Consulting businesses have typically operated on an offline basis, but digitization shows no mercy and makes no exceptions. It is past time for the consulting sector to embark on a digital transformation initiative.
In this post, we will discuss the process of creating a website for online consultations with clients. We’ll go over the development process, potential hazards to watch out for, and costs associated with it. Continue reading to learn more about software for consulting businesses, or skip to the conclusion to get an estimate of the approximate development costs.
Table of Contents
How consulting industry will be in 2022
In the business world, consulting is an umbrella term that encompasses services from a wide range of industries. For example, we can find professional consulting in the areas of financial services; management; healthcare; and legislation. The demand for consulting services is increasing as a result of the emergence of new company niches, much like wildflowers in the spring.
In spite of the fact that different consulting firms and trade associations gauge industry success in different ways, it is clear that the consulting sector has experienced fast growth since 2008’s global financial crisis. According to Consultancy.org, the CAGR of the management consulting market fluctuated between 18 percent and 30 percent prior to the outbreak of the pre-pandemic.
At the same time, the consulting industry was particularly hard hit by the consequences of COVID-19.
This sluggish expansion has the potential to result in the industry’s demise. One explanation for this is that the consulting industry was not ready to transition to a remote model.
Traditionally, consulting has placed a strong emphasis on providing a personal touch and engaging with clients. Many large consulting businesses take great pleasure in their personalized approach and in-house developed methods. This results in a reluctance to embark on digitalization and transformation initiatives.
Prior to the pandemic, there was a lot of hostility to digital transformation in the consulting sector, which made putting changes in place difficult. However, today’s reality is forcing all businesses, including consulting, to evolve, and the consulting industry is no different.
How is the consultancy market is getting changed?
The consulting industry used to be dominated by large corporations that provided a wide range of services in practically every discipline of consulting. That has changed. Such businesses were able to attract the top specialists and, consequently, the best clientele. As a result of this predicament, consulting services became too expensive for many small and medium businesses, making them unaffordable.
At the same time, the rise of startup culture in the 2010s resulted in a significant increase in demand for reasonably priced consulting services. This provided a window of opportunity for specialty consulting firms to increase their prominence. In spite of the fact that the general picture for the consulting business appears grim during the COVID-19 economic slump, smaller specialist consulting firms have managed to develop at a rapid pace, according to the research.
This phenomenon is straightforward to comprehend. Large — and often venerable — corporations continue to be adamant about not changing. Smaller businesses that were started and raised in the digital era are changing much more efficiently.
Small consulting companies are benefiting from an increasing emphasis on specialization rather than delivering services in a wide range of niches, which is a trend that can be attributed to their success. New and expanding markets necessitate a more targeted approach, which small businesses can provide by focusing on a specific area rather than having a broad knowledge base.
Of course, none of this implies that major firms will be forced to close their doors forever. However, when the situation calls for it, they act quickly and are participating in the digital transformation process alongside the rest of the corporate sector. In contrast to the consulting industry of twenty years ago, the consulting business today is more diverse and offers more opportunities for specialty consultancies to thrive.
What is business models for the consulting industry
If you wish to create an online consulting platform, you have a number of options to choose from:
- Corporate website
- Marketplace
- SaaS platform
The functionality that your platform will require will be determined by the business model that you select.
Corporate website
For consultants and consulting firms, a corporate website serves as a business model for them. The majority of organizations that provide consulting services in any field already have a website, since it is necessary for engaging with existing and future clients to do business.
In reality, many of these websites serve solely to provide information about services and to provide clients with brick-and-mortar addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses so that they can contact the company directly.
A modern corporate website for a consulting firm must be much more than just a collection of pages with information. The functionality that is required will be discussed in greater detail in the section following.
Marketplace
Unlike traditional consulting markets, a consulting marketplace is not always owned by a consulting business. When independent consultants want to connect with clients who are looking for their skills, they can do so in a marketplace.
