In an increasingly digital world, adapting the way we live and learn has become essential. For most, that means getting efficient, long-lasting results for our efforts, through convenient modalities that suit our lifestyle.
Mobile coaching, also known as online coaching, has become an important way for both individuals and organizations who want to achieve their goals and improve their performance. Whether you’re new to the field or hoping to benefit from it, this article will show you how it works, and where you can get started as a coach or as a learner.
What is Mobile Coaching & How Does It Work?
Coaching describes “a collaborative helping relationship, where coach and client engage in a systematic process of setting goals and developing solutions.”[1]
Traditionally limited to in-person interactions between a professional coach and their client, or “coachee,” the purpose of coaching is to help clients learn, grow, and ultimately, facilitate their goal achievement.
Mobile coaching simply describes coaching in an online context, where exchanges, learning, and development take place through digital media and channels.
It can include:
- Live coach-coachee discussions through instant messaging, videoconferencing, or VOIP
- Interactive digital learning, through video exercises, homework, or online quizzes
- Goal-setting and progress tracking with mobile coaching apps or digital wearables
- Performance evaluation with reports, tracker data, or other metrics, and
- Ongoing support through email, SMS, or audio/video calls.
Should Coaches Use Mobile Coaching?
Whether you know it as e-coaching, remote coaching, virtual coaching, digital coaching, or mobile coaching, taking your professional services online can be an innovative way to adapt your professional services.
With the average person spending hours online every week, mobile coaching caters to an increasingly online generation.
In doing so, coaches can make their offerings more relevant, and more accessible, to a wider audience.
5 Proven Benefits of Mobile Coaching
There are many practical reasons to use mobile coaching, not least because:[2]
- With the average person spending hours online every week, mobile coaching caters to an increasingly online generation
- E-coaching is well-suited for mobile work, another growing trend
- Mobile coaching offers immediacy, which is a central element of client engagement
- It can be more cost-effective to implement than traditional coaching, with fewer direct and indirect costs, and
- Digital services are convenient and flexible, allowing coaches to support and guide others with fewer time-related restrictions and geographic restraints.
Convenience, cost-effectiveness, and other practical benefits aside, mobile coaching has further positive benefits according to researchers who have studied the approach through interviews with mobile coachees in different fields.
In business coaching contexts, for instance, online coaching can enable busy clients to access support at more convenient, appropriate times and locations, thus removing one of the key obstacles to accessing traditional business coaching,[3]
Another example relates to physical health, where mobile coaching has been shown to be as effective as in-person methods for promoting behavior change – such as improved diet, better weight management, and increased physical activity.[4]
What To Look For In A Coaching App
With the key success factors for effective mobile coaching in mind, choosing the right tools for your practice is much easier.
Generally, mobile coaching app features fall into two categories- tools for coaching management, and functions that help you design and deliver great content.
Coaching Management Features
If your main goal is to manage your practice more efficiently, some of the most useful features to look for in a mobile coaching app include:
- Online calendars, for client appointments and scheduling
- Billing and invoicing tools
- Payment processing capabilities
- Functions for insurance claims management, especially if you provide mental health coaching, and
- Client Portals, which facilitate file sharing and coach-client correspondence.
Course Design and Client Engagement
If you’re hoping to create unique, engaging content, share it with your mobile coaching clients, and measure progress, the best things to look out for include:
- Custom content creation tools, such as Activity Builders
- Program design features, e.g. mobile coaching apps that facilitate course structuring
- Private, online communication and file-sharing capabilities
- Live results tracking, and
- Client or patient engagement tools.
A little further on, we’ll show you exactly how these can be used in practice.
5 Best Mobile Coaching Apps To Try
If you’re hoping to simplify onboarding, improve your client management, or take the stress out of your admin, these mobile coaching apps include some of the best tools for professionals.
We’ve considered the most useful tools for coaching management, content design, progress tracking, and more when rating these apps – which are five of the best.
