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Med Device

Standing out in a newly crowded field

Qualitative research
Quantitative research
Concept design and testing

Have you woken from a nightmare only to realize it wasn’t a dream? Our client faced a real-life bogeyman scenario when a slick start-up with a cloud-based competitive product starting stealing key customers practically overnight.

Suddenly, a time-tested, feature rich, on-premises tool for monitoring heart device transmissions looked too mature—and possibly over-engineered—to customers looking for a cloud-based, streamlined offering. With heart clinics eyeing the new alternative, our client need to define a feature set for their new cloud-based app that their 4,000 remaining customers would migrate to instead of the competition’s. Fathom went straight to the humans impacted by the decision to tell us what that “goldilocks” offering should contain.

Protecting the base and expanding the territory

First things first: We needed to understand what critical features should be replicated in the new web app to both support retention and attract new contracts.

And, as these things go, we started to ask other questions. Was there a “lightweight” version of the solution that could be offered at a lower cost to attract a completely different type of customer? What is the smallest product that could still be useful, and how much would clinics be willing to pay?

Critical functionality versus “nice-to-haves”

With our eyes fully open to questions to answer, we went on a series of on-site “over-the-shoulder” clinician interviews to understand how today’s solution was really being used. We then dug into gathering end-users’ highest priority needs, the value they placed on particular features, and the appeal of four hypothetical product offerings.

Helping to turn dreams (not nightmares!) into reality, we developed an interactive prototype of lightweight and full-fledged versions of he product—as well as an in-app upgrade pathway experience. Showing the concept to current and potential customers, we validated what needed to be in the MVP (and vowed to never again prompt users to upgrade their software in the middle of their work).

Gearing up for market

Now, with a clear picture of what the future offering should look like—based on the real needs and preferences of the people who will use it—the team is poised to

  • Prioritize their development work to focus on the most critical features for the cloud-based solution.
  • Communicate the vision and pricing strategy to leadership and the field sales team.
  • Drive existing customers to the premium cloud version, and find new success through offering a lightweight option to some new customers.

“[Fathom’s]work has set us up to be successful. We understand our customers and the market significantly better now than we did six months ago, and we have the data to back up our assertions.”

Principal Product Specialist