A marketplace will require separate features for consultants and clients, as well as an admin panel that allows the marketplace owner to monitor and manage platform activity on his or her behalf.
SaaS solution
Software as a service (SaaS) product owners rent or sell their software to businesses that require the functionality supplied but do not have the time or resources to develop their own platform. Even while the software provider keeps ownership of the original code for a white-labeled SaaS product, businesses that purchase it have the ability to brand it to represent their own brand.
A SaaS solution varies from a marketplace in that it is typically fully adaptable to the user’s specifications. SaaS solutions are utilized by organizations and individuals that are building their own personal brands.
How to develop an online consultation portal
As a starting point, we’d like to provide you with an overview of the website building process for online consultations in this part. The specifics of some sections may differ depending on your individual circumstances or the company you select to outsource your project to. You will, however, have a broad sense of what to expect if you follow this guide. So without further delay, let us begin…
1. Make a comprehensive outline of your idea
If you provide software developers with as much information as possible about your idea, the less time it will take them to establish a sound development plan.
Advisory services are a diverse sector with numerous sections, each with its own target customers, legal requirements, and other unique characteristics.
Are you developing a web-based platform that will allow doctors to do online consultations? telemedicine has been progressing at a rapid speed even before the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus pandemic.
Alternatively, perhaps you’d like to make room for experts in modern management methods, as well as those who provide financial, legal, retail, or real estate advice? Specialists in digital transformation are in high demand these days, as are other types of professionals.
Next, decide on the type of company plan you want to pursue. Are you constructing a platform for your consulting business or a solution that you will make available to consultants all over the world? Would you rather design and sell a SaaS platform for consultants, or would you rather build a marketplace and watch it diligently?
Having a clear picture of what you want will help your chosen developers focus their efforts on research and find the most appropriate solutions. You may not have your idea down to accuracy, but having a clear picture of what you want will help your chosen developers focus their efforts on research and find the most appropriate solutions.
2. Make your budget
In large part, your choice of an online consultation software development business will be determined by your financial constraints. There is a wide range of pricing available from developers all over the world. Because of this, you must first determine an approximate amount of money you can invest before deciding who would handle your project outsourcing.
Keep in mind that certain technologies may incur additional costs and that unexpected changes can occur – such as the introduction of new technology, changes in the market, or even new changes, therefore we recommend that you have a financial cushion.
Alternatively, you do not need to make immediate plans to invest millions of dollars in order to benefit from the opportunity. A number of strategies exist for dividing costs into smaller parts, generating early revenue from the platform, and gaining valuable time in order to effectively locate investors.
3. Choose the right developers or company
As soon as you’ve sketched out a rough picture of your end aim and established an approximate budget, it’s time to hire a development team to turn your consulting platform concept into a reality.
There appear to be an infinite number of software development businesses available nowadays, making the decision to choose one a difficult one. Here are a few pointers:
- Choose organizations that have previous experience in the development of online consultation websites.
- On websites such as Clutch, you can read real customer reviews.
- Reduce your list of potential vendors to a manageable quantity, and then contact each of them individually.
- As companies for a preliminary time and cost estimate for constructing your portal, compare them to your budget to discover which ones work best for you.
- Take into consideration time differences and language obstacles (while most coders are fluent in English, it’s always a good idea to double-check ahead).
- Choose a company that appears to be the ideal fit for your needs after taking all of the factors into consideration.
- Signing a contract as well as a non-disclosure agreement is essential (NDA).
4. Research for your product
It is critical to establish the following elements in order to build a successful platform:
- Who is the intended audience?
- Competitors
- One-of-a-kind value proposition
- There are advantages and cons to each.
- Marketing channels that are most appropriate
- Metrics of performance
- Sources of revenue
- Estimates of both fixed and variable costs
Before you begin looking for developers, you can undertake your own study into the consulting field that you have chosen. Most software development businesses, on the other hand, will provide you the opportunity to participate in a discovery process with their professionals as well. Market research conducted with the assistance of developers can yield additional information, so we recommend making use of the possibility.
