This one’s for all of the coaches trying to maintain strong online relationships with their clients (and even for in-person coaches who leverage CoachRx to reach their clients beyond the gym walls). 

Program Design Pro Tip: Communication Expectations

What does communication have to do with program design? Well, first of all, communication is essential if you want to properly progress your clients and ensure they understand how to execute your programs. And second, if you don’t maintain relationships, you won’t have any clients to program for!

Being a great remote (or in-person) coach who retains their clients isn’t just about reps and sets—any template can offer that. The most important and underrated factor for online coaching success is consistency in communication.

Regular communication around your client’s training is essential to develop the relationship and provide them with value. When you onboard each client be sure to set an expectation of how much they should expect to hear from you and how they need to communicate with you. 

For example, let them know upfront:

Messages

Use messages for questions/concerns regarding your daily training and you will respond to their messages within 3 hours during working hours. (And specify your working hours)

Comments

Use comments at the end of a training session for non-urgent communication and notes regarding the specific session. You will review these comments when designing the next training week and respond within 24-48 business hours.

Results field

You do not receive a notification for comments in the workout results field. You will take these comments into consideration when programming the next week, but will not see these comments before this. If you are seeking a response, please put this in the comments field at the bottom of your workout. 

On your end, leaving a comment on each training session, answering any questions or concerns raised in the client results, and commenting on your client’s workout videos will help create consistent communication. Consider using a video messaging service like Loom (available for all users as an integration in CoachRx) to provide video feedback on your client’s training sessions.

Finally, CoachRx helps gamify consistent communication for coaches with our Touchpoints feature. Located under organization settings, you can set a goal for a minimum number of weekly touchpoints per client and track these from your dashboard. A touchpoint is counted each time a client is messaged or they receive a comment through an Rx.

Start your free trial of CoachRx and upgrade your programming flow with this tip today!