Electronic Consultations: The New Art in Professional Services
Being social animals traditionally we have all relied on and stuck to in-person meetings and coffees to do business. Meetings have been our modus operandi for all our business interactions for the entirety of our professional lives. It is in meetings we detect subtle changes in body language, actively listen and exercise our professional judgement to drive business outcomes. With the rapidly evolving world of business, we need to evolve and update our communication strategies.
The concept of electronic consultations is barely a decade old and is still evolving. We have seen many businesses embrace this, largely out of necessity for many in recent times. The explosion of information at our fingertips and modern technology changing all areas of our super busy lifestyles has led to the quest for equal convenience in accessing professional services.
Below are a few professional services industries we have previously developed e-consultation solutions for that are set to boom from this new approach to client communication.
Healthcare:
E-consult was first used by primary care physicians to consult specialists over a decade ago. Phone calls were the norm, followed by video calls in recent times. As multimedia technology evolved GP’s were able to start sending pictures and visual artefacts for examination by a specialist. This proved popular in fields such as dermatology and orthopedics where visual prognosis is an important aspect of treatment.
These days the widespread adoption of digital health applications and smart wearables is helping to spawn innovative applications with e-consultation technology embedded. Patients can now connect with Health Professionals in more ways than ever before and electronic consultations are the final piece in the application puzzle for better patient connectivity.
The Australian government’s decision to expand Medicare rebates for video consultations with GPs in March 2020 has seen urgency among healthcare providers to now offer their services for patients to access from the convenience of their home. We are seeing this growing interest across the healthcare industry for this from Specialist Surgeons to Mental Health.
Law:
The legal industry has not been immune to the waves of disruption and innovation sweeping across the Australian business landscape in recent years. We have worked with a number of LawTech, LegalTech startups, as well as Law Firms to transform consumer’s access to legal advice.
Expert legal advice and quality legal information have been accessible in the palm of your hands for the last few years now. Most current offerings however still operate in a hybrid technology model where technology is used to support the in-person client relationship and is not the centrepiece of the client experience. Consumers are now seeking a completely digital client experience and electronic consultations are the key to unlocking these capabilities.
Applications with e-consult capabilities have helped consumers to access legal services that were not possible before in a much shorter time frame and cheaper price than ever before. For lawyers, the ability to offer e-consultations has dramatically increased the number of clients they are able to service and massively reduced business overheads.
Online Schools:
The need for on-demand quality education is higher than ever before with our constantly evolving business landscape. The advent of massive popularity in online learning started more than a decade ago with Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) providing unprecedented access to high-quality specialist learning materials from our desktops.
With video conferencing becoming the norm in our work lives it is no surprise that we have seen an embrace of virtual classrooms. This has been aided as much by cultural shifts in how we communicate in professional contexts as much as it has been by technological innovation. Now Academic Institutions globally are able to offer the same student learning experience to a raft of new students by building upon this technology.
A decade ago, the only way to get an MBA degree was to put your profession on hold for a year or two to attend classes on campus at a Business School. Now even postgraduate qualifications are being offered entirely digitally with virtual classrooms underpinning this strategy allowing students to attain qualifications from leading international institutions with flexibility like never before.
Fitness:
The fitness industry has always been at the forefront of innovation in consumer technology and now embedded video conferencing capabilities have changed the fitness industry as we know it. Consumers can now access personalised training services and a whole new level of connectivity with fitness professionals. E-consulting complements the ecosystem of fitness innovation we have seen develop over the years, including smart wearable devices and applications.
If you have any questions about implementing electronic consultation capabilities in your services, or if this sounds like something your team could use help with, feel free to drop me a message at hello@ideaqu.com.