Consultancy Technology Outlook - #1

Consultants should scale fast, but clients first wish to research online before they engage in a sales conversation. Hence, the scope bot participates in an online client conversation about strategic issues and so boils down to what specific topic the client needs to address in his/her organization. A scope bot scales to many more client conversations than any consulting partner or sales director or -representative can handle: it delivers excellent new market information with unprecedented granularity and speed.

The Algorithm Engineer tweaks a chatbot to mimic conversations that a client would have with a consulting partner. This mimicry starts with a definition of rules (e.g., describing keywords that belong to specific offerings) and expands with the bot's self-learning capabilities. The better bot technology recognizes the client's intent (e.g., curiosity, inquisitive, buying intent) and maintains a certain coherence and tone of voice during the conversation.

Cars, jeans, sneakers, baby strollers: if it becomes just a little complex, these products have an online configurator. That part of a webshop where you can customize your products. Different wheels? Click! Another color? Click. Options? Click. Click. Click. So, the crossing from products to services is simple. Clients want to customize their services, just like their products. Amazon's Prime is a sort of pre-defined configurator that blends delivery options, service extensions, and discounts. And if configurators come to services, they will come to consultancy as well.

There are many best practices when it comes to designing configurators for products. Design for mobile-first. Don't start with an 'empty' product (too intimidating) but let the visitor remove and add options (sense of fulfillment and involvement). Offer transparent pricing consequences when eliminating or adding options. There is a tremendous first-mover advantage to be gained for the consultancy firm that harnesses the intricacies of service configurators for consultancy offerings.