What are customers really saying about Shaw Academy?

Shaw Academy has welcomed millions of online students since launching in 2012. And we always encourage reviews from students past and present. Recently LA Weekly covered our course offerings and Shaw Academy reviews. Here’s a breakdown of exactly who we are and what we offer.

At Shaw Academy, we now have an online learning platform that boasts more than 150 courses. All devised by experienced educators and experts in virtual learning, the webinar-based courses are extremely popular with people all around the world.

Online reviews help Shaw Academy management and staff to ensure that courses continue to offer what students really want. Whether you want to take up a new hobby, boost your CV for a new job search, go for that promotion or improve your own business, online learning can help you get there.

While Shaw Academy has been in the online learning sector since 2012, since the pandemic student enrolment shot up. Widely accepted as a legitimate alternative to traditional learning, there is increasing awareness that online learning is easily accessible and often more cost effective that in-person learning.

For many, it’s not just the cost savings that attract them to online study, but also the flexibility of having classes that can be accessed when it’s convenient. By following a well-structured course run by professional educators offers a more legitimate way of learning a subject than trying to self-educate through books and YouTube alone.

But there are understandable concerns from people new to online learning over the legitimacy of providers. This is where Shaw Academy reviews come in handy. We ensure that they are easily accessible on our YouTube channel, the main Shaw Academy website and the dedicated Shaw Academy Reviews site.

We want prospective students to read the reviews available about Shaw Academy services, career advice and online courses. Our aim is to make it easy and simple for people to study at their own time and at their own pace. Here’s a breakdown of exactly what Shaw Academy is and how it works.

How does Shaw Academy work?

For almost a decade, we’ve been offering online education to anyone who wants an easy way to access accredited courses. Through constant quality control and analysis of Shaw Academy reviews by both current and past students, we have refined our offering.

Today, the Shaw Academy online platform offers 159 courses across a number of key sectors. These are:

· Photography

• Marketing
• Design
• Business & Analytics
• Finance
• Health Wellness
• Technology
• Arts & Hobbies
• Beauty
• Music.

To find out everything about each course, including duration, accreditation credentials, how to get the diploma and when to access webinars and advice from instructors, head to the main Shaw Academy website.

We offer the first module absolutely free to new students. This gives you the chance to complete four weeks study (on a 28-day basis) at no cost at all. When you have finished the initial 28 days study for free, it’s then up to you whether you want to go ahead and pay for premium membership. This costs £49 and gives you access to every course on the website.

What about the negative coverage regarding Shaw Academy’s free trial?

The idea behind our free online learning offer for the initial four weeks is to give students the chance to see whether Shaw Academy courses are for them.

We are aware that there some negative press will have been seen by potential students regarding the free trial. Claims have been made that deciding not to go ahead with our premium subscription after the four-week free trial has ended has led to payments being taken.

It’s worth knowing that these payment errors were made solely because of an unprecedented number of student enrolments in 2020. Online learning increased dramatically across the board when lockdowns were implemented by Governments all around the world in a bid to control the virus. This led to Shaw Academy garnering more than 14 million new registrations last year.

Thankfully, the vast majority of these millions of students had no cause for complaint. At Shaw Academy, we’re all working really hard to ensure that administrative errors do not occur again. We’ve taken on board all of the reviews and feedback from students who have felt let down and used it to improve our processes.

Our teachers work full time for the Academy and as such are experts in crafting the ideal course content for their subject. They are all subject matter experts with experience in getting the best out of online teaching. All courses are constantly checked and revised should there be any new trends or information to insert into them.

Cancelling your subscription with Shaw Academy is a simple process

Whether you’re signing up to the trial or have decided you don’t want to continue with our online course following the free 4-week trial, our aim is always to make the process simple for you. To cancel your subscription to ensure that a payment isn’t taken from your account after the 28 days, use the following contact details:

Phone Shaw Academy on +1 1850 875 534

Alternatively, you can email Shaw Academy on support@shawacademy.com

We have had some questions from people signing up to the free trial about their credit card information and why we ask for it. The majority of free trials for any service online request credit card details in order to verify that only one free trial is signed up for by the cardholder. Companies also do this in order to protect themselves from potential scammers.

No money will be taken from your credit card when you enrol for the four-week free trial to study with Shaw Academy. However, if you don’t cancel your subscription before the end of the 28-day free trial, then payments will be taken. This is consistent with many other subscription models for all kinds of online services.

Who benefits from Shaw Academy online courses?

Our courses are designed to benefit anyone who wants to either improve and develop existing skills, learn a new skill from scratch or who want to expand their hobbies and self-study options. We find that people enrol on our courses for all kinds of reasons, and while some are linked with career development, others are for personal fulfilment.

For example, people interested in digital marketing and design may have picked up some skills through watching YouTube tutorials but now they’re ready for a structured, formal course. These days, it’s always possible to learn some of the rudiments of any subject online without paying for a virtual learning platform. However, to really progress in the subject or to gain accredited credentials, the next logical step is to take a structured learning programme.

