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The client journey of a coaching programme: from first contact to aftercare

The client journey of a coaching programme: from first contact to aftercare

During a first meeting, the coach listens carefully

The client journey of a coaching programme is the path a client travels: from the moment they first see you, through the introductory conversation and intake, across all the sessions, to completion and the time that follows. If you design that path deliberately, your client knows at every step what is happening and what is expected of them. You can see where people drop off, where they get stuck and where they truly grow. In this article we walk through every step, with what your client needs and what you can arrange at each one.

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TL;DR

  • A client journey in coaching has two parts: the path towards the programme (being seen, comparing, choosing) and the journey within the programme (intake, sessions, time between sessions, completion).
  • Most coaches devote a lot of attention to the first part. The real gains often lie in the second part: clear agreements, follow-up between sessions and a good completion.
  • Satisfied former clients are one of the best sources of new clients. So aftercare is also acquisition.
  • In almost every step you process confidential data. So from the start, arrange where your notes are stored and who can access them.
  • Map your own client journey in an hour using the step-by-step plan further down.

Table of contents

What is a client journey in coaching?

The term comes from marketing. A client journey, also called a customer journey, describes all the steps someone takes before and after buying something. The Dutch Chamber of Commerce (KVK) describes the See-Think-Do-Care model with four phases: someone sees you (see), considers and compares (think), decides and buys (do) and is then supported further (care).

For a shop, the care phase is often short: a confirmation email, perhaps a customer service line. With coaching it is exactly the other way round. The purchase is only the beginning. A programme quickly lasts several months, with sessions, assignments, check-ins and moments of doubt. Your client's experience is shaped above all during that period.

Four client journey phases with long-term coaching aftercare

That is why in this article we take a broader view than the marketing model. We divide the client journey of a coaching programme into seven steps. The first three are about finding and choosing a coach. The last four are about the programme itself.

The seven steps at a glance

Step What your client does or feels What you arrange
1. Being seen Comes across your name through an acquaintance, LinkedIn or your website A clear message: who you are there for and what you help with
2. Considering Compares coaches, reads experiences, hesitates Evidence of your approach, an easy way to get acquainted
3. Getting acquainted and choosing Has a conversation and receives a proposal A clear proposal with goal, duration, price and conditions
4. Intake and agreements Completes an intake, makes agreements about goals Intake form, possibly an assessment, recorded agreements
5. Sessions Works on goals, gains new insights Preparation, good notes, action points
6. Between sessions Carries out actions, or not Check-ins, follow-up, visibility of progress
7. Completion and aftercare Looks back, says goodbye Closing conversation, final report, contact after the programme

The rest of this article works through each step.

Before the first conversation: being seen and earning trust

People rarely choose a coach after an advertisement. Often they hear your name from someone they trust. The KVK names networking, satisfied customers and social media as important ways to find work, and recommends starting with your existing contacts first. This is called warm acquisition: you approach people who already know you, rather than strangers.

For a coach, that means in practice:

  • Know who your ideal client is. A career coach for thirty-somethings stuck in their jobs writes a different message than an executive coach for board members.
  • Use your own network deliberately. Former colleagues, clients and former coachees already know your work. How to use that network purposefully is explained in this article on leveraging your personal network for more leads.
  • Be visible where your client searches. For business coaches, that is often LinkedIn. The KVK has a practical explanation of finding clients via social media in five steps.

In the consideration phase, your future client asks questions like: does this coach understand my situation? How does a programme work? What does it cost? How long does it take? The more of those questions your website or your first email already answers, the lower the threshold to request a conversation. A fixed place where people can directly schedule an introduction also helps. Anyone who first has to send three emails to pin down a time will drop off sooner.

Introduction and proposal: the moment of choosing

The introductory conversation is your client's first real experience of your way of working. Above all, listen. What does this person want to achieve? What is standing in the way? And does that match what you offer? Sometimes the most honest answer is that another coach or a different form of help is a better fit. That trust pays off later.

