Reliability of Coaches

Question

Dear Preplounge Team,

This is less of a question and more of a complaint. Honestly, though, I'm a bit frustrated by the lack of reliability of some of the coaches.

I bought a premium coaching package and before buying I specifically checked which coaches take part in the program. Given my background I wanted to make sure there are coaches available that can help me with my specific needs.

Although I had great interactions with some coaches, a significant share of the ones I contacted never responded. Others, when I requested a meeting for when their calendar said they were available, never rejected or confirmed the meeting letting me guess until the last minute of whether the meeting would take place. One even ghosted me in a confirmed introductory meeting.

I understand that coaches usually don't do this full time and have stressful jobs, but I just wish there was a better way of knowing which coaches are actually available (after all, I have a busy schedule myself). For example, a technical solution might be for a coach to actively confirm their availability for a given week and the availability to be displayed prominently on their profile. This would help prospective coachees a lot.

Please see this as constructive criticism on how to improve the preplounge experience.

Answer 1

Really sorry to hear about your experience. I can understand how frustrating that is. Speaking as a coach (and not for Preplounge), I’d say many of us are reliable, but there are also quite a few inactive profiles on the platform (that either have signed up a long time ago or as you say do it on the side). A good way to spot who’s really active is to check their recent posts and activity in the forum. That usually reflects how engaged they are with PrepLounge overall. Once you find the active coaches, the experience is usually much smoother.

If you still need help, very happy to chat!

Answer 2

Hi there,

Thank you very much for taking the time to share your experience so openly with us. I’m really sorry to hear that you had these negative encounters – this is absolutely not the experience we want you to have on PrepLounge.

We continuously encourage coaches to keep their calendars up to date or, if they prefer, to deactivate them when they are unavailable or organize their meetings through external tools (e.g. Calendly). We additionally offer an absence note option, which is particularly useful during vacation periods. Your feedback makes it clear, however, that we need to review and improve these processes to avoid situations like the ones you described.

As Lukas already mentioned, there are very active coaches and others who are less engaged. While it’s true that most coaches are not doing this full time, this should of course never mean that they ignore messages or confirmed meetings.

We recommend to candidates to exchange a quick message with a coach in advance to align on availability and to use an introductory call to make sure the collaboration is a good fit. Our coach ranking and sorting also factor in coach activity, so those who haven’t been active in recent days automatically appear further down the list.

Since your post was submitted anonymously, I would be very glad if you could reach out to me directly at contact@preplounge.com and share the names of the coaches with whom you had these negative experiences. This will help us to follow up internally, and I’m confident that together we can find a good solution for you.

Thank you again for your constructive feedback.

Best regards,
Charlotte - PrepLounge Team