Online personal trainer website: the intake form

A stranger who wants to train is often a little embarrassed. They have been away for years, or they are heavier than they want to be, or a knee still aches. The trainer's page wants all of that before the call, in a long form that starts with injuries and surgeries. The visitor cannot tell whether the call is free, what happens on it, or whether anyone will judge them. So they close the form. The trainer reads the form as the first step of a process. The visitor reads it as a medical questionnaire from a stranger.

• On a phone, can a stranger see a call time without filling in a single field?
• Does the page say whether the first call is free and how long a call lasts?
• Does the intake form ask for injuries or medical history before the call time?
• Does the booking screen show the time zone the call is in?
• After the call is booked, does a confirmation email reach the visitor's inbox?

A stranger rarely arrives at the call booking first. They land on the homepage from an ad or a search, read the headline and scan for a photo that looks like them. Then they go to the program page, where the difference between online coaching and a gym is either explained or assumed. Only after that do they reach the button that says book a call or apply. On a phone that button may sit under three long paragraphs, which is a lot to read before a stranger knows what a call is. Open the site on your phone and count the screens before the call button is visible.

Coaching intake forms often borrow from clinical forms, because the trainer wants to be careful. The visitor reads them differently. An intake that asks about past injuries, medication and surgery before a call time looks like a screening, and a stranger may not trust a screening from a business they have never met. The fix is mostly order, not removal. If the answers would change what the trainer does, keep the questions and move them after the call is booked. If they would not, cut them. Tell the visitor in plain words who reads the answers and what changes because of them.

The call booking is often a widget loaded from another company's site, and it can fail on a phone, show a blank box or list times with no time zone. Coaching clients are often in other cities or countries, so a call shown at seven in the morning with no zone can be booked for the wrong hour. Open the booking on a phone, read the first available time aloud and ask which zone it is in. Then check that the confirmation email shows the time and the zone too, because that email is the one the visitor will look for.

The first run shows where the call button gets buried or where the form starts asking about health. The fix moves a button or a question, and the next program page, a new calendar tool or a new coaching offer can move it back. Send the same visitor through after each change, then through the call booking from a phone set to another time zone. Repeat it before you spend on a new ad.