Case Study: Systematizing Coaching Program Operations That Ran on Phone and Email, Cutting Operating Costs by About 80%

Overview

Coach Contribution Co., Ltd. runs a coaching business in which one coach guides multiple participants. Attendance checks, make-up sessions and schedule changes for its programs were all handled by phone and email, and the more participants there were, the more work fell on the operations staff. Participants, for their part, had no time to make phone calls during working hours and couldn't get their questions resolved quickly.

We developed "Coaching Cloud," a platform where participants can check, change and reschedule their own sessions, and the operations team can manage everything in one place. We also built in a way for participants to measure engagement and well-being in their workplace and track the changes in graphs.

Challenges

• Communication about attendance, make-up sessions and schedule changes was concentrated in phone calls and email, and operations became more strained as participant numbers grew
• Participants had no time to get in touch during working hours, and replies sometimes came the next day
• There was no way to confirm in numbers the effect of putting what participants had learned into practice at work

What We Did

• Developed a new platform used by four parties: the operator, the client companies, the participants and the participants' workplace colleagues
• Schedule management that lets participants check, change and reschedule sessions themselves, with reminders and rescheduling guidance sent automatically
• A mechanism that distributes engagement and well-being surveys and automatically aggregates and graphs the results
• Hands-on sessions, operating the screens together, to help users less familiar with IT get started

Results

• Phone and email handling was replaced by participant self-service, cutting operating costs by about 80%
• Participants can now check and change their schedules themselves outside working hours, such as early in the morning or in the evening
• Users said it is "easy to use, and schedule management is convenient" and "being able to see the results in graphs is wonderful"

Taking a First-Time System Development All the Way to Real Use

This was the client's first system development project. Through twice-weekly meetings, we listened to how their operations worked, organized "who does what, when, and triggered by what" for each of the four parties, and then aligned our understanding screen by screen using screen skeletons. Because both the problem and the users were clear, rather than testing small, we released it in a stable form from the start.

Even so, users unfamiliar with IT don't start using a system just because they hear "it's ready." We encouraged them through individual contact and hands-on sessions where we logged in and operated it together, and usage grew. We consider the scope of development to extend not just to building the system, but to the point where users can make full use of it. Since release, operations have continued stably without major screen changes.

Our Scope of Work

• Business process organization and requirements definition
• Screen design and visual design
• Design, development and testing
• Infrastructure setup
• Onboarding support

Client Information

Company Name

Coach Contribution Co., Ltd.

Business Overview

• A coaching business in which one coach guides multiple participants (a one-to-many coaching firm)

Frequently Asked Questions

Can we proceed even without any experience in system development? Yes. This was also the client's first system development project. We take the lead from organizing the business flow, and decisions are made while looking at screen skeletons, so what needs to be built becomes clear step by step.

Will users who are unfamiliar with IT actually use it? We kept the screens as simple as possible and, for those who needed it, supported getting started with hands-on sessions where we operated the system together.

Can a company far from us place an order? Yes. The client in this case is based in Fukuoka, and all meetings were held online.

Related Information

• Replacing phone- and email-based operations with a system → DX Promotion Support
• System development for training programs and schools → System Development

Related news

• Coaching Cloud released: streamlining coaching program operations and improving engagement
• Co-creation project begins on a coaching platform for operational efficiency and higher engagement

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