages, if necessary), they can be customized based on the students’ living habits and schedules. "Student XX, when do you usually clock in?" When the student replied with a time that was convenient for him, the teacher continued to ask for his opinion, "If student XX hasn't clocked in by XX time, can the teaching assistant remind him?"

2. Tips for urging customers to punch in

When operators urge employees to clock in, they should be sincere and use honest, kind and gentle words. It is best to browse the students’ self-introductions and chat content in the community before communicating with them to understand what they like and what they want, so that it will be smoother to urge them to check in.

For example, a student mentioned in his self-introduction that he liked the feeling of "completing the task and crossing out the list", so we collected a lot of emoticon packages of this type. When he submitted his homework, we sent him the emoticon packages, and he was very happy every time he received them.

3. Give students positive feedback

A training camp can last from 21 days to 90 days. It is not easy to maintain learning and thinking for such a long time, so the operation staff needs to constantly give students positive feedback and carefully comment on their homework to let students know that their hard work is taken seriously, thereby stimulating their motivation to continue learning.

We should pay more attention to the homework of outstanding students. On the one hand, we give him a sense of honor and recognition, hold an award ceremony for him, summarize and organize his work, and publicize it as the essence of the community. On the other hand, if conditions permit, when students' work is evaluated, they can be given small rewards, such as points that can be exchanged for courses, peripheral gifts, or some scarce materials, to encourage them to continue to produce high-quality content.

4. Guide students to share the link to the community after completing the check-in

If the training camp uses a check-in app such as Whale Check-in or Goose Check-in, then students can be encouraged to share the homework link to the group after checking in. This can not only remind and encourage other students, "Everyone has started to check in, I have to hurry up and do my homework", "Everyone's homework is so well written, I have to finish it well too." At the same time, it can also better promote the relationship between students and the interaction within the group, "Wow, classmate XX's homework is so well written, I'll leave a message to praise him."

Of course, at the beginning, everyone may not be able to let go, so the operations staff will need to create a few more small accounts to act as "water armies" to share their own homework while taking the lead in leaving comments and praising other students' homework.