The discovery step typically consists of numerous substages, such as filling out a Lean Canvas with information from the market and competitive studies, verifying concepts, and developing user personas, among others.
5. Prepare your business plan
Once again, you have the option of doing this before or after entering into a contract with a development business. A business strategy serves as a road map for navigating the sometimes-unpredictable path that is software development.
A well-crafted business plan will assist you and your team in developing a rational and consistent development process, setting priorities, managing analyses, and avoiding many pitfalls.
Changes to your business strategy are possible, and it is likely that you will do so as you work on establishing and maintaining your consulting platform. If you want to get where you’re going as quickly as possible, it’s critical to have a clear vision of where you’re going.
6. Develop an MVP
Those companies that use Agile and Lean processes will provide you with the choice of building a minimal viable product or a variation of it. Similar to a soft launch in game development, an MVP is the introduction of a product at an early stage of development that contains only basic features and a distinct value proposition to attract customers. The following are the reasons for launching an MVP:
- In order to measure the level of interest among users
- In order to gain objective feedback
- In order to uncover bugs, legitimate users must be recruited.
- Marketing campaigns are launched and evaluated based on their results.
- In order to increase brand recognition
- To begin generating income as soon as possible
Because software development is a time-consuming and expensive process, developing an MVP gives you the opportunity to determine whether your consulting platform is in demand as is or whether you need to make changes to it. Sometimes the data acquired from the MVP can lead to a complete redesign of the product as a result of the findings. However, the finished product has a higher probability of being a success in the end.
7. Marketing Strategies
Creating marketing campaigns for your consulting platform will help you to become more visible and attract more customers.
Because you’ll need to execute marketing campaigns for as long as your platform is operational, it’s critical that you choose the most effective marketing channels to invest your resources in.
What types of marketing channels are available to firms that provide advisory services?
Physical and digital publications
A lot of people consider consulting to be a serious business. Not that other businesses aren’t serious — but when it comes to a life or death scenario, people opt to hire consultants (sometimes, quite literally).
Visiting a doctor concerns one’s health; visiting a management or finance professional concerns the survival of a company, and visiting a lawyer can have far-reaching implications for both persons and corporations. We, therefore, search for consultants first in respectable magazines when we are looking for them.
Advertising in magazines such as Forbes or specialized analogs, medical and legal periodicals, or aggregators that produce reviews in the niche in which you consult are all options for promoting your company’s services. Being mentioned in such publications will help to increase the visibility of your consulting platform.
Professional forums
Forums may be a very effective method for advertising your consulting services, both to potential clients and to other consulting professionals.
For example, if you’re developing a marketplace platform for consultants, you might consider offering the platform’s services to specialists who frequent professional forums. Creating an online consultation platform for your consulting firm allows you to assign some time or a specific expert to offer advice in forums while also promoting your own consulting services (say, in their credentials).
Mailing list
You can purchase a list of email addresses from firms that collect them — with a particular emphasis on lists of people who are looking for consulting services — and launch a targeted marketing campaign with the addresses on the list. Instead of obtaining lists of those wanting consulting services, you can send emails to individual consultants and consulting firms using this method, which is also appropriate for a SaaS consulting platform.
Search engine advertising
As an alternative to enhancing your platform’s content for better search capabilities, you can purchase promotional space from search engines to ensure that your platform is listed at the top of search results pages.
Social media advertising
Every day, people spend hours on social media — and in the new epidemic reality, they spend even more time than they did previously. Every social media network, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram, is a legitimate location to promote professional services today. Even TikTok has evolved into something far more than a kind of entertainment.
