Corona 19 is bringing about a big change in the business model as it advances the untact era. Face-to-face industries and services are rapidly becoming non-face-to-face. The role of the online platform as an on-tact that connects the disconnected market has become more important.
Among them, Naver, Koreas leading online platform, is approaching new opportunities especially for small and medium-sized businesses who are not familiar with digital business. The ‘Smart Store’ created by Naver has become a marketplace where anyone can easily and conveniently sell products, and Naver’s one-to-one knowledge iN platform ‘Expert’ has turned experts in various fields into knowledge retailers. In response, Digital Daily directly meets with various industries, markets and small business owners to look into how they use Naver in the untact era. <Editors Note>
[Digital Daily Correspondent Lee Anna] “One of the things I’ve dreamed of for a long time was to provide a ‘visiting counseling service’. Naver Expert, who provides counseling on the topics that clients want to talk about at any time and without restrictions, seems to have become the means to achieve such a dream in the end. Those who were uncomfortable meeting face-to-face and talking about their problems sometimes feel more comfortable with the non-face-to-face method.”
Due to the prolonged Corona 19 crisis, major changes in daily life such as restrictions and boredom of outdoor activities have occurred, and the demand for psychological counseling within Naver Expert, which provides one-on-one counseling services, has also increased. As of the end of last year, when looking at the proportion of psychological counseling by topic, psychological counseling focused on comfort and healing, such as the “Heart Clinic for Me,” accounted for 37.8%. This is an increase of 192% compared to the previous year. Non-face-to-face counseling is also available for problems such as MBTI testing, resolving dating problems due to social distancing, and difficulties in raising children at home.
This became an opportunity for clinical psychologist Han Ji-won <photography>, who conducts counseling on mental health to meet a wider range of clients. Han is a clinical psychology expert with 10 years of experience in psychological evaluation and counseling since 2011. He is currently working at a university hospital and mental health clinic, where he spends his personal time meeting clients through Naver Expert. He had been mainly providing group counseling on game addiction at university hospitals, so he thought carefully before participating in Naver Expert, which is conducted non-face-to-face, such as over the phone, as an expert.
After that, I gathered up the courage and joined Naver Expert in April 2020. Mr. Han said that he was able to meet a lot more diverse people here, and he was able to continuously develop the counseling process suitable for the non-face-to-face environment. If it is determined that offline counseling is essential in non-face-to-face counseling, a clinical psychologist at a nearby hospital is recommended.
Mr. Han said, “There were some people who came because they were the direct cause of Corona 19, such as being hospitalized with their family in the corona ward or homesick for foreign students living abroad. People who have it come to hear how they can deal with it,” he said.
He explained that Naver Expert lowered the barrier so that individuals can more easily connect with a counselor about their concerns about whether to go to the hospital or not. Although there are online video consultations, the reason why the proportion of voice consultations is high was analyzed to mean that there is a lot of demand to share problems without revealing themselves.
In particular, Mr. Han worked hard to design a program so that offline psychological counseling could be successfully transferred online. A typical example is ‘recovery maintenance counseling’. He said, “Even if counseling is safely concluded for a long period of time, there are times when you get into trouble again as you go through your daily life. constituted,” he said.
It is also true that non-face-to-face psychological counseling is different from offline counseling. A characteristic of face-to-face clinical psychological counseling is that it approaches the clients core problem slowly. The purpose of this study is to explore the main issues and the way in which they came up with the idea in general. On the other hand, in non-face-to-face sessions, counseling is focused on providing “solutions” as there are many clients who are looking to put out a fire that has fallen on their feet right away. Checking is also important because it is not possible to check whether the client is satisfied during the counseling process.
Han said, “At the end of the non-face-to-face consultation, there should be time to check what was helpful and if there is anything you want to hear, and it is also necessary to reorganize the contents of the consultation. The only difficult part is that we have to do all the inspections,” he added.
However, Mr. Han pointed out that the biggest advantage of Naver Expert is that clients can consult at any time they want, regardless of place or time.
“The best thing is that I can consult with people who are quarantined with Omicron, and even office workers who have difficulty making reservations for hospital consultations because they have to work nights and weekends, and mothers who are busy with childcare can consult at a seat. In the end, I see it as an out-of-the-box counseling that is centered on the client. On days when I can afford it, I sometimes conduct counseling in the morning according to the clients’ time.”
Mr. Han said that his future goal is to “lower prejudices and barriers to mental health issues.” Regarding mental health issues, there are still feedbacks such as ‘It’s a mental problem’ and ‘It’s because I’m weak’. Its not strange to lower this threshold to receive mental health treatment at a hospital, and they want psychological counseling to feel close to you, like taking medicine and getting help when you catch a cold.
He said, “When I receive a questionnaire and receive counseling, many clients ask me questions such as ‘Am I not strange?’ and ‘Is this kind of counseling possible?’ He continued, “There are a lot of people who come to me with panic symptoms, but I hope to become a person who lowers their reluctance to drugs and hospitals and makes them feel comfortable with psychological counseling.”
