How to collect Feedback
Collecting feedback is a foundational practice as a new coach, both as you develop your craft and establish your own coaching business.
From your very first day coaching it is a skill you can begin to implement and refine.
If you’re nervous about collecting feedback, start collecting it anyway. If you don’t want to hear the critical stuff, you’re missing out on something transformative. If they didn’t like your work for some reason they likely won’t return — wouldn’t you like to know why?
Trust me. You want to know.
Gathering feedback is NOT just about hearing praise and getting a testimonial - it is a powerful tool that will help you refine your coaching craft far more quickly than if you simply deliver without asking what people thought of the experience.
If it helps, consider this: you are not your coaching. You are part of your coaching partnerships, yes, but it’s not YOU you.
Treat your coaching like a cookie you’re trying to perfect, or a mug that you want to be ergonomically comfortable. The only way to find out what people think about it, so you can make those products even better, is to have them test them out and then tell you their honest reflections.
This is how our work improves and how we become more confident and skilled practitioners.
Even if you are still at a stage in your work where you’re offering “free coaching sessions,” I highly encourage you to shift to a “free in exchange for feedback” model.
One could argue, especially at the start of your coaching journey while you’re still getting your feet underneath you, that getting feedback on your process is more valuable than they dollars a client might pay.
Ten years into this journey and I still collect feedback as often as I can, after every class and throughout my longer partnerships.
Collect feedback early and often.
Below are all kinds of tactical lessons I’ve learned about collecting feedback over the past decade. I hope you find some of it helpful.
Take what works for you, leave the rest.
How to collect feedback
I personally like using Google forms. It stays organized in my Drive and is very user friendly.
In his article about building the perfect testimonial Jonathan Stark advises to send the questions directly in email. I have done this, too, but typically with 1:1 clients.
For group programs or classes, though, I always use Google forms.
What to ask
Google “best coaching feedback questions” and you’ll get all kinds of ideas. Seriously - they are not hard to find.
Tad Hargrave gave me the idea for, “on a scale of 1-10 what would you rate this class,” and, “if you didn’t choose 10, what would have made it a 10,” which I now use on almost all of my feedback forms.
I also like to include questions that give me a snapshot of what my client was experiencing before our work together vs. how they were feeling and behaving differently afterwards.
(If possible ask people about their pre-state BEFORE you do the work together. When someone signs up you can send them a quick welcome form to gather basic info and include a question like,“why did you sign up? What have you been struggling with that you hope we solve together? What would you like the most help with?” Sometimes when you ask that question AFTER you’ve done the work they are answering through a different lens than when they first joined.)
I think it’s fun to use contextual phrases like, “if your friend asked you what you thought of this class what would you tell them,” because it sets the stage for a more informal, and hopefully honest, answer.
I always like to ask some version of, “what could have been improved,” or, “was there something you expected that didn’t happen?” It’s very important to get constructive feedback like this.
“Who is this work NOT a fit for,” is a fun one. The answers to this can be directly added to your website on a, “this would not be a fit if…” list.
When asking about results, I like to find out how someone is, “feeling different as a result of this work,” and, “what are you DOING differently as a result of this work.” In this way I get language to describe both the internal/intangible and visible/external/tangible shifts.
At the end I always include, “can I use your responses to create a testimonial for on my website? I will run this by you before publishing. Both yes and no are perfect answers.”
Here’s the most recent feedback form I created for the Strengths for Coaches class l led on 9/22/22. Feel free to steal any questions you’d like to use on your own feedback forms.
When to ask for it
ASAP. Let people know from the jump that getting their feedback is part of the process, both to help them reflect on the work together and to help you refine and improve the partnership and process.
When teaching group classes I mention that I’ll be sending a feedback form while still on the call. You can include this mention as part of your intro or your outro.
During my last class I asked people to raise their hands if they agreed to fill it out. Just that simple, non-verbal commitment can increase chances that they’ll follow through.
Sometimes I share the link to the feedback form while still on the call. I ask everyone to open it up and not close the tab until they’ve submitted their thoughts.
You could also set aside the last five minutes for people to complete the feedback while still on the zoom call with you. I think about doing this but usually don’t end up with enough time. I don’t want people to feel rushed, and sometimes it just doesn’t feel right to end a call on this note. Experiment with what works for you.
More often than not I send the form via email within 24 hours of the call.
If you’re running a longer coaching partnership I encourage you to collect some mid-term feedback. This will help both your client to reflect on the work together so far AND help you recalibrate as needed to be sure the partnership is still serving them.
Here’s an example of a mid-term feedback form I sent in the middle of a 3 month Niching Compass partnership I was running in 2019.
Following Up
Not everyone is going to fill out the feedback form, no matter how much they love and appreciate you and your work. Please don’t take it personally. EVERYONE is asking for feedback these days, from how your grocery delivery was to what you thought of your last AirBnB stay.
Feedback Fatigue is real and as a business owner trying to collect some of your own just know you’re fighting an uphill battle.
I’m SUPER happy to get a 75% completion rate, though sometimes it’s closer to 50%.
That said, I like to assume good intent and not be shy about sending out a reminder or two. If someone hasn’t completed the feedback form after about 5 days I’ll send a gentle reminder email. 5 days after that I’ll send a final note and say something like, “hey there. I don’t want to become a pest so this will be my final note. If you have two minutes to share your thoughts about class that would be great — thank you!”
And then I let it go.
For my most current class I’m currently at a 40% feedback completion rate BEFORE sending out that first reminder.
What to do with feedback
First of all, soak in the good stuff. Really let the kind words sink in and bolster your confidence. Print out passages that really land and tape them up where you can read them often.
Second, let the more critical notes shape your work moving forward. Did they give you some good advice about how to make your program or coaching better? Thank them for their honesty and then integrate that into your future work.
Finally, if they’ve given permission for you to use their feedback as a testimonial you can do that. I like to copy and paste the responses into a new document and clean up the edges to make it readable. I never change the way someone describes the work or their responses — just things like connecting words, tense, and grammatical stuff like that.
Afterwards I will email the testimonial to the client and ask their thoughts or any edits they’d like to make.
If/when they give me the green light I will share it on my website or social channels.
Creative feedback ideas
💡 Earlier this year I polled my audience (non clients) to find out what questions they had about a membership community I was running at the time, Misfit to Maverick, and a course I was teaching about a tool I am certified in called YouMap.
I then turned those questions into a form and asked current members to share their honest answers, including to questions like, “who is this not a fit for,” and, “does this program have any weaknesses?”
From those responses I create a spreadsheet of answers (unedited) that I then sent back out to the coaches who were thinking about joining the program. You can check that out here for inspiration.
(while the specific programs in that sheet are now closed I continue the same work in both the fall class series and Tuesdays at Noon.)
💡You could also collect feedback from people who choose NOT to sign up with you. This information is deeply insightful and gives you a lens onto your work that you likely can’t see yourself.
Here is an example of a “why didn’t you sign up” form I sent out following a membership drive I ran for Misfit to Maverick. Take what works for you, leave the rest.
💡Collect feedback LIVE by taking a “temperature check” midway through a class or workshop. One of my favorite ways to do this is to ask for a “one word check in,” inviting everyone to share a word in the chat that captures how they’re feeling or responding to the material so far.
It gives you a very present-moment sense of how class is going.