After the conversation comes a proposal. A good proposal describes:

  1. The goal of the programme, in your client's own words.
  2. The format: number of sessions, duration, online or on location.
  3. What happens between sessions, such as assignments or check-ins.
  4. The total price and how and when you invoice.
  5. The conditions: cancelling, rescheduling and stopping partway through.

Do you work with private individuals, as many life coaches and career coaches do? Then consumer rules apply. The ACM explains that a business must give the consumer the key information about the service, the total price and the duration. So a clear proposal is not only pleasant, it is also required. If you are unsure about your conditions, have them reviewed by a lawyer familiar with consumer law.

Don't want to start from scratch every time? With the free proposal generator for coaches you create a first draft based on a fixed structure.

Intake and agreements: the start of the programme

After your client's yes, the programme itself begins. This is the moment when many client journeys quietly become messy. The intake form goes by email, the answers end up in a PDF, the agreements in a notes app and the scheduling in your calendar.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) names making and maintaining agreements as one of the core competencies of a coach. This concerns agreements about the process, the practical matters, the goals and the role of the client. A good intake records those agreements, so you can look back at them later.

A strong intake usually contains:

  • An intake form with background, question and expectations.
  • A baseline measurement. An assessment such as a DISC profile or a Wheel of Life gives you both a starting point. At the end of the programme you can repeat the measurement and discuss the difference.
  • Concrete goals. Preferably phrased so that your client can tell for themselves whether they are making progress.
  • Agreements about accountability. Accountability here means: your client takes responsibility for their actions between sessions and reports back on how it went. Agree how often and in what way they do this.

Want to know what your current start looks like for a new client? Take the onboarding check for coaches. In a few minutes you'll see where it can be better.

During the programme: the sessions and the time in between

The sessions are the heart of the programme. Yet most change happens outside them: in the conversation with the manager that your client finally takes on, or in the new habit they keep up for three weeks.

Preparing and recording sessions

A client notices immediately when you know what was discussed last time. That only works with good notes. A handy fixed layout is:

  • Observations: what did you see or hear?
  • Insights: what became clear to your client?
  • Breakthroughs: where did something really fall into place?
  • Action points: what is your client going to do before the next session?

With that layout, even after ten sessions you can still trace when a particular insight arose. The guide on organising coaching clients explains how to keep per-client records clear.

Between sessions: follow-up and check-ins

This is where many programmes lose momentum. The action points are on paper, but no one asks about them until the next session. Then you only discover after three weeks that your client was stuck.

Short check-ins help. A few questions per week is enough: what have you done, what went well, where did you run into difficulty? This way your client sees their own progress, and you see in time who needs extra attention. Our practical guide on accountability contains example questions and rhythms you can use right away.

A fixed place for your client

Many clients search their email for that one assignment or that one document. A dedicated portal gives them a place where everything comes together: goals, progress, check-ins, assignments and shared documents. That feels professional and makes the journey visible. You can read more about this on the page about the coaching client portal.

Completion and aftercare: the phase most often forgotten

The final session is not an endpoint but a transition. A good completion consists of three parts:

  1. Looking back. Compare the baseline measurement with the current situation. What has changed? Which goals were achieved and which were not?
  2. Looking ahead. What does your client take away? How do they keep new habits going without you?
  3. Recording. A short final report helps your client read back later what they have learned. For corporate programmes it is also useful for the employer who is paying, though only with your client's consent about what it contains.

After that, the care phase from the marketing model begins. The KVK describes how in that phase you continue to support existing customers so that they return or recommend you. For a coach, that can be very simple: a message after three months asking how things are going, an invitation for a refresher session, or asking whether your client knows someone who would also benefit from coaching. This way the journey connects back to step 1.

Confidential data in every step

Look at the table above once more. In almost every step you collect personal information: an intake, notes about tension at work, an assessment, check-ins about sleep or stress. These are data that people do not just share with anyone.

