PROJECT OVERVIEW
A company had acquired a portfolio of disconnected pet care brands.
They wanted to create a seamless pet parent experience, leveraging AI to do so.
CONTEXT
Salesforce Ignite team
Large, matrixed org
TIMELINE
Phase 1 — 5 weeks ・ Phase 2 — 2 weeks
ROLES
Lead strategist and researcher
client management, strategy, research design, planning, recruiting, research, synthesis
Executive meeting design and facilitation
RESEARCH METHODS
In-depth surveys
including video responses
CUSTOMER HYPOTHESIS
They could increase revenue by bringing together the data across their brands.
(Note that their hypothesis had nothing to do with the consumer experience.)
The customer was focused almost exclusively on the technical work to create a unified location for data … without thinking much about how they would use that data.
The Sales team brought us in to help the customer focus on the pet parent’s needs — the Sales team hypothesized this would help them sell more in the short term and have a more satisfied customer in the longer term.
RESEARCH QUESTION
Would physicians be willing and motivated to recommend the big box store?
RESEARCH APPROACH
Interviews with
primary care physicians,
endocrinologists,
cardiologists,
nurse practitioners,
& nurses
Secondary research (and my own past experience interviewing physicians) suggested this would be a very tough sell, but the customer was hopeful that there was an angle.
To parse the opportunity that might exist between the gaps in the secondary data, we conducted video interviews with key provider types.
Intro — Session overview + provider background
Appointment journey — Overview / confirmation
Device discussion — Their current experience
Benefits card sort — Potential areas of value
Benefits ranking — Most important areas of value
Real-talk check-in — “If a company could provide the benefits you prefer, would you recommend them?”
Concept rating — Very low-fi concepts showing mechanisms for the patient to know about the offering
Unaided brand question — “Who could do this?”
Brand sort — Including our customer … who could do this?
Real-talk wrap-up — “With the benefits and brand you prefer, would this realistically make it into your workflow?”
SESSION FLOW
REALITY
Physicians almost uniformly did not want to suggest a place for patients to get devices.
There were two opposing reasons for this.
They found it unnecessary.
They didn’t think patients needed support and didn’t think it mattered where patients got devices.
— or —
They didn’t want to outsource it.
They used device selection to build rapport, wanted to control what patients learned, or were able to provide device samples (for CGMs).
The one provider who was interested was highly tech-forward and hands-off — an unusual combination.