Given what’s happened with COVID, given the changes that have happened in the way we coach now, it was important to find a platform versus just getting on to WhatsApp or Zoom or whatever video calls to do my coaching sessions.

So I discovered Simply.Coach and then I decided I would use it for a while as a test and it works just fine. So without taking away from the capabilities of the BetterUp platform, I think the platform that Simply.Coach has built is almost as good, if not better, then what BetterUp has to offer, which is saying a lot and BetterUp has invested a lot in their, sort of, building out their platform and everything else.

So why, what’s the benefit that I got out of using Simply.Coach as a platform for us to do our coaching practice on? There’s three or four things that kind of stand out for me.

It’s user-friendly for someone like me who’s terrible at technology. There’s ease of use. I can navigate through it without getting really caught up and, “Oh what do I do next?”

It has most of the features that I need for my practice. If I look at it, I think in some ways, it’s over-engineered for my practice right now. There’s a lot of features that I do not use. So this could have been a stripped down, much simpler version and it would have still worked fine for me.

But I’m glad it’s there because at some point in time, as coaches, we are going to keep adding to how we manage assignments, etc, and it becomes a big help to us.

I think it’s got Simply.Coach has got a robust support system and I’ve found people being very responsive. Every time I’ve raised a query, I’ve had a question, someone’s got back to me, more often than not well within the two-hour deadline. That is the normal sort of response time. So someone does get back, which is great.

There’s a lot of patience in responding to my questions because again, it’s built out for dummies like me who don’t want to get into the articles, read the stuff, all the links; I do it occasionally, but more often than not I just want to talk to somebody and get an answer and move forward.

So it’s great that I get those responses. I like the fact that they are constantly improving, adding new features, putting in new stuff, because it shows a commitment to us as coaches. It also tells me that we are being heard. So I think that’s really important for me as a coach.