Outsourcing virtual coaches for a diet club

[Tony Hughes]

I'm helping develop an online diet membership site and I'm trying to figure out the economics involved in having coaches.

My client wants the program to have "personal" coaches for each member. Their role is to create a nutritional plan (largely database driven), answer questions via email and provide motivation.

Does anyone have experience with this? My main questions are:

- How many members can one coach handle?
- Where do you outsource reliable coaches like this?
- How much does a virtual coach like this cost?

Obviously, a cheaper solution would be to have a big FAQ database, and then to have have a support line for questions that aren't covered there. But the hope is to have more of a one-on-one service.

Thanks,
Tony

[Bev Clement]

If you look at someone like Diet Plans and Weight Loss Programs you will find they have coaches who look after no more than 20 members.

What ediets do, is offer free membership to a select number of their members in return for them coaching people. It has worked and it is something they have done since the start of the site.

[Tony Hughes]

Hi Bev,

Thanks for the response. Doesn't ediets have to be careful about representing these people as coaches?

[Bev Clement]

Yes they do. They have some full time coaches on staff, who do the diet plans, and regular articles. They have members who are very carefully selected who work under the coaches and have limited amount of rights.

[Tony Hughes]

That's great information. Thanks.