Having better visibility helps in planning the moves ahead. Visibility paired with insights, makes decision-making simple. This release on the platform brings new capabilities, and is very strong at bringing information to the fingertips of clients and coaches.

Coach matching has always been a powerful tool on the platform. And it has just taken a huge step in terms of bringing additional capabilities to clients. Algorithmic coach matching is here, and will help to make the matching experience a delight for coachees on the hunt for the perfect coach.

Additionally, the content from Coaching.com's Summit is becoming more and more integrated with the software. If you are interested in knowing whats coming up in next months summit sessions, look no further than the feed on the Programs page.
​

In This Release:

Coach matching is fantastic for enabling clients to find the right coach match. It also offloads a lot of burden from administrators to make individual matches. But one area has needed improvement, and it is the client experience.

Previously, a client would be presented with a pool of coaches that would be displayed in a randomized order. It can be a daunting task to start sifting through the coaches to find matches to book interviews. The missing element is presenting the coaches in a ranked order based on preferences. And here comes algorithmic coach matching.

Algorithmic coach matching also helps to further reduce the workload for Administrators. Now administrators can create less rigid pools. The algorithm will help to elevate the best coaches for the client. Whether the focus is on an industry like real estate, or a specialty like emotional intelligence, or a geography like Spain, algorithmic coach matching can help the clients find the best matched coaches for their needs. This feature is available for Premium and Enterprise accounts only.

Coachees who enter into a coaching matching engagement with algorithmic coach matching will have a new experience. Now at the top of the Coaches tab is a Algorithmic Coach Matching Wizard.

Once the coachee clicks on 'Get Started' they will enter into a series of questions that will ask for their preference. The sequence of questions are illustrated below.

The Wizard Start page is just an informational page to inform the coachee of whats to come.

The Leader Level section page allows for the coachee to self-identify their role in their career. This selection maps to the coach's "Target Audience" in their profile.

The following table provides how the leader levels are mapped to the "Target Audience" designated by coaches within their profile.

The Type of Coach page list coaching types that directly match the "Coaching Types" section on coach profiles.

The Industry page lists industries, and matches with the "Industries" that coaches select within their profiles.

The Areas of Focus page directly matches to the "Specialties" section on coach profiles.

The Experience page breaks down the "Years of Experience" section on coach profiles into buckets with a 5 year range.

The Meeting Location page matches to the "Modality" section on coach profiles.

The city/country page maps to the coach's settings related to their location in the profile. Direct city matches will rank higher than country matches.

The Language page maps to the coach's language settings in their profile.

The Final Screen lets the client know that their input is complete and that the ranked list of coaches is on its way.

Coaches are then displayed after the client submits their answers. Coaches will be sorted based on their match to the clients preferences. Coaches at the top of the list will include a 'Top Match' badge.

There are a few rules applied to the Top Match badge designation based on the number of coaches in the pool. After the algorithmic wizard input, the Top Match badge will be applied to:

Even after the ranked results. The page still contains a filter where the results can be refined even further. The ranking order of the coaches will be preserved with filters applied.

The client has the option to open the algorithmic matching wizard again and change preferences if desired. This option is available at the bottom of the results.

Administrators can easily turn algorithmic coach matching on and off from with the Coach Match Settings. There is a new checkbox that allows for it to be enabled, as shown below.

There are additional tools for administrators to supervise the algorithm and also view the coachee experience. From within the engagement on the Coaches tab, administrators have a new toggle that will allow them to experience the client view of the algorithmic coach matching experience. If the toggle, as shown below, is flipped, then the client experience will be displayed.

A new feature in the Coach report is providing visibility into the completion status of coach profiles. This new data is helpful for administrators who are tracking coach onboarding. The new report metrics also really help to understand why certain coaches may be ranked higher by the algorithmic coach matching wizard.

First, there is a summary metric for 'Profile Completion' that looks across the profile attributes to provide a % complete metric.

Preview of the Profile Completion Metric in the Coach Report

There are 9 different coach attributes that are used in the algorithm. The value shown in this column of the report shows the completion status overall for the following attributes on the coach profile:

Additionally, the details of the attributes above are listed as columns in the same Coach report:

In most cases for these attributes, the number of options that the coach has selected is what is displayed. For example Coaching Types above shows a value of 2. This means that the coach has self-selected into 2 of the different coaching types for their profile. The only columns that display the actual values are Gender, Years of Experience, and Timezone.

When booking a session the Session Confirmation dialog has been upgraded in terms of the design to provide a better information architecture, and to also bring more attention to the Session Topics and the Topic Details sections of the dialog. This should help in gathering more feedback prior to coaching sessions about topics of interest. This can be especially helpful in On-Demand coaching engagements.

Overall there are no functional changes, just an improved user interface.

Now available on the Programs & Events page is a new feed showing upcoming Coaching.com Summit sessions. This new feed is fantastic for staying in the know on upcoming though leader sessions, and is an excellent chance to gain some learnings from experts. The Programs & Events page is accessible from the administrative home page, as seen below:

Once on the Programs and Events page you will now always find Summit sessions that are coming up in the days and weeks ahead.

Clicking on one of the tiles will take you to the present's page where you can find out more information about the session.