App | Details |
|---|---|
 | Quenza is an extremely versatile, powerful, and simple-to-use mobile coaching app for both seasoned and first-time online practitioners. It supports unique content creation, program sharing, progress tracking, and notifications for client engagement with its free customer apps. Starting with Quenza’s customizable Activity builder, professionals can design unique solutions such as courses from scratch or templates, with full multimedia support for videos, audio, and more. These can then be combined into entire mobile coaching Pathways, before being shared with clients. HIPAA-compliant with live results tracking, Quenza is a great patient engagement solution in healthcare contexts. |
| Name | Quenza |
| Price | $1+ monthly |
| Good For | Coaching Management, Patient Engagement Tools, Customer Relationship Management, Executive Coaching, Business Coaching, Mental Health Coaching |
| More info | Quenza |
App | Details |
|---|---|
 | CoachAccountable is a simple-to-use white-label platform capable of handling a whole host of administration tools, with features for invoicing, calendar management, onboarding, payment, and more. If you’re designing programs, this remote coaching app comes with some useful content creation tools such as multimedia uploads, file-sharing features, audio recording, and customizable templates. For professionals who work with groups, CoachAccountable’s includes client portals, public scheduling, and webinar tools. Bookings can be accepted from your professional website rather than the platform itself. |
| Name | CoachAccountable |
| Price | Starts at $20 monthly |
| Good For | Office management, Evaluating progress, Marketing Coach |
| More info | CoachAccountable |
App | Details |
|---|---|
 | Life Coach Office is a great coaching management tool for professionals who want to streamline the practical aspects of running a mobile coaching business. It comes with all the essential billing features, calendar management capabilities, bulk emailing, and team packages for multi-coach agencies. LCO is particularly good for business and executive coaches as it syncs with online appointment and notification tools such as Google Calendar, allowing clients to book quickly and easily. For those after a little further help with course material creation, the software includes customizable lessons. |
| Name | Life Coach Office |
| Price | $24+ monthly |
| Good For | Executive Coaching, Business Coaching, Coaching Management |
| More info | Life Coach Office |
App | Details |
|---|---|
 | Nudge Coach is a HIPAA-compliant, secure, and private mobile coaching platform that’s designed primarily for health, physical therapy, or fitness coaching. Compatible with an ever-growing range of wearables and tracking devices, Nudge Coach is a great way to track client progress using real-time data, and it even offers an easy-to-use client management dashboard that’s great for first-time mobile coaches. This popular app also includes customizable user programs, as well as useful forum, social group, challenge, and discussion features for teams. If you’re group coaching, these can be a unique way to build and maintain health engagement over time. |
| Name | Nudge Coach |
| Price | Free+ monthly |
| Good For | Health Coaching, Wellness Coaching, Physical Therapy Software, Fitness Software |
| More info | Nudge Coach |
App | Details |
|---|---|
 | A handy all-around tool for mobile coaches, 10 to 8 lets you accept between 100 and 600 bookings per month, making it a scalable solution to personalize per your business requirements. It includes appointment scheduling functions, in-app SMS and email messaging, and live telehealth support for mental health mobile coaching. Because 10 to 8 is designed as a telehealth solution, it is also HIPAA-compliant. This makes it a versatile tool for multi-provider organizations where coaches and therapists may be working together. One caveat is that this software is a browser-based app, and doesn’t come with mobile applications. |
| Name | 10 to 8 |
| Price | Free+ monthly |
| Good For | Mental Health Coaching, Wellness Coaching, Coaching Management, Health Coaching |
| More info | 10 to 8 |
Using the Quenza App For Mobile Coaching
If you’re new to mobile coaching apps, having a wealth of features at your fingertips can often seem overwhelming at first. But because they are designed precisely for your specialty, you’ll often find they can quickly become essential.
We’ll take a little closer look using Quenza, our top mobile coaching app recommendations.
Onboarding Clients
Taking new clients on is always a good thing, but often involves a range of paperwork. It’s why professional coaching apps frequently provide handy tools for creating and digitally sharing online forms.
Custom form creators such as Quenza’s Activity Builder allow you to build and send your own practice-branded Intake Forms, Coaching Agreements, Goal-Setting Templates, and even Patient Detail Forms for healthcare coaching:
Depending on your specialty, you might create similar onboarding templates for different clients – with customizable form creators like Quenza’s Activity Builder, these can be designed much faster.
Designing Course Content
Whether you’re creating coaching exercises, assessments, or lessons, these custom form and activity designers will be highly useful.
Using the same drag-and-drop tools, for example, Quenza allows coaches to build the unique content that forms the basis of any mobile coaching journey:
Once created, these Activities can be saved as adaptable templates or shared as-is with clients through a private portal on Quenza’s free client apps.
They may be assembled into entire programs, which is where Pathway builder and other program design tools come in handy within mobile coaching apps:
Here, our coach has included assessments, goal-setting exercises, and a behavior diary as part of a mobile wellness coaching program. Using their coaching app’s Pathway tools, these can be scheduled for delivery in a logical order, or they can be sent manually.
Tracking Progress
Results tracking and performance management tools come in handy by giving you insight into how your clients are progressing with your coaching program.
In many good mobile coaching apps, these tools provide real-time insights into whether a client has engaged with your content, as well as their results:
On viewing this Quenza Dashboard, for instance, our example coach might want to send a notification reminding their client to open and complete their pending Activities.
By digitalizing intake sessions, course content creation, and results tracking, mobile coaching apps can greatly reduce the time that professionals spend on admin tasks – while giving them more in-depth insights into client engagement, growth, and outcomes. While they may seem confusing to new mobile coaches, they can quickly become valuable time-saving tools that greatly improve the impact of your interventions.
Final Thoughts
Mobile coaching is more than a more efficient, effective way to achieve the same positive behavior change in your clients – in fact, it can open up a whole wide range of new opportunities.
Whether your professional goal is to improve others’ mental health or facilitating their life goal achievement, there are now many great apps designed specifically for your business. Hopefully, this guide will get you off to a great start.
We hope you enjoyed these insights. To turn what you’ve learned into better results for your clients, don’t forget to check out our $1 month of Quenza, our mobile coaching app for professionals.
Quenza is created by professional online coaches and will equip you with everything you need to deliver professional mobile coaching, so that you can help others unlock their own unique potential more effectively.
References
- ^ Losch, S., Traut-Mattausch, E., Mühlberger, M. D., & Jonas, E. (2016). Comparing the effectiveness of individual coaching, self-coaching, and group training: How leadership makes the difference. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 629.
- ^ Ribbers, A., & Waringa, A. (2015). E-Coaching: Theory and practice for a new online approach to coaching. Routledge.
- ^ Fielden, S. L., & Hunt, C. M. (2011). Online coaching: An alternative source of social support for female entrepreneurs during venture creation. International Small Business Journal, 29(4), 345.
- ^ Bus, K., Peyer, K. L., Bai, Y., Ellingson, L. D., & Welk, G. J. (2018). Comparison of in-person and online motivational interviewing–based health coaching. Health Promotion Practice, 19(4), 513.
