[ Last Updated December 10, 2022 for Version 2.0 ]

Expert User How-To’s:

Setting Up Your Expert Profile

  1. After logging in to your expert account, you will be at the account dashboard.
  2. You can now sync with your Linkedin account to retrieve a few details such as profile image, name, email address, about tagline.
  3. Click on your profile -> Account.
  4. Providing basic info of your expert profile;
  5. Put in a tagline for your expert profile; The profile description editor provides most commonly used formatting options;
  6. You can attach image or video by pasting the respective URLs;
  7. Expert user can now include “tags” for more effective profile search. As an example, instead of searching by ‘data science’ category, clients may also search using “tags” such as CNN, deep learning, or other more specific terms commonly seen in the field;
  8. Enter a few parameters such as minimum time gap between consultation bookings, and payment email associated with either Stripe or Paypal;

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Selecting Areas of Expertise

  1. Back to dashboard. Click on “Categories” from top menu;
  2. Click on “Add Category” or “Create” to pick your areas of expertise;
  3. The first dropdown menu shows the list of available areas of expertise;
  4. You can also use keyword search for the desired category;
  5. If you don’t see your expertise on our list, you can make a suggestion by clicking “Suggest Category”. We will consider adding it to our list;
  6. [Back to adding category] In the description box, you may enter the specific topics of interest within the area of expertise, which you could offer our client assistance on;
  7. Block Time – you can define how long a block of consultation time is (e.g. 15 min, 30 min), and client will be charged based on the # of block-time which they have spent with you in a consultation session;
  8. Call Price – the gross rate (per block-time) which you will be charging the client who has booked a session. When specifying a rate, do keep in mind that for the system to cover for your time, chat infrastructure, and DDIChat’s marketing activity, it is advisable to charge a gross rate that is at least $1 per minute. For examples, if you choose a Block-Time of 15 (i.e. each block of consultation time is 15 minutes), the minimum gross rate will be US $15 for each block. It is OK to charge higher than that, but not lower.
  9. Booking Request will be sent to you via email, and when you confirm (by clicking on the button in email), client will be charged the 1st block of time;
  10. and when the 1st block of time runs out during the DDIChat session, a new block will be charged;
  11. Be sure to save the changes you made after adding a category;

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Availability Settings

  1. From your dashboard, click on “Availability” from top menu;
  2. You may set
    • available hours for each day;
    • unavailable days;
  3. Those unavailable hours and days will be blocked from client’s booking;

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Sessions

  1. All your sessions are organized into 4 types:
    • Pending – client’s sessions will be pending until Expert clicks on the “confirm booking” button that is in the booking request email;
    • Upcoming – after Expert confirms booking, 1st block-time will be charged from customer’s credit card, and the booking will be listed under the “Upcoming” tab;
    • Completed – all completed consultations will be listed under the “Completed” tab;
    • Cancelled – If client’s booking request is not confirmed by expert, 30-40 minutes prior to the actual booking session start time, booking will be cancelled and will be placed in the cancelled column;
    • If client or expert needs to cancel a confirmed booking, they will need to email support@ddichat.com for a refund to be processed for the client;

  Payouts (temporary arrangement until version 2.1)

  1. Payout can be requested once DDIChat receives payment for the sessions that are fully paid by client;
  2. Implied platform fee will be deducted from gross revenue, and this parameter is different for different DDIChat expert. Our current scheme is described in the FAQ page;
  3. Please allow a few days for disbursement to be processed after each payout request;

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