If you’re like most 7-figure coaches, you’ve probably experimented with using AI to understand your audience better. ChatGPT can help you build a buyer profile, optimize your copy from their point of view, and analyze survey results.
But – here’s what many successful coaches need to know when it comes to collecting real, valuable customer feedback:
AI cannot replicate real conversations with your audience.
It can get close.
It can do a verrrry good job of making you think you know exactly what is going on in your people’s heads.
But by the very fact that the answers it provides are based off of past information / data / sources, versus of the moment client intel…
When it comes to collecting customer feedback for your coaching business, AI cannot tell you what your people are thinking about right now.
It certainly can’t tell you what they love or hate about your offers, what you should be leading with, versus what you’d be better off just dropping.
It doesn’t know how you come across on coaching calls, or whether people feel like your support coaches are an adequate substitute for your magic.
And the thing is, when you’re running a coaching business at scale, those things matter.
They’ve always mattered.
But they matter even more now, at a time where your clients’ online conversations about your offer are playing a bigger and bigger role in future buyers’ purchase decisions.
I’m not saying you need to be led around by your buyers. As the CEO of a successful coaching brand, I know it’s your vision, your instincts and your hard work that’ve gotten you where you are today. I’m also sure you’ve learned on that journey that negativity travels farther and faster than positive reviews.
How to Gather Customer Feedback for Your Coaching Business
So what’s a 7-figure CEO to do if she wants to tune into the real conversations her audience is having about her offer?
Here are 3 different approaches to gathering customer feedback you can implement in your coaching business:
1. Survey Your Coaching Clients for Voice of Customer Data
^^ Start here if it’s been awhile since you’ve asked for any direct feedback from your audience
Sending a customer feedback/research survey to your existing buyers gives them the chance to let you know what’s going on in their lives, what they care about now, what they love / would love to see updated in your offers, and what type of support they’d like to have from you moving forward.
If you aren’t currently doing anything else on the backend, this is also the perfect way to get started with a segmentation strategy and start making personalized offers to your audience based on their responses.
Make sure to keep your survey under 11-12 questions, and have a good mix of multiple choice vs. open-ended answers so you can actually capture your people’s language without tiring them out or making them regret clicking through your form. See this blog post for more tips on how to get people to complete your forms.
2. Hire a Professional for Customer Research Interviews
Interviews with my clients’ customers has always been one of my favourite parts of my job because it blends my skills of deep listening, connecting with strangers, and spotting Golden Opportunities for you to make more money.
While you and your team, if you have one, may already be comfortable jumping on calls with your clients, this often presents the same challenges I outlined above: You’re more likely to hear positive responses because people don’t like giving bad news face to face. If there is something you need to know about, you’ll have a much better chance of actually learning what it is if you let someone else ask the hard questions.
On top of that, as a conversion copywriter with a deep understanding of both persuasion and human decision making, I know which questions to ask to get to the heart of the issue and how to turn that insight into copy that speaks directly to your clients’ dreams and desires.
My clients have always appreciated my talent to elicit valuable customer feedback for their coaching businesses—and seen how that insight translates into ROI:
“Katie has a thorough, reliable process for getting to understand your audience that I was incredibly impressed by.
What I love most about the copy Katie wrote is that it sounds like me! Or, more specifically, it sounds like how I interact with my clients. I can hear their concerns in the writing.
I’m an editor and researcher, so I’m very picky about language – it’s literally my job. Katie’s copy is so impressive that as soon as I saw it, I raised my prices by more than 25%!”
– Jane Jones, Book Coach for Academics
“Katie made the process of building out our funnels easy and clear. I felt she really understood my business and what I needed. She has a genuine, warm demeanor and she went above and beyond!”
– Janey Reilly, Founder and CEO of Wee Sleep
These days, we offer done-for-you market research interviews within the context of our retainer offer, Post-Sale Profit On Repeat, and The Signature Offer Upgrade.
3. Implement Customer Feedback Forms at 3 Key Phases of Your Customer Journey
Within any coaching offer, no matter the price point, duration or format, there are 3 key phases where you want to be soliciting customer feedback:
The beginning, the middle, and the end.
The Beginning AKA Activation: Find out who they are and what they want to get from your offer → This informs both your top-of-funnel marketing and offer refinements, as well as your segmentation strategy and the messaging you’ll send them moving forward
The Middle AKA Evolution: Find out how it’s going and what kind of future support they desire → This clues you into who might need additional support and/or who is already ready to upgrade to your next tier or higher-level offer
The End AKA Culmination: Capture their results and invite them to take the next step → This gives you social proof to support top-of-funnel conversions and makes it possible for you to personalize your next sales conversation to their specific needs
4. Use Behaviour-Based Surveys to Improve Client Retention
This is an undervalued but highly effective little trick when it comes to collecting in-the-moment customer feedback in your coaching business:
Use behaviour-based automations to send quick little 1-question surveys with those who exhibit specific behaviours that indicate 1) they’re about to cancel, 2) they’re superfans!, and/or 3) they’re ready for whatever’s next.
