transnationalcare marketing research report
TRANSCRIPT
TransNationalCare Marketing Research ReportHealth Communication Insights
Marketing ResearchYangdi Li, Laurence Luo, Chester Liu & Drew Kaplan
December 11, 2015
I. Executive Report
In an earlier survey about their health communication product, TransNationalCare found that 74%
of NRIs wanted to get in touch with their parent’s doctors in India and 63% found it difficult to do so. In
addition, 96% of respondents were willing to pay for a service that addressed these needs. The purpose
of this report was to dive deeper into the target consumer’s preferences for a health communication
product and test their true willingness to pay for the service.
In order to address these topics, our team conducted a choice-based conjoint analysis with
three product attributes: message type, maximum response time, and price. Our analysis shows strong
consumer preferences across all three of these product attributes, which we used to create four insights
and recommendations covering price and product strategy.
Set a base price at $20: Consumers in our research are highly price sensitive towards the
product. TransNationalCare should price their health communication product at $20 per month.
Use video conferences as the main method of communication: Consumers show a clear
preference for communicating with doctors via video. We recommend a health communication
product use video conferencing rather than email to meet consumer’s and doctor’s needs.
Consumers exhibit a clear willingness to pay for response time: In our analysis we calculated an
actionable willingness to pay for different levels of the response time attribute. We used this
insight as the basis for our tiered product offering strategy.
Use a tiered product offering strategy: We specifically recommend TransNationalCare offer a
base product that includes a 30 minute video conference with 72 hour response time priced at
$20. Beyond the base offering, TransNationalCare should offer additional tiers of products that
improve certain attributes likes response time (i.e. 24 vs. 72 hours) for higher prices.
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II. Situation Analysis
Company
TransNationalCare is a start-up company that provides multiple healthcare services to non-
resident Indians (NRIs) living in the United States. The company currently offers two separate products
on the market place: US TeleMedicine and the Care Communication Portal. Both of these products aim
to provide NRIs with a way to ensure their parents receive the best medical care possible and they get
timely information about that care as it takes place in India.
Currently, TranNationalCare’s US TeleMedicine product provides clients with access to a U.S.
based, licensed physician at any time with no copays and no backend charges. The product is
subscription based, with a monthly fee of $19.99. The telemedicine service covers most states in U.S,
but eight states currently have some restrictions on the level of care that can be provided and one has
halted consultations altogether (Figure 2). The wide availability of their service means that
TransNationalCare can target the largest possible customer base and has the potential to reach
customers across the country. A wide footprint will be key to TransNationalCare’s success because it
already target a very specific and limited group of consumers – non-resident Indians.
In addition to the US TeleMedicine product, TransNationalCare also provides a health
communication product entitled the Care Communication Portal. This service puts NRIs in touch with
their parent’s doctors in India in an effort to increase communication between the two parties. Without
such a product, communication between NRI and doctor would be difficult to maintain due to a
significant time change and physical distance apart. In the earlier survey, TransNationalCare determined
there was significant interest in the service and moved forward with a pilot to test the concept. The pilot
saw significant interest from NRIs, but the service was offered for free. This is the product that the
majority of this report will focus on.
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In terms of strengths, TransNationalCare seems to have found a niche market that is in need of
their services. A previous survey launched by the company found encouraging results in terms of the
number of NRIs attempting to contact their parent’s doctors in India and how much trouble they were
having in their attempts. These results (Figure 1) seem to show that TransNationalCare’s product
development is being driven by consumer needs. In addition, TransNationalCare has already
successfully launched two separate products, one of which has almost nation-wide coverage. The
company needs to have wide coverage of their products since they are targeting only a small segment of
the population.
At the same time, there are a few significant threats to TransNationalCare at the moment. First
among these threats is access to doctors in India. For TransNationalCare’s health communication
product to truly be successful, they must have as many doctors agree to participate as a part of the
communication product. If consumers find that their parents’ doctors do not participate in the program,
then they almost certainly will not subscribe to the service. TransNationalCare must convince enough
doctors to participate before the health communication service can be successful. In addition, even
though they are on the cutting edge of this service idea, TransNationalCare already has some
competition specifically targeting NRIs. India Home Health Care, a partner of BAYADA Home Health Care,
already provides a diverse range of services, which could be more attractive than TransNationalCare
packages. A more-established competitor represents a large threat since the NRI target segment is so
specific. IHHC will be discussed more in-depth in the upcoming section.
Competition
TransNationalCare faces a lot of competition for the Telemedicine service. According to our
research, some existing key participants in the global telemedicine market include Aerotel Medical
Systems, IBM, Medical International Research, Medtronic, Roche, Siemens Healthcare, 3M Health, and
Allscripts Healthcare Solutions Inc. among others.
