How to set up an automated piano studio waiting list

Have you been wondering about setting up a piano studio waiting list? You’ve come to the right place.

Have a waiting list for your music studio is a good sign of a healthy business. If you’re not quite full yet, you might like to read this post with the best marketing ideas for piano teachers.

If you’re at the stage where your studio is full, or almost full, and you’re needing to turn people way then it’s high time you set up a waiting list. Let me walk you through how to automate your piano studio waiting list and what you need to include in this article.

Automate Your Piano Studio Waiting List

I used to simply take names and details into a spreadsheet but these days I use music studio management software called My Music Staff to automate the process of joining my waiting list. This is pretty simple to set up and is a huge time-saver for me.

If you’re using My Music Staff too you can just go to “Website” and then click that you have an existing website to set up the sign-up widget. Here’s what it looks like:

Most studio management software now has a similar feature. If you’re looking into setting one up you can read more of my thoughts on My Music Staff here and see if it might be right for you.

If you don’t have a studio website you could set up a Google Form to send people to. (I do recommend getting a website when you can though, and when you do, here are some tips to make it ship-shape.)

Information to Include

No matter how you collect the information, online or on the phone, here are the essentials to ask everyone who joins your piano studio waiting list:

• Name
• Age/birthday
• Email
• Phone
• Availability – what times and days are they free for lessons
• Type of lessons – length, format, etc.
• Address if you’re travel-teaching
• Where they heard about you

That last one is really important. I also ask this on my registration form once a student joins the studio but having it digitally so I can see it at-a-glance is invaluable for future marketing.

If you want to see what this looks like in practice you can see my piano studio waiting list form here.

Follow-Up Email

Automating a follow-up email has been even more of a time and energy saver for me than automating the application itself.

Replying to emails from people who (despite my warnings and information on the application page) still asked whether I had something available used to take a ton of brain-space for me.

The truth is it made me feel guilty and uncomfortable to write back to all these people to let them know there was no space and there was very unlikely to be space any time soon. Perhaps this should have made me feel good about being in-demand but having to craft these replies so regularly was weighing on me.

So here is the email that now goes out as a reply to every application:

Thanks for applying to join the waiting list!

I will be in touch if I have a suitable spot available for you. If you are looking for lessons from one of the Colourful Keys team at your home, I will hopefully be in touch within the next few weeks when I have an opening available for you.

If however, you are looking for lessons with me at the studio, I would like to warn you that this is quite unlikely to be soon. Sometimes you might get very lucky but you should generally expect to be on the waiting list for at least a year before something becomes available. Students don’t often leave my studio!

Feel free to look for another teacher in the meantime as I don’t want to delay you or your child’s musical journey.

Warmest regards,

Nicola

It gives me peace-of-mind to know that I’m not leaving people hanging and this is simple to set up through My Music Staff as well.

Do you have a piano studio waiting list set up?

Perhaps you’re just looking ahead to when you’ll need one? Or maybe looking for tips on how to make it run more smoothly?

I hope this article was helpful. Let me know if you’ve any questions below.