Medical Device Customer Insight and User Experience Research

Understanding Your Customers

As a MedTech or IVD manufacturer, you want to truly understand the challenges, drivers, and unmet needs of your customers. The only way to do that effectively is to connect with them directly.  By listening to their needs and concerns, you can tailor your offering to them. NAMSA can help you uncover the insights that will give you a competitive edge.

Your Assumptions About Your Customers and Their Needs May Be Incorrect

We see it all the time. When we interview medical device and IVD patients and users about product features they deem most important, it often differs from what the manufacturer thought was most important. Features a design engineer perceives to be important might not be a big deal to a customer, or may be missing altogether.

Often, clients that sell products into healthcare facilities ask us to conduct research about their target audience operates. We may, for example, interview front-line clinicians, clinical directors, department heads, or C-suite executives so we can uncover their pain points.

We Draw Out the Feedback Your Reps Will Never Hear

If you think your sales or customer service reps are your best source of customer needs intel, think again. If your device is used in hospitals or clinics, it may be difficult for the salespeople to actually speak to the end users. If you make a direct-to-consumer device or IVD, your customer service reps are generally only speaking with people that report problems or have questions, and even then, phone conversations are increasingly rare.

NAMSA’s customer research team can connect directly with your end users, drilling down to uncover the product improvements or operational insights that will distinguish you from your competition. We conduct our research using:

• In-depth qualitative phone interviews
• Quantitative user/patient surveys
• Focus groups

Is There Actually a Market for Your Device?

Not all clients come to us with existing products they’re looking to improve. Savvy companies look to NAMSA to conduct feasibility research about market needs before they start developing a new product. Sometimes the outcome of these market/user assessments is that the market is already well served by the products currently available!

Also, the economics need to make sense and it must be affordable for the health care system. NAMSA can test price sensitivity and develop pricing strategies to optimize your product launch.

Either way, these early insights can save companies a tremendous amount of money or help ensure that their new device will be well received in the marketplace.

Examples of Projects We Have Completed For Startups and Multinationals Alike:

• Primary research to understand the needs and challenges of cardiologists
• Understanding the current standard of care for breast cancer patients
• Asking Sickle cell disease patients which treatment options they prefer
• Gaining insights into Parkinson’s disease patient experience and journey
• Helping a client develop a new method to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease
• Building personas of oncologists to improve connections with them