Healthcare Service Design
Repositioning a brand in the alternative healthcare landscape and rethinking it's service and experience delivery across all touch points
Project Overview
The healthcare space for alternative medicine in India is saturated with multiple narratives promising varied value propositions. One would come across an entire spectrum of messaging and brand narratives for alternative medicine, ranging from luxury and exotic to street and miracle.
In such a scenario, the voice of the brand, that we were working with needed to differentiate itself from the chaos and reflect its unique values of being evidence based and creating patient-centric journeys through its offerings.
ABOUT
Design Strategy and Experience Design
TIMELINE
February 2020 - June 2021
LOCATION
India
KEY STAKEHOLDERS
Brand 'X' of this project, their key stakeholders, on-ground teams and consumers (both current and prospective)
Context
This project was a client brief I worked on in my role as an Associate Strategist at Open Strategy and Design. Open is one India's most awarded brand consultancies that uses strategic and design interventions to help businesses achieve new growth trajectories. A well established player in the alternative healthcare sector with over 80 clinics in the country and a digital presence across the globe wanted to re-imagine it’s brand, positioning and experience.
I was involved in the strategy and experience design where I conceptualised and created new frameworks for experience design, which radically impacted in the way we captured information, ideated and presented our outputs.
Process
Phase 1a: Discover and immerse
The first step of working with a business with such a vast ecosystem was to develop a top level map of all their different offerings and the back-end functioning in place to support the delivery of the different brand and experience touch points.
This intensive research involved interacting with top-level stakeholders in the system, as well as individuals who managed smaller units of the business and service delivery. This led to a clear understanding of different stages a consumer journey and the different moving components involved to cater to that experience.
Methods - Expert chats, primary research with stakeholders, systems maps and customer journey maps
To further develop our understanding of the brand experience, we conducted ethnographic research interacting with the diverse consumer base. We met with consumers from various socioeconomic backgrounds, cities, health journeys, and usage histories, including those facing challenges. This immersive field research was integral, as identifying patterns in consumer mindsets and gaps in experience delivery laid the foundation for strategy and experience design.
Methods - Ethnographic research, field interviews, design research
Phase 1b: Consumer Chats
Well performing clinics
Incomplete patient journeys
Incomplete patient journeys
Underperforming clinics
Successful patient journeys
Clinic in a different geography
Successful patient journeys
Successful patient journeys
Incomplete patient journeys
A representation of the diverse sample set of and interviews conducted
A crucial component of this project entailed reviewing the brand's physical and digital presence. We conducted on-site audits of both well-established and underperforming clinics and service segments, while pandemic restrictions necessitated additional online audits via Zoom.
By capturing audit data within a sensory experience framework mapped to the customer journey, intensive maps unveiling journey pain points were derived. This immersive mapping facilitated targeted evaluations of each sequential touchpoint interaction and revealed opportunities to optimise the brand experience.
Methods - Field research, customer journey maps, experience design evaluation framework
Phase 1c: Experience Audits
Well performing clinics
Underperforming clinics
Clinics in a different geography
A representation of the customer journey map and experience audit framework used to capture sensorial cues at each point in the journey
The research from previous phases played a pivotal role shaping the strategy and informing brand positioning. Additional factors like an in-depth understanding of the health sector, consumer roadblocks, and a study of emergent brand messaging trends were also instrumental in devising the positioning.
To deliver its promise amidst the chaos of the category, a distinct identity was drafted along with a narrative that would highlight the brand's standing, while positioning it as a respected, accepted choice at par with modern medicine. This balanced framing elevated its perception to that of a credible integrated healthcare service provider.
Methods - Residual, dominant and emergent(RDE) framework, 3D (Determinator, differentiator and delighter) framework of business and product strategy
Phase 2: Strategy
Drafting the strategy provided a strong foundation and a list of guidelines to work towards experience re-design aimed at tackling pain points revealed through audits. In addition to the internal team session of ideation, we conducted intensive co-creation sessions to add dimension to the insights and validate the direction of ideas.
Diverse stakeholders were invited to share their observations and ground-level expertise during the curated collaborative activities in the sessions. This approach facilitated the surfacing of varied perspectives into unified solutions.
Methods - Experience Design ideation framework for co-creation, design research
Phase 3: Ideation
The co-creation phase served as an invaluable precursor to bringing together experience design recommendations and direction as it was enriched by inputs from both top-level stakeholders who set the vision for growth and also those engaging daily with this space and providing the service.
As a result, recommendations proposed were well-informed and accounted for not only the brand and strategy lens but also the ground realities. The next steps were compiled in collaboration with the creative team, into a visual guide and reference book of interventions designed for both short-term and long-term implementation.
Methods - Visual guide of experience design interventions
Phase 4: Experience re-design
Learning Outcome
The key takeaway from this project was acquiring the skill of collaborating with cross-functional teams, both internally with the branding and design team or externally with various levels of stakeholders within the client team. The project’s depth and duration motivated me to learn how to effectively collaborate throughout all phases of the project cycle ensuring seamless communication and successful delivery of deliverables.