The influence that consumers have today is certainly not surprising for the medical device industry. We have all witnessed the extraordinary impact of increasing consumer choice, while patients can easily share their satisfaction or frustration on review sites and social platforms.
For medical device manufacturers, the meaning is clear: success in a rapidly evolving environment depends on the ability to quickly and cost-effectively connect with patients at all stages of the design and development process. Those who do this will find that they can put customers at the center of their work, create better products, and turn patients into evangelists who are very happy to promote their brands.
The challenge is that it is still difficult to attract patients through traditional market research providers. Lengthy project time and fixed costs mean that medical device companies, especially start-ups facing more stringent restrictions, choose to abandon patient insights except for the biggest and most critical decision. Therefore, the design and development team must continue to advance without fully understanding the patient’s perspectives and preferences, leading to costly changes and frustrations, especially those related to the following considerations:
- What does the patient want? Being able to determine as early as possible that patients are excited about your product-on the contrary, no one is actually interested in the product your company plans to develop-determines the success or failure of the information. Why spend three months on a prototype to know that the market is not interested? Understanding the needs of patients allows designers to confirm the effectiveness of their product roadmaps through research that sheds light on everything from features that improve product performance (and thus customer satisfaction) to features that are most closely related to profit goals.
- Is the product really suitable for those who need it most? As part of the product design and development process, usability research plays an important role in collecting continuous customer feedback. On-demand patient insights enable the team to integrate usability testing throughout the development phase. One of the most valuable results of the more iterative research approach is that direct patient feedback clarifies internal debates about how customers will interact with the product. Often, it reveals functional issues that are not always obvious to design and development team members.
- What needs to be communicated? Effective communication provides a solid foundation for establishing and maintaining trust with patients. When device marketers skip research to develop a messaging strategy simply because they think the process is too time-consuming and expensive, they may implement communication that fails to educate patients on how to benefit from the product or service. On the other hand, those who use patient insights as an integral part of their messaging strategy will find that they can not only turn more patients into customers, but they can also turn customers into loyal fans of their devices.
- How can we maximize revenue? Whether the pricing strategy is for brand new products, bundling products, or responding to changes in the competitive landscape, ensuring that customer insights provide information for the pricing strategy is essential to increase revenue generation. For example, device manufacturers can increase product prices without knowing the patient’s perspective (only to find that the company is losing customers to competitors faster and in more numbers than expected), and device manufacturers can use insights in real time To measure the patient’s response to the proposed pricing change. Modifications can then be made to strike the best balance between the cost of the product or service and the fees that patients and insurance companies are willing to pay.
The emergence of solutions fills the gap in patient insight
For medical device companies that want to bring their innovations to the market faster and with lower risks, some emerging solutions have been created to fill the gaps. More specifically, the rapid research platform combines on-demand access to patient panels with intuitive self-service tools to prioritize quality results while reducing waste and inefficiency.
Since reaching the right patient is usually the biggest obstacle, when evaluating potential research partners, the design and development team should look for an existing community of high-quality team members. Most medical device companies and the organizations that provide services for them lack the resources needed to maintain this level of community, leaving them no choice but to start the long process of recruiting participants from scratch every time there is a market research opportunity— -And often in vain-to be identified.
A good rapid research platform will also be able to demonstrate how to use technology to ensure the quality of team members. This includes an automatically updated team member analysis function that can automatically confirm the accuracy of all patient standards. Active screening techniques can remove any team members who provide low-quality answers or inconsistencies or answer questions in a way that is meaningless given the individual’s current health.
When all team members (whether they are technicians or not) can easily manage the design, planning and launch of surveys, focus groups and usability studies through the platform, market research friction is further eliminated. Self-service components built around the end user provide additional support for iterative research methods, which in turn brings greater overall agility to the design and development process.
Finally, the ability to use key knowledge immediately after receiving a response is another defining aspect of a rapid research platform. Clear, automated reports reveal the insights needed to move forward or turn, more direct, complete the research cycle, and enable medical device companies to make better decisions to support improved products, businesses, and most importantly patients result.
Photo credit: Andrii Shyp, Getty Images
