A club coach wants someone to talk to the squad before the season. A distance runner wants to know what to eat the morning of a race. A teenager's parent wants help with weight and their sport, which is the enquiry that needs the most care of all.
They arrive through the same contact form and need three different responses.
Step 1: separate individuals from organisations
An individual wants a consultation and a plan. A club wants a squad session, screening or a season arrangement, usually with a budget and a committee. Asking which at first contact routes the enquiry correctly and stops a club being quoted an hourly consultation rate.
Step 2: publish the formats you offer
One-to-one consultations, follow-up reviews, squad workshops, season-long support, written plans and competition-day guidance. Naming each with a fee lets both an athlete and a club treasurer see what they are buying.
Step 3: capture the sport and the level
A sprinter, a rower and a club cyclist have entirely different requirements, and a county-level teenager differs from a recreational adult. Capturing sport, training volume, level and what has prompted the enquiry gives a practitioner something worth reading.
Step 4: capture timing around competition
Athletes enquire before a specific event. Knowing the date determines whether meaningful work is possible or whether the honest answer is to wait until after it and prepare properly for the next one.
Step 5: never answer an intake question
Athlete: What should I be eating before a long ride? Assistant: That depends on your training, your body and your event, so a practitioner needs to work it out with you. The consultation page explains what a first appointment covers, including fuelling around training and competition, and the fee. Could you tell me your sport and when your event is?
Step 6: handle supplements with particular care
Athletes ask constantly about supplements, and competitive athletes face testing rules with serious consequences. A website should explain that supplement discussion happens in consultation and point to official anti-doping guidance rather than naming products.
Step 7: route weight and eating concerns to a person immediately
Weight-related enquiries, especially about young athletes, can involve disordered eating. A website must not discuss weight targets or restriction at all, and should route these to a practitioner promptly.
Step 6b: handle parents of young athletes carefully
A parent enquiring on behalf of a teenager is asking about a growing person in a competitive environment, which raises considerations no website should touch. Capturing the age and routing to a practitioner experienced with young athletes, rather than answering anything, is the only safe handling and it is also what a thoughtful parent is hoping to find.
Step 8: quote clubs properly
Club work needs a proposal with squad numbers, sessions, travel and duration, which is the same pattern seen in sports clubs and membership enquiries out of season and across membership organisations generally.
Step 9: keep the boundary visible
The limits set out in what a nutrition website must never prescribe apply identically here, and intake capture follows nutrition consultation enquiries and what to capture first.
Step 10: be available when athletes are
Training happens early and late, and enquiries follow. Answering at six in the morning is the difference between capturing an athlete and losing them to whoever replies first.
Getting started
Publish your formats, fees and what a consultation covers, then capture sport, level and event dates at any hour. SpideyChat for clinics answers from your published pages and never gives nutrition advice. Try SpideyChat on your own site, or read about capture on the features page.