Every now and again I’m asked if CoachAccountable can be used to send messages between coach and coachee.  My thought process in responding usually goes like “Well, sort of: journal entries, session notes, action alerts, reminders, file sharing notifications… all kinds of messaging!”  But the real essence of the question is of course concerning more fundamental messaging, like an email.

Until now, my response has been to just use email.  Email is great, everyone gets it and is already set up to use it.  There’s no reason to reinvent that wheel within the context of coaching software, I figured.

It turns out there are a number of perks CoachAccountable can offer by way of a messaging system, perks that specifically support coaching relationships.

You can quickly contact your clients via in-app messaging OR via system email addresses.

Let’s look at how CoachAccountabe’s in-app messaging works.

Sending a message is just like composing an email, and either coach or coachee can message the other.  Here, for our example, coach is bringing down the hammer upon coachee (because people who are coached are up to big stuff, and sometimes get behind):

Dude, where’s my follow through?

Note the [loginLink], which means the email will send off to the coachee with a one-click access to magically log them in (let’s make it as easy and effortless to have them comply with our request, right?).

Coachee gets an email just as composed by the coach, plus your spiffy coach branding (makes the email stand out, reminds your coachee “Ah, this is a coaching email, coaching emails are important!”, and keeps your branding consistent):

Mmmm… pretty emails!

Coachee does his thing, logging in and acting upon your most actionable request.  When done, he can reply right back to you like a normal email:

The reply comes right to your email (OR as a text, if you’ve set your North American cell up and chosen that notification setting), keeping you in the loop:

Oh good, he’s not totally asleep at the wheel on this.

Back in CoachAccountable, the Stream on the coachee’s page updates accordingly as the communication unfolds, meaning that this exchange has been automatically captured in the growing record of your coaching happenings.  This is kinda cool right now, and very cool later (when review, reporting, and/or auditing become interesting and/or necessary).  As a bonus, coach can see when the coachee actually opened the email:

Prettier than the average inbox search, I reckon.

To recap, the benefits of CoachAccountable messaging between you and your clients (over conventional email) are:

• Super simple to send while within CoachAccountable, when coaching is your focus.
• Coaches can provide a magic login link for clients as part of their messages.
• Messages arrive with the coach’s branded style, looking sharp and differentiated.
• Coach is able to see if (and when) the client opened the message.
• Replies work just like regular email.
• The complete exchange (which happens via conventional email) is automatically documented and filed away in CoachAccountable, meaning it’s ripe for referencing later, for recall, documentation, auditing, etc. No searching through your various email addresses for that one message that you can’t quite remember the subject of.

Keep all your exchanges with coaching clients in one place – sign up for a free 30-day trial of CoachAccountable.