Companies operating in the MedTech space often seek to create utility gaps—that is, they want to develop solutions that solve problems or meet needs that their customers may not even know they have. But how do companies go about developing such solutions? According to a recent McKinsey Value of Design study, many companies fail to conduct customer research before generating their first design ideas and specifications. Instead, they may rely on input from key opinion leaders and “power users”, – but this can lead to missing what average users need most. Let’s take a closer look at why customer research is essential for MedTech players.
Customer research is the key to understanding your target market’s wants and needs. Without such research, you risk developing products and services that don’t effectively address those wants and needs – thereby creating utility gaps. Through customer research, you can gain valuable insights into how people interact with existing products or services in your industry, enabling you to identify potential opportunities for improvement or innovation.
Customer research also helps you better understand who your customers are as individuals. By learning more about them, you can tailor your product or service offerings to meet the specific needs of your target audience. This is especially important when developing new technologies within the MedTech space; because these technologies can have life-or-death implications, they must be designed with end-users in mind.
Finally, conducting customer research allows you to get an early sense of which features will be most valued by your target customers and which features may be unnecessary or counterproductive. This enables you to make informed decisions about which features should be included (and excluded) from final designs, resulting in more effective product deliverables with a greater value for customers.
Conclusion: Medtech players must take the time to understand their customers if they want to create utility gaps and ensure that their product or service offerings are effective and successful. Conducting customer research before beginning development is essential for gaining insight into user behaviours and preferences – information that can help drive better decision-making when designing new technologies within the MedTech space. With thorough customer research comes an understanding of who your target customers are and what they need; this understanding will enable MedTech players to design innovative solutions with a greater value for end-users across a range of industries.