We focus on the practical in our course content and want to ensure that graduates leave with a CV packed with employable skills. The idea is that students learn from our skilled educators so that they too can be a subject expert.

Benefits of studying with Shaw Academy:

· Lessons are easily accessible if you have an Internet connection.

· Learning is flexible and while you can attend the twice-weekly online webinars live, you also have the option of watching in your own time. Lessons are available from your membership account on Shaw Academy’s website 24 hours after they have gone live. You can then access them over and over if you wish to ensure you get the most out of them.

· More than 150 courses to choose from in a range of useful, practical and fun subjects. As well as business orientated classes, we also offer everything from painting to crystal healing.

· Shaw Academy teachers only work for us, so they are dedicated full time not only to ensuring the course content is up to date and relevant but also to ensuring that students get the most out of each webinar.

· Great value for money. For a relatively low subscription cost you can have access to all of our courses.

· Lessons are interactive if you are able to attend the live webinars with each teacher leaving time for questions at the end.

· The first four weeks of study are completely free of charge, which equates to more than ten hours of free lesson content.

· Carefully crafted course content to ensure that the maximum amount of information is imparted in the most accessible and easy to learn way.

Here are a few things we want everyone to be aware of before they sign up to the free trial to study with Shaw Academy.

· In order to enrol for the free trial, you will need to register your credit card details. They will be completely secure, and payment won’t be taken unless you don’t cancel your subscription before the end of the four-week free trial.

· There has been some robust feedback regarding perceived difficulty in cancelling subscriptions, but Shaw Academy is working very hard to ensure that everyone who is entitled to a refund receives one as soon as possible.

· There is a separate charge for a hard copy of the certificate awarded on completion of each course. You will get an e-certificate with no extra charge, but processing and administration costs for a hard copy to necessitate a small extra charge. This is in line with the majority of other online learning platforms.

Concerned over the legitimacy of Shaw Academy courses?

Shaw Academy takes all feedback very seriously and we incorporate it into learning how to improve the administrative function of the business. We know that there have been a number of online complaints made by frustrated students who assume that Shaw Academy is in someway a scam.

We believe that most of these complaints have come to light due to a lack of clarity on our part on how to cancel subscriptions and we are working to clarify the process for everyone. The free trial rolls on into a subscription-based model unless it is proactively cancelled by the student. We understand that a lack of clarity over this has broken some user’s trust in the Academy when they received an unexpected payment.

Across the board we are working on rectifying the lack of clarity within our communication. Shaw Academy wants to ensure that all of our processes, including the free trial and subscription model are transparent and easy to understand. We particularly want to ensure that it is very simple to cancel a subscription if students decide that they don’t want to continue studying with us after the free trial is complete.

To this end, the company undertook a number of fundamental overhaul of the payment processes towards the end of 2020. Improvements have continued into 2021, and we believe we are firmly on the road to winning back customer trust. We also have many student reviews from happy graduates who have positive things to say about everything ranging from the free trial to course content. You can read more about those below.

Shaw Academy believes that transparency and honesty are key to ensuring that its learning platform continues to help people all around the world study in an affordable and flexible way. We have been running an online learning platform since 2013 and have had thousands of satisfied students taking advantage of the great payment rates for high-quality, accessible education. Our mission is to continue to provide great quality courses for people who are looking to expand their horizons and who want to explore the opportunities it presents.

Why we take Shaw Academy reviews seriously and learn from them

We routinely receive many reviews online through various platforms and have plenty on our YouTube site and website. And we encourage students to let us know what they do like and don’t like about our service, so that we can improve it.

It’s clear from the majority of reviews that the course content is considered high quality, our instructors are often praised for their friendliness and accessibility and the flexibility of the twice-weekly webinars also come in for a lot of praise.

As we’ve said already, the key differentiator between Shaw Academy and other online education sites is that all of our teachers are carefully vetted before we hire them. We are interested in their experience level, background and teaching skills as well as their expertise in the subject. We’re extremely proud of the quality of our courses and of the teachers who lead them and feel this is generally reflected well in the reviews.

While there have been a number of negative reviews from students, the reviews include very little negative commentary regarding the courses themselves. Instead, they mentioned administrative issues surrounding the free trial and cancellations. Here’s what our CEO James Egan said to The Irish Times in response to the negative reviews:

“We’ve been humbled by the rise in popularity of the learning opportunities we provide, but we are genuinely sorry that a small proportion of users didn’t have the experience which we strive to deliver.

“We haven’t see this affect the growth and commercial health of the business, but we do have to make sure we communicate well with those affected customers — and third-parties such as review sites, which we’re actively engaged with now — so that they are aware we’ve been listening, can see the positive changes made, and are confident we’re continuing to always put students first in our mission to open up access to education.”

