Since March of 2000, (www.eTherapistsOnline.com) we have been
Online Therapy
providing to the public a pool of well qualified clinicians; mental health professionals who have at least 10 years post graduate experience, provided 6 personal and professional references that attest to their qualifications, “exhibited strong professional skills including a personal interview with a top clinician and management of our company, and in general have made it though the most rigorous screening process of any online therapy site we know of.
It has been extraordinarily rewarding to watch our “experiment” in online therapy grow at a rate we’d never dreamed would happen to where we are now one of the oldest, most established and most publicized online therapy sites online today.
We have conducted a few surveys with our clients over the years, but our most recent one is the one I find most interesting, at least right now. We asked our clients what were the top five reasons they shoes online therapy over seeing someone in office and feel the results are so interesting we wanted to share them with you.
Our research was informal and consistent only of a follow up email to 200 past clients who had purchased a session for the first time within the last 6 months asking them to share with us the top 5 reasons for selecting online therapy.
The results are as follows:
# 5: Availability — People cited that the therapist they wanted to see was available within the next 2 – 5 days as a reason for seeing someone online. Their comments indicated that this window of time, 2 – 5 days was extremely important and they felt that contact with a professional was more important than where the contact took place.
#4: Ease of Use — respondents cited the ease of use of the site as the 4th top reason to select online therapy vs. in office therapy. A frequent remark was that there was little effort to “sell” them on this form of therapy which they liked “Lack of pressure to buy” something was a typical response from respondents.
#3: Price– The cost of sessions was reason number three given. They thought the range of prices from ($39.95 for 1 email to $85 for 1 60 minute chat or phone) was affordable enough to see if this would be a helpful way of “seeing “ someone and over 72% said they purchased an additional session even though we did not ask for this information.
#2: Intake Process – While many people complained that the intake process was long, they also felt reassurance that this was “a legitimate” site; “real professionals” and “ethical licensed professionals” if they were asking this much detailed information beforehand. Credibility, while not using that term, seemed to be the reason they were identifying.
#1: Skill level of the professional – We post an extensive biography of each therapist on the site and the fact that qualifications was cited was not surprising to us, al thought it was surprising that it was the number one reason. Because most of our professionals have at least 15 – 20 years post graduate experience and they write well (as demonstrated in their bio) seems to be an important indicator for those seeking therapy. This lends support to my belief that clients who seek therapy online tend to be more professional, highly educated group of people who are looking for convenience and quality in making a decision about what type of service to purchase online and where to make that purchase.
It was a fascinating experience to review the clients’ comments. While we do not have any plans now for future surveys, we will be conducting some as we go on. We do not present this in any way as an attempt at a “scientific study “so we will not respond (mostly for time’s sake) comments critical of the methodology we used. Our goal here is simply to share information we found interesting. All comments and suggestions are welcome.
Visit us online for online therapy here
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