Intake questions that start the work before the first session

The first session with a new client is often half spent on things you could have known in advance. Where they are. What they want. What they have tried. What a good outcome would look like. An intake form moves that half hour to before the session, and does something else as well: it makes the client start thinking about the work before they sit down with you.

This guide is about designing one. The short version is eight to twelve questions, three question types, and a reading habit on your side so the answers are actually used.

What an intake form is for

Three things, in order of importance.

First, it starts the client thinking. Writing "what would make the next six months a success" is itself a coaching question, and the client answers it alone, without you in the room, which is a different kind of answer.

Second, it gives you a baseline. A one-to-ten scale on confidence, energy or clarity today is a number you can come back to at the end of the engagement.

Third, it saves session time. The facts: situation, history, constraints, logistics.

Most forms are built for the third purpose only. Build for the first, and the third comes along.

Eight to twelve questions

Fewer than eight and you have not asked enough to learn anything you did not know from the booking. More than twelve and completion drops; the client starts answering in fragments or stops. Ten is a good number. Fewer questions, each one worth answering, beats a long form.

Order them so the first question is easy and open, the middle carries the substance, and the last is a catch-all. People warm up.

Three question types and what each is for

Text. Open questions in the client's own words. Use these for the questions that matter most: the goal, the why, what has been tried, what a good outcome looks like. Four or five of your questions should be text. Give each a single clear sentence; do not stack two questions into one.

Choice. A list of options, one answer. Use choice for facts with a small set of answers: where they are in a process, how big their team is, how they heard about you. Two or three of these. Choice questions are fast and give you something to filter by later, but they cannot carry nuance, so do not use them for anything that deserves a paragraph.

Scale. One to ten, with labels at each end. Use scale for the baselines: confidence today, energy, how much of the week feels reactive, how clear the path is. Two or three of these. Label the ends in plain language ("Not at all" to "Very") so the number means the same thing to every client. The same scale, asked again at the end of the engagement, is the simplest progress measure there is.

Ten questions that work

Here is a set that fits most practices. Change the words to your own voice.

1. What would make the next six months a success? (text)
2. What is the one thing you most want to change? (text)
3. Where are you in that right now? (choice: just thinking, actively working on it, stuck, nearly there)
4. What have you already tried? (text)
5. How confident do you feel about this today? (scale, 1 to 10)
6. How much of your week feels reactive rather than chosen? (scale, 1 to 10)
7. What gets in the way most often? (text)
8. How do you like to be held to account? (choice: gentle nudges, direct reminders, let me come to you)
9. Is there anything about how you work best that I should know? (text)
10. Anything else before we start? (text)

The intake questionnaire template we publish uses this set, and it is also what a new coach finds in the intake editor on day one.

Required or optional

Mark the two or three questions you cannot run a first session without as required: the goal, the why, and the baseline scale. Leave the rest optional. A form where everything is required gets abandoned; a form where nothing is required gets skimmed. Clients fill in optional questions when they are good questions.

When to ask

Ask after payment and after the agreement, before the first session. At that point the client has committed, has time, and is motivated. In Commitment Coach the intake form is the third step of checkout, so a new client fills it in while they are already there, and the answers wait in their file. Asking by email a week later gets perhaps half the completion.

Reading the answers

The form is only useful if you read it before you meet. Build a small habit: the evening before a first session, open the client's file and read their answers top to bottom. Note the scale numbers. Pick one phrase from their text answers to open the session with. "You wrote that the thing in the way most often is Sunday evenings. Tell me about that."

A client who hears their own words in the first five minutes knows the form was read. That is the moment the relationship starts, and it happened because of a form.

Keep a version history

Your questions will change. After ten clients you will notice one question that nobody answers well and one you wish you had asked. Change the form, but keep the old version attached to the clients who filled it in; their answers were to those questions. The intake editor versions the form on each publish for exactly this reason.

What not to ask

Anything you will not use. Anything sensitive that you do not need: health, finances, relationships, unless your coaching is specifically about those and the client expects it. Anything the booking already told you. Long demographic blocks. Every question costs the client a little, so each one should be worth it.

You can read, download and adapt our intake questionnaire template. Start from it, cut what does not fit your practice, and add one question that is yours alone.