The intelligence you gather from these little surveys will help you refine your re-engagement strategy, invite enthusiastic clients to become referral partners or affiliates, and/or get people on a sales call so you can sell them their best next step.
Why All 4 Customer Feedback Strategies Work Best Together
You can use each of these strategies in isolation, but you’ll see the best results from doing all of the above.
Does that feel like a lot?
You’re not wrong—and I know your Customer Success person probably has enough on her plate without adding in all these moving parts.
That’s why we offer fully done-for-you implementation with all our offers, so that you – and your team – can stay focused on delivering exceptional results while we set up the backend systems that will increase profit without adding any more work to your plate.
“Is Gathering Customer Feedback Really Necessary for My Coaching Business?”
A coach I spoke to recently told me, “I don’t need feedback forms. I have 1:1 calls with my clients all the time, so they are constantly giving me feedback.” And that makes sense. Of course you’re listening to what your clients are saying, of course you’re constantly iterating based on you hear.
But here’s the thing about that approach:
Your clients shouldn’t have to spend time on their coaching call talking about your business – that call is for them, not you
You’ll only hear from the squeaky wheels. Assuming you’re interested in hearing a range of perspectives, not just from the extroverts in the room, it’s worth giving people a private, non-confrontational way to share their thoughts.
You’re much more likely to hear the good things. Of course people are going to tell you how much they love the program, how much it’s helped them, how their bookkeeper is amazed at how quickly their income has rebounded, etc.
But those quietly annoying UX issues? The way group calls can sometimes drag? The fact that it seems like there are a few people in the space who aren’t quite ready for the conversations that were promised?
^^ Those are complaints they’re more likely to keep to themselves—right up until they’re DM-ing their biz bestie about why they don’t plan to renew.
The truth is, it’s never your customers’ job to work to give you feedback.
That process should be as easy and friction-less as possible. Giving customers clear feedback channels helps them feel seen, heard, and valued, while giving you the opportunity to both upgrade your biggest fans into higher-level containers and get ahead of customer service issues before you become a reddit thread.
Next Steps: Turn Customer Feedback Into Revenue Growth
Learn more about the 9 Profit Levers inside your business’ backend by watching our signature, on-demand workshop, Profit without Pressure today.
Personalization has been proven to have a positive impact on revenue. For example, “80% of businesses report increased consumer spending (averaging 38% more) when their experiences are personalized” (Twilio/Segment via Contentful).
Watch my Hot Copy, Episode 4, The Personalization Paradox, to learn how to scale personalization without losing the human touch.
See all blog posts related to personalization here: https://postsaleprofitstudio.com/category/personalization/
Frequently Asked Questions About Customer Feedback for Coaches
How often should I survey my coaching clients?
Send automated feedback forms to your coaching clients at 3 key phases of their experience within your offer: the beginning (onboarding), the middle (progress check), and the end (testimonial capture). This gives you actionable Voice of Customer data without survey fatigue.
For more on what to do with the data you’re collecting, watch our signature, on-demand workshop, Profit without Pressure.
What’s the best way to gather customer feedback in a coaching program?
The most effective approach combines automated feedback forms at key milestones, quarterly research interviews with a subset of clients, and behavior-triggered surveys based on client engagement patterns.
For more on which questions to ask and what to do with that intel, watch our signature, on-demand workshop, Profit without Pressure.
Why can’t AI replace real customer feedback for coaches?
AI analyzes past data and patterns, but cannot capture real-time client sentiment about your coaching offer, nuanced emotional responses or unexpected insights that emerge from direct conversations with your current customers.
For this, you need to be having real conversations with real people. We can help you make the most of them. Book a 15-minute Fit Check Call here to discuss how.
How do customer feedback forms help coaches improve client retention?
Strategic feedback forms help coaches identify at-risk clients early, personalize follow-up support, and make clients feel heard—all of which significantly boost retention rates in coaching programs.
When implemented as part of The Post-Sale Profit System, feedback forms are used to personalize the customer experience and ensure upgrade offers and referral requests take that unique client’s experience into account.
This means you sell more without feeling spammy, and your upgrades feel intentional not over the top.
Find out if it’s a fit for your coaching business today with a 15-minute Fit Check Call. No pressure, no hard sell, just a real conversation about your business’ backend and how we could help you increase profit with automated backend offers.
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