Influencer marketing
The use of influencers to advertise entertainment offerings may appear to be the most appropriate use of this strategy. In recent years, however, with the expansion of social media and the phenomena of influencers, it appears that this channel may be used for almost anything. Reach out to people that are active in your industry and discuss the possibility of advertising your consulting platform with them.
8. Check your product’s performance
Following the launch of your marketing initiatives, unit economics can be used to determine the potential profitability of your product at an early point in its development. Unit economics enables managers to evaluate the worth of a single platform user based on the number of times they utilize the platform.
The lifetime value of a customer is calculated as the product of the average cost of conversion multiplied by the average length of time the customer has used your service. When you split the cost of a customer acquisition campaign by the number of clients acquired, you get the customer acquisition cost.
You can use unit economics to examine the performance and prospective profitability of your consulting platform, as well as to develop more effective marketing tactics, among other things. For a business to be profitable, the LTV must be greater than the CAC.
9. Continue developing and upgrading your platform
You should return to development after you have evaluated your MVP and marketing performance, if necessary. You can now make more mindful and sensible decisions if you have access to relevant data. From this point forward, the life of your platform will be a continuous cycle of data-driven changes, marketing initiatives, and analysis of the results.
Key features for online consultation portal
A significant part of the creation of your online consultation website will be determined by the business model you select. Marketplaces require a different set of functionality than SaaS applications and corporate websites, despite the fact that the latter two may have significant overlap. In this section, we outline the characteristics that are applicable to all three business models, as well as some characteristics that are specific to each of them.
Features any consulting portal needs
Onboarding.
Understanding how consulting portal works may not be straightforward for everyone, and clearly explaining how your service operates to your clients is critical to your success. Make your onboarding process concise and simple to grasp.
Profiles
Both consultants and clients require a place to save their information in order to facilitate future interactions. Customers will find it beneficial to be able to immediately access the profiles of consultants with whom they work, and consultants with whom they work will find it good to be able to quickly access the profiles of their clients.
Chatbot
In addition to automating fundamental operations like finding a consultant, booking a consultation, and navigating the platform, chatbots also have the potential to automate more complex jobs.
Online Payments
The ability to make payments on-site is far more convenient than transferring money via bank transfer.
Knowledge base
A knowledge base is a must-have for any legal consulting business, and it can be useful for any services that require professional guidance. A free-to-access library of proven material on the issue on which you consult will improve the reputation of your service and increase the number of repeat customers.
Calendar/booking functionality
It is important to give consultants the ability to plan and manage their sessions.
Means of communication
One of the primary motivations for implementing digital transformation in consulting is to make it feasible to avoid the traditional process of contacting to book meetings and physically meet with the consultant.
Instead, users and consultants must have the opportunity to communicate with one another over the internet. This will necessitate the use of the following items:
Messaging in a direct manner
Calls on the phone
Video calls are available.
File-sharing services
Messaging in a group
Keep in mind that, because consulting entails the exchange of a great deal of sensitive information, all communication must be encrypted at all times.
Accessibility layout
Accessibility is a current trend in web construction, and it would be a significant benefit in a consultation website, particularly if it was intended to serve as a medical consultation platform.
Additional features for a consulting marketplace
The types of markets that you can create for your consulting firm are as follows:
Customers are invited to come as guests on a web platform where only consultants can sign up and exhibit their credentials as well as their means of communication outside of the platform.
A platform where you can connect both consultants and their clients right on the website is something you should consider.
The first type is a straightforward website that functions similarly to any other marketplace. The second type will really necessitate the development of three independent applications that will be linked together via a back end:
- A platform for independent consultants
- A forum for persons in need of consultancy services to connect with one another.
- An administration panel to keep track of and manage everything.
Each of the three applications will require its own set of features. In addition to the characteristics described above, consultants will require the following:
- They should be able to demonstrate their professional credentials.
- A dashboard with the ability to leave comments (to take notes for each client)
What Clients will require:
- The option to follow/additionally add specialists to some sort of “favorites” list.