Responding in a constructive way to any online complaints

We experienced an increase of student enrolments of 164% during lockdown in 2020. Naturally, we wanted to accommodate everyone in the best way possible. However, due to the sheer volume of accounts opening, for some customers there was a delay in receiving refunds when they cancelled.

Unfortunately, this led to some concern online in reviews and elsewhere that Shaw Academy is not a legitimate organisation. This couldn’t be further from the truth and we are very sorry to anyone who has experienced a delay in getting their money back when they cancelled their subscription.

The whole team, including administration, management and teaching, have worked hard to mitigate these errors. Some of the changes we’ve made to address concerns include:

· We’ve reduced the cancellation from seven to four steps.

· We’re investing heavily in global hires to support our customer support operations around the world.

· We’re continuing to monitor all reviews, whether positive or negative, to find out how we’re doing and ensure that we’re doing everything we can to get the best online education to all students.

To dig a little deeper into some of our course reviews, you can head to our YouTube channel, where you’ll find students at all levels and studying different courses giving their honest opinion of studying with Shaw Academy.

Some of our frequently asked questions — with answers!

We appreciate that when people are searching through the many online learning resources available, they often want to ask specific questions. Here are a few of the most commonly asked questions and answers from Shaw Academy management.

Are the courses accredited?

Not only do the courses furnish you with a lot of information and some new skills, on successful completion you receive an accredited diploma. Globally recognised, a Shaw academy diploma is a great addition to your CV in countries including India, South Africa, Australia, Canada, the US and the UK.

Are there any free Shaw Academy courses?

We offer all of our courses up totally free for the first four weeks of study (28 days). This give students enough time to become familiar with our system and find out how it all works. If you find it a good fit for your learning needs at the end of the four weeks, then you will automatically roll over into a subscription.

The first 28 days aren’t long enough to complete a course and receive a diploma, so in order to complete a Shaw Academy course you will have to pay a subscription through a PayPal account or credit card.

Is Shaw Academy better than other online learning providers?

We think so! Probably the biggest differentiator between Shaw Academy and other major online education platforms is the fact that we vet all of our teachers, and they only work for us. A number of other online course providers tend to allow anyone to create a course, which is fine if you’re learning solely for fun, but if you want an accredited certificate then we’d always recommend Shaw.

Where are the course seminars held?

As it’s all online, our courses are delivered in webinars. These are live twice weekly and are fuily interactive for students able to attend the live sessions. We send out email reminders for your webinars, and of course, all reminders and courses are in your local time. If you miss one of the webinars, or they don’t fit into your other commitments, then you can watch the recording in your own time.

When are the twice-weekly live webinars?

All of the foundation courses offered by Shaw Academy are at 7pm UK time on Monday and Wednesday evenings.

How many lessons are there in a foundation course?

Each foundation course has eight lessons, which are one hour long. You can also ask questions of the teacher at eth end of the lesson, which adds on a further 20 minutes. The advanced levels of the courses are made up of 24 classes, including a mix of practical and theoretical elements.

How do I contact Shaw Academy if I have questions about my course?
During live webinars you can ask the teacher questions in real time. However, any questions you have afterwards can be emailed to support@shawacademy.com and we will answer you as soon as we can.

I’ve done the free trial and I don’t want to continue, how do I cancel my subscription?
If you’ve finished the free trial and don’t want to study further with us, or if you have begun a course that you have subsequently found doesn’t fit in to your other commitments, you can cancel whenever you want. Here’s how:

1. Select My Profile.

2. Select Memberships & Payments

3. Select Cancel and Pause Membership and Benefit

4. Follow on-screen instructions.

We’ll ask you reasons for cancelling and depending on your location, in order to finally cancel you may need to either phone us. If this is the case, you will be shown onscreen instructions with the right phone number. It speeds the process up if you have your student number with you if you do phone to cancel.

Cancelling your cost is completely free and you are still able to use the account in full until the next renewal date arrives.

How do I know that Shaw Academy isn’t a scam?
When the pandemic first hit, we were not prepared for the sheer numbers of student enrolments that would flood in. When COVID-19 began and lockdowns kicked in, we experienced exceptionally difficult challenges for our customer service department.

In January 2020, we had 700,000 new customer registration. By July this had increased to more than two million a month. This spike in customer service problems meant that we were slower to respond than we should have been for people who wanted to cancel. Here are the measures we have put in place to stop this happening again.

1. A new head of customer support joined us in May 2020.

2. We appointed customer service and quality assurance team leaders.

3. Our customer satisfaction scores have grown to 76% in April 2021 compared with 36% in March 2020, showing that our measures are working.

4. We reduced first response times from 74 hours in May 2020 down to 14 hours by April 201.

5. 1-star online reviews have been reduced by two-thirds since the peak in June 2020.

6. Streamlined the cancellation process — it now has just four steps compared to the old system that had seven.

7. We recruited so that we now have more than 500 staff across all locations so that we can actively improve student experience around the world.