Mobile commerce experience strengthens the practitioner/patient relationship

Healthcare, like all industries, is undergoing dramatic and rapid change. Rightpoint, a global experience leader and Genpact company, helped a national pharmaceutical product wholesaler develop and implement a mobile strategy solution that not only provided commerce capabilities (purchases, reorders), but also helped strengthen the practitioner/patient relationship as a way of delivering greater value and differentiating the brand in a competitive market that includes Amazon as a key rival for consumer dollars.

The world is changing rapidly, driven by many influences: evolving technology, changes in customer behavior, and global factors like COVID-19. Businesses from all industries are looking for ways to keep up and adapt. They are looking for ways to open up new revenue streams, gain a competitive advantage, and maximize the unique value their brands have to offer.

This pharmaceutical product wholesaler had a strong business model built around an online supplement dispensary. The dispensary gives practitioners (naturopathic, chiropractic, and medical doctors, licensed acupuncturists, nutritionists, and integrative practitioners) the ability to recommend and deliver products to their patients. Prior to the brand's engagement with Rightpoint, the dispensary could only be accessed via the web.

The brand knew that to stay ahead of the curve and the competition, it needed a mobile app that would deliver a convenient and thoroughly modern experience for both patients and practitioners. The ability to easily engage via mobile – and do anything that you can do on the web – is an expected part of all consumer experiences.

This brand knew where it wanted to go, but it had a few critical challenges to overcome:

Skills gap: The app needed to address a wide array of use cases, making the project quite intricate. The brand didn't have the right in-house team to either conceive of or build such sophisticated apps tailored to both Android and iOS users.

Complex integration: The final product would need to integrate seamlessly with a complex existing system and map the user journey to a vast array of existing APIs.

Need for speed: Finally, the brand wanted to get to market as quickly as possible.

To make sure that all the important questions were asked and fully addressed, Rightpoint applied a design sprint methodology to better understand the opportunity and related challenges and shape the solution around that big-picture idea.

The guiding insight for the exercise was that one of the brand's key strengths is its ability to facilitate the practitioner/patient relationship in a very personalized and human way. The existing trust-based relationship is a critical market differentiator for the brand. It drives warmer transactions than, for instance, engaging with a mass-market retailer like Amazon. The brand wanted to capitalize on the practitioner/patient connection.

With that vision in mind, the team worked through a variety of exercises:

• Research: From stakeholder interviews and market research to gathering user insights and reviewing existing sales data, the team dug deep into the brand's business model, user base, and customer behavior
• Groupthink and whiteboarding: With all the research in hand, the team engaged in collaborative sessions to explore all the possible solutions. Critical to the success of this phase was taking the time to really understand the user journey, the relationship between practitioner and patient, and all the possible use cases and flows
• Rapid prototyping: Starting with simple concept drawings, the team was able to quickly bring the best ideas to life so they could continue to clarify the solution. It reviewed, exchanged feedback, and iterated in almost real time as the app continued to take shape
• Design refinement: As the design got closer to being fully realized, the team began to focus on specifics: mapping to the user experience (UX), prioritizing possible UX use cases, and developing information architecture and wireframes
• Application architecture: While the design piece was in motion, the team was also working closely with the brand's in-house technical experts to ensure that the application architecture would integrate smoothly with the existing systems and APIs

By grounding the entire project in Rightpoint's methodology, the team was able to deliver an initial minimum viable product that was ready for launch in the app store in a relatively short period of time. Because of the upfront due diligence, the resulting app included all the features and functionalities that practitioners and patients interviewed had identified as the highest priorities.

The healthcare and wellness industries have seen huge technology advances in telemedicine, connected medical devices, and adjacent fields. All of these make it easier for patients to access healthcare, make better decisions, and improve their daily lives.

For this pharmaceutical wholesaler, Rightpoint's transformative digital solution enabled it to use mobile to enrich and strengthen existing practitioner/patient relationships, grow customer loyalty, expand its business, and deliver better care.

Find out more about how Rightpoint can help with customer and employee experience.