Some of those data concern health, for example when a client talks about a burnout. The Dutch Data Protection Authority explains that processing health data is prohibited under the GDPR, with a number of exceptions. The GDPR is the European privacy law. Which exception applies to your practice, and whether you should even write such information down, is something to discuss with a privacy lawyer or privacy advisor.

In practical terms, you can at least:

  • Write down only what you really need for the programme.
  • Not keep notes scattered across email, chat and loose files.
  • Log in with an extra code alongside your password. This is called MFA (multi-factor authentication).
  • Conclude a data processing agreement with every software supplier that stores client data for you.
  • Think about what happens if things do go wrong. For example, read what you need to know about an insurance for a data breach under the GDPR.

Want to know where you stand? Work through the GDPR checklist for coaches. You'll see per obligation what the law requires.

How to map your own client journey

You don't need an expensive workshop. An hour, a sheet of paper and a recent client in mind are enough.

  1. Choose a real client. Take someone whose programme has just finished. This way you work with facts instead of assumptions.
  2. Write down the seven steps. Use the table from this article as a start.
  3. Note every point of contact per step. An email, a form, a session, a reminder, an invoice.
  4. Note which tool you used. Email, calendar, spreadsheet, chat app, text file. Many coaches are surprised by the length of this list.
  5. Mark the moments when it went quiet. Where did your client hear nothing from you for a week or longer? Where did they have to go looking for something themselves?
  6. Choose two improvements. For example, a fixed check-in after each session and a standard closing conversation. Starting small works better than everything at once.
  7. Ask your next client for feedback. After completion, ask which step was the most pleasant and which the least.

Want to know what all those separate tools cost you per year as well? Work it out with the calculator for your annual software costs.

Our view on the client journey of a coaching programme

We see that most advice about client journeys stops at the purchase. For coaches, that falls short. Your client does not judge you on your website, but on how the programme feels: whether they notice that you still remember the previous session, whether someone is keeping an eye on things when it gets difficult between sessions, and whether at the end they can see what has changed.

That is why we built Exantur around the coaching relationship itself, not as a general CRM. A CRM is software for keeping track of customer contacts, mainly made for sales. A coaching programme asks for something different: goals, notes, check-ins and agreements that belong to the right client and the right programme.

We are also honest about what software does not do. A tool does not automatically make your practice GDPR-compliant. Those choices remain with you: what you write down, how long you keep it and what you agree with your client. Software can make it a lot easier to carry out those choices well.

Martijn

A workspace for the whole journey

Exantur brings the steps from this article together in one place. Clients book online and automatically receive a reminder. Your calendar works in two directions with Google Calendar and Outlook, and Zoom is integrated. Intake forms, DISC and Wheel of Life, notes, goals, check-ins and assignments are kept with the right client. Your client has their own portal. You invoice through your own Stripe account, with no commission for us. Your data is stored in the EU, in Frankfurt, with MFA and a data processing agreement.

Plans start at Mini for €19 per month or €190 per year. Starter costs €49 per month, Growth €99 per month and Practice €199 per month. View all plans and prices or first read more about our practice management software for coaches. You can try Exantur for free.

Frequently asked questions

What are the steps of a client journey?

That depends on the model. The See-Think-Do-Care model has four phases: seeing, considering, buying and aftercare. For coaching we prefer to work with seven steps, because the programme itself is so important: being seen, considering, getting acquainted, intake, sessions, time between sessions and completion.

How can I get more clients as a coach?

Start with people who already know you: your network and satisfied former clients. A good completion and aftercare make it easy for former clients to recommend you. In addition, be visible where your ideal client searches, for example on LinkedIn.

What does a coaching programme cost?

That varies greatly depending on the coach, the type of coaching and the length of the programme. What matters more to your client is that the price is clear in advance. State the total price in your proposal, what is included and the conditions for cancelling and stopping.

How do I stay in touch with my client between sessions?

Agree during the intake how and how often your client will let you know how things are going. Short weekly check-ins with two or three fixed questions work well. This way you can see in time who is getting stuck, and your client can see their own progress.

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