Bad company with bad practices and low pay disguised as a progressive company
Pros
You can usually pick your hours. Very flexible in that way. Sometimes you meet students that are nice.
Cons
1) Very bad practices. When you sign up for a Priority Hour (PH), sometimes your PH is dropped even though you haven't missed any calls. When you complain about this or anything else, they will ALWAYS claim it's because of your connection. This is, in my case, despite the fact that I work at other companies with flawless connection. I should add that many other tutors experienced similar issues and yet, Cambly still shifted the blame to me using an indecipherable graph. 2) They only give one 5 minute break an hour. No more. They expect people to only spend five minutes in the bathroom every time? That is absolutely ridiculous. Sometimes 5 minutes is not enough, especially when working for hours at a time and frequently missing a break opportunity because of a long call. Bodily functions are not possible to control. My PH was dropped because of this and... 3) because I had a call from someone who needed to call me back also, so I had to not answer a call in order to answer the student who wanted to talk to me. This is customer satisfaction. Taking another call would not be professional and would cause the client to be upset. Because of this, my PH was dropped and then my PH was blocked for a whole week. This is also in addition to the other PH that was dropped a few days ago because of THEIR connection. I know it's their connection because their site is extremely slow, and my speed tests show fast speeds. Students complain about the slow website too. The one thing that did not derive from their badly managed system was a missed PH because of a short power outage. I did not try to dispute this because of the callousness I'd already heard the Cambly team can use to avoid any kindness toward tutors. 4) This company presents themselves as this amazing, progressive entity but it's really nothing more than a company that leeches from its tutors. They expect so much and give so very little. Working 11 PH in a week, I made 60 dollars. That's vastly less than minimum wage. And regardless whether I am not on a call, there should be some way to earn at least near min wage when it's slow. 5) STUDENTS: They also do not let students know what to expect. I get basic beginners who have no idea how to use the platform LET ALONE speak English. And because the disorganized way Cambly gives access to (very poor quality) lessons, it's nearly impossible to direct them in order to get students into a lesson they so seriously need when their level is so low. I say avoid this company until they can stop leeching from their hardworking tutors and stop punishing them (even though they claim in the FAQ that it's not punishment) for things that are beyond their control and for simply having human needs. Edit: Due to recently being bereaved, I did email Cambly to complain about the unfair loss of one week of PH. I did not curse or insult in any way. I did, however, beg and use caps to do so. I admit it was an overreaction due to a seriously emotional state of grief, I was shocked to soon after receive an email stating my account had been deactivated and the "decision is final." No way to explain. No way to defend myself. Just deactivated. Cambly didn't even give me the respect to give me a warning with the threat of future deactivation if such behavior (aka standing up for myself) continued. I would have agreed to that. Now they refuse to answer my emails. They don't have compassion for the serious loss of my boyfriend of 3 years. They wouldn't even let me say goodbye to the sweet older woman from Turkey whom I have been helping progress in English.
