Customer research & strategy for pediatric healthcare clinics to uncover caregiver motives for primary care provider selection
Brave Care| B2C | Mixed Methods Research | 2021
I led a 3-month customer research project for pediatric clinics when I was Senior Manager, Product Design & Research at Brave Care, a pediatric healthcare delivery company with brick & mortar locations across the U.S. This initiative was executed by myself and a Senior Product Designer.
Challenge
Brave Care expanded its service line from urgent care to include primary care but struggled with converting existing urgent care customers to primary care and acquiring new primary care customers.
Responsibilities
Recruitment
Protocol Development
Moderated Remote Interviews
Analysis & Synthesis
Quantitative Research
Strategy
Presentation
Outcomes
In-clinic Experience Pre Check-in Redesign
Check-in app software redesign to decrease time to completion for new customers.
Returning customers moved to verbal check-in to increase the speed of the check-in process.
Marketing Strategy to Increase Awareness of Primary Care Services
New print and media marketing materials focused on top value propositions: appointment availability, clinic location, child-focused experience, and friendly, compassionate staff.
Direct mail targeting families who had moved into geographic areas in close proximity to Brave Care within the past 6 months.
Clinic Locations
New strategy for upcoming clinic sites to target locations with proximity to adjacent services for families such as daycares and vet hospitals.
Increased visibility for signage for oncoming traffic.
Partnership Development with Insurers and Prenatal Practitioners
Initiative to contact in-network insurance providers to ensure Brave Care was added to their list of providers on their websites.
Increased outreach to practitioners who provide prenatal services (e.g. doulas, midwives, lactation consultants) to act as referral partners for expectant parents.
We presented this deck with research findings and strategic recommendations:
**Please note that I have obscured data and/or removed images or slides to protect PHI or internal data.
Big Research Takeaways
01: 56% of urgent care customers were unaware Brave Care offered primary care. Reasons included:
They had not visited Brave Care since the launch of primary care.
Participants attributed that staffing, branding, location, and search intent influenced their perception Brave Care did not offer primary care.
03: While only 41% of urgent care customers reported having a great experience with their current provider, they also did not report they were looking for a new provider.
One reason participants may not be searching for a new solution is because of the tenure of the relationship. Many participants reported having been with their PCP since birth.
02: Caregivers often converted to Brave Care for primary care because of inflection points including:
insurance changes
relocation
current provider moved or retired
03: Primary care converts reported the following as reasons why they switched to Brave Care:
Hours of Availability
Proximity to home
Exceptional staff
Great overall experience including smooth visit experience and child-focused care
PROCESS
Below, I describe the step-by-step process used to execute and analyze the research.
01 GOALS
02 PROTOCOL
03 RECRUITMENT & INTERVIEWS
03 ANALYSIS
04 DATA COLLECTION
05 FINDINGS
06 OPPORTUNITIES
07 SEEING INTO THE FUTURE
GOALS
The primary goal of the research was to understand what motivated caregivers to choose a primary care provider.
SECONDARY GOALS
PROTOCOL
I developed protocols for primary care and urgent care participants.
Sample Questions
Motivations & Influencers
How did you hear about us?
Why did you decide to schedule a visit with us?
Was there anyone else involved in making the decision to schedule the visit?
How would you describe your first impression of Brave Care?
Brave Care Experience
How would you rate your experience at Brave Care on a scale of 1 to 10?
What was the easiest part of your experience?
What was the hardest part?
Can you walk me through your process for scheduling a visit for both an urgent care and primary care appointment?
02 RECRUITMENT & INTERVIEWS
We interviewed 30 participants over Zoom recruited via email from our customer database.
Recruitment criteria: Participants who had been seen for a primary care or urgent care visit in the Portland Metro region within the past 6 months.
30-60 minute conversations
We interviewed Brave Care founders using the same protocol before interviews with participants to serve as a baseline for leadership’s understanding of customer motivations
03 ANALYSIS
We used a rainbow spreadsheet to analyze participant responses to identity themes and then quantified the feedback to prioritize findings.
DATA COLLECTION
We queried our database to verify if the demographic information we collected during our interviews reflected the larger Brave Care population.
FINDINGS
Brave Care customers had a lack of awareness of services and technology:
Only 44% of urgent care customers were aware Brave Care offered primary care services.
Only 33% of caregivers had used the Brave Care iOS and Android app to book visits and access medical resources. Of those users, only 56% had used the chat feature where parents could ask medical questions of healthcare staff.
Awareness vs Perception
Some participants also cited location, branding, staffing, and search intent all influenced their perception that Brave Care did not offer primary care.
LOCATION
The NE clinic is located in a shopping corridor. Respondents expressed a view that primary care offices are not located in these types of districts.
SEARCH INTENT & RESULTS
When we asked participants how they learned about Brave Care, 34% cited Google. We verified this behavior reflected the larger population through analyzing customer responses that were recorded during check-in. Because many first-time customers are experiencing a need for same-day medical care for their children for the first time, they are using a search engine to identify an option. Our Google business profile identified the clinic as an urgent care center.
STAFFING
Brave Care was primarily staffed by NPs and PAs. Some participants reported they associated primary care services with pediatricians.
OPPORTUNITIES
Utilize downtimes to bring awareness to services during in-clinic experiences
We added primary care messaging to the waiting areas, patient rooms, and digital touchpoints to promote primary care value propositions.
Large-screen TVs used to promote services.
UI added to iPad check-in experience.
Hard copy patient packet for all first-time customers with primary care details.
Consider location in new locations
14% of customers reported seeing the clinic in real life as the reason why they found out about Brave Care.
As a result, we decided to increase the size of the signage visible to oncoming traffic for locations set back from the street. Proximity to adjacent services for families is important for discovery (e.g. daycares, vets, etc.) This would need to be balanced against perceptions regarding only urgent care facilities being located in shopping corridors.
Use marketing channels to bring awareness
Email marketing campaigns sent to an existing database of customers
Direct mail
Updates to Google business profile
FINDINGS
Only 41% of urgent care customers reported having a great experience with their current primary care provider.
“I’m not going to say, like, there’s anything wrong with our current primary care. Its just that the feeling was different at Brave. The doctor was thorough, we weren’t rushed out...it was a warmer experience. ”
OPPORTUNITIES
Because only 41% of customers reported having a great experience with their current provider, Brave Care had an opportunity to create a differentiated product that exceeded current customer experiences.
SEEING INTO THE FUTURE
Some takeaways from customer conversations that would create a differentiated product:
Earlier hours (before 9am) to allow for caregivers to take kids in before school/work
Multiple services combined into a single location (e.g. combining dental and medical services or occupational therapy and medical services)
NEXT STEPS FOR RESEARCH
Brave Care also has clinics in North Carolina and Texas. Our next steps would be do continue research with participants in these geographic areas.