- Possibility of leaving ratings and comments/reviews on a website
Because marketplaces tend to attract fraudulent conduct that manages to avoid monitoring, it will be necessary for both clients and consultants to have the ability to report or flag people.
More features for a SaaS consulting portal
A conventional SaaS product is a service that allows a company or an individual to use without having to build their own website or application from the ground up. But when we’re talking about B2B SaaS goods — as opposed to B2C SaaS products such as Google Drive or WordPress — it’s more appropriate to refer to SaaS white-label solutions.
In technology, the term “white-label” refers to platforms that a buyer or subscriber can tailor to suit specific needs and to highlight their brand, and then use without mentioning the source code’s owner.
The capacity of your product to be customized in terms of both style and functionality will be critical if you choose to go with SaaS online consultation website development as your option.
In addition, a SaaS platform will need to provide your customers with access to technical support and training materials.
Data safety
Consulting is a business that deals with a lot of sensitive material all the time. As a result, when considering how to create an online consultation website and selecting your developers, you should pay particular attention to their knowledge and experience in data protection technologies.
If you want your platform to be used in the European Union, it must comply with the GDPR, which stands for General Data Protection Regulation. As part of this law, all websites and mobile apps that gather any type of personal data are monitored and managed. The United Jurisdictions has a number of laws that are similar to these in several states, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act.
Developing online consultation websites for doctors is subject to a separate set of rules, which is mandated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which protects health information in the United States.
The data security requirements in each jurisdiction where you plan to establish your consulting platform will need to be researched in advance.
Cost to build an online consultation portal
The cost of developing a consultation platform is determined by a variety of factors.
- Do you have any ideas about what kind of platform you want to build?
- What kind of features does it have?
- Is this a web-based platform or a mobile application?
- How quickly do you require it to be completed?
- Do you want to incorporate any high-end technologies or features into your project?
Features such as video calls and top-of-the-line security systems may be more expensive and time-consuming to integrate into your platform, but they will undoubtedly make a difference to your clients’ experience.
The cost of developing an online consultation website will be different from the cost of developing an online consultation application, as well. Mobile applications have historically been more expensive to produce than WebPages. Smartphone’s, on the other hand, is now used more frequently than desktop computers and laptop computers.
On the other hand, depending on the results of the target audience study, it may be determined that a web-based platform is a more appropriate alternative for consultation. Alternatively, you may discover that having a web platform as well as iOS and/or Android apps is the ideal option for you.
We typically choose one medium — a web platform or an app — when offering to construct an MVP since it has the greatest demand and has the greatest ability to provide us with the most feedback. Later on, when the first platform begins to generate cash, you can utilize that money to fund the development of additional apps.
Additionally, good servers and a back end are required to support features that need data to be saved in an account and synchronization between devices.
Overall, we believe the cost to develop a consultation website will begin at approximately $25,000. Expect to hear estimates starting at $10,000 for each platform if you decide to go with a mobile app as your solution (iOS and Android).
Conclusion
Because so many individuals and businesses have been affected by the epidemic — not only in terms of health but also in terms of finances — the consulting industry is expected to grow in the aftermath. In addition, new types of enterprises are springing up all the time and they require aid to get started. Consulting services adapt and evolve in response to changing market conditions. A highly profitable niche can be found in this industry.
As consultants, our specialists at Mind Studios keep up with the latest consulting trends and advances, as consulting is a market in which we operate. Furthermore, we have extensive experience in designing apps that include encryption and high-end capabilities such as secure messaging and phone conversations, which are vital for a modern consulting firm to operate.
You can contact us if you have any questions about online consultation website design and development, would like to receive an estimate for a custom consultation platform, or if you have any other questions after reading this post.
Thanks for reading our post “Online Consultation Portal Development-How to Develop?”, please connect with us for any further inquiry. We are Next Big Technology, a leading web & Mobile Application Development Company. We build high-quality applications to full fill all your business needs.