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However, the focus of this report is on the health communicator service for NRIs, which has little
competition at this point. There is one company in particular that must be considered one of
TransNationalCare’s largest competitors - India Home Health Care (IHHC), a partner of the US-based
BAYADA Home Health Care. As mentioned in the previous section, IHHC provides similar services for NRI
in US, but in a different way. IHHC sells different levels of packages that provide in-home care for the
elderly parents of NRIs that include in-home doctors’ visits. As a part of their services IHHC “regularly”
communicates with the NRI about their parent’s condition via telephone and email and provides
documented medical records from their visits.
IHHC’s packages are well structured and provide a diverse array of benefits that we believe
represents a large threat to TransNationalCare. One key difference between the two companies is
clearly the scope of involvement. IHHC provides care packages that include in-home care with regular
communication as a benefit, while TransNationalCare provides only the communication with doctors. If
an NRI or their parents simply want the doctor communication with no in-home care, then
TransNationalCare is clearly the more preferred option. However, IHHC is an established company with
large US-based home care provider as its close partner, which clearly provides IHHC with better
resources and greater access to doctors to be in their network. We are concerned that these advantages
could lead to IHHC squeezing TransNationalCare out of the market, especially if IHHC decides to provide
a communication only service.
Customer
As previously discussed the target consumer for TransNationalCare is non-resident Indians living
in the US with parents or other family in India that require medical care. While it is not crucial, it is
desirable that target consumer prefers to take on a large role in their Indian family’s care because this
requires a certain level of communication between the NRI and the doctor in India.
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In our conjoint analysis, we sought to separate out differences between these target consumers
in terms of product preferences and importance. We looked at multiple cluster combinations, but in the
end determined that dividing our sample into 3 clusters was the most reasonable. We then used the
results from our survey to calculate utility ratings for each of the three product attributes: message type,
response time and price (Figure 3). In addition, we calculated each cluster’s overall importance ratings
for the three attributes and analyzed the results from demographic and behavioral questions (Figure 4).
Based off our analysis, we have identified the three following consumer segments in the market: Cost-
Conscious Caretakers, Message Centric Newcomers, and Contact-Efficient Long-Time Residents.
Cluster 1: Cost-Conscious Caretakers
This segment represents 39% of our 25 person sample. This group of consumers is far and away
defined by their price-sensitivity as they are the most price-sensitive out of the three clusters. Compared
to the rest of the groups, these consumers are relatively flexible in their message type as 9 emails, 15
minute video conference, 30 minute video conference and 45 minute video conference all have similar
utility ratings. While not as emphatic about it as cluster 3, this group clearly prefers a maximum
response time of 24 hours over 48 hours and 72 hours. In addition, this group gains the least utility for
not purchasing the product. In terms of demographics, this group has a median age of 38.4 and has been
in the US for an average of 11.6 years. A visualization of this cluster’s three attribute preferences can be
seen in Figure 5.
Cluster 2: Message Centric Newcomers
This cluster is the largest cluster of the group with 44% of the sample. These consumers care
deeply about how they get to communicate with their parents’ doctors, and care less than other groups
about how long it takes for the doctor to return their message. They have a strong preference for 30
minute video conferences followed by 15 minute video conferences, but have a strong aversion to email
messages. This group is also the least price sensitive of the three clusters and are the most willing to pay
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the $55 and $90 package options. In terms of demographics, this is the youngest overall group among
the 3 clusters with a median age of 34.3, includes the most women (roughly half the segment), and has
also spent the least amount of time in the US. A visualization of this cluster’s three attribute preferences
can be seen in Figure 6.
Cluster 3: Contact-Efficient Long-Time Residents
This cluster is the smallest cluster of the group with 17% of the sample. Customers in this cluster
value the maximum response time of their parents’ doctors most. Their utility for a 24 hour response
time is roughly triple the other two clusters’ utility for the quickest response time. This sensitivity to
response time might have to do with their age as they are the oldest at an average of 42.5 years old.
Since they are the oldest of the sample, we can assume that their parents are likely older than the other
cluster’s parents and might have more serious conditions that need quick responses. In addition, these
consumers have stayed in US the longest among 3 clusters and rated themselves higher on all behavioral
questions. In terms of the other product attributes, this group cares moderately about their message
type and price, but clearly prefers a 30 minute video conference and $20 packages respectively. A
visualization of this cluster’s three attribute preferences can be seen in Figure 7.
In addition to analyzing the three clusters of consumers, we also decided to analyze the data on
a sample wide level because the sample size was so small (25 people total). We felt this analysis might
provide valuable customer insights as a whole since the cluster sizes were only 11, 10 and 4 people
large. As expected, the sample level data mirrored each of the three clusters’ preferences.
In terms of attribute importance (Figure 3), the overall sample shows that price is the most
important factor overall (47%), while message type (34%) and response time (19%) lagged behind in
importance. Overall, the group is very price sensitive with the average respondent having a 60.85 higher
utility rating for the $20 price option over the $55. In addition, the group had strong feelings in terms of
message type. The group as a whole preferred the 30 minute video conference as their message type,
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and skewed towards video conferences in general over email. Across all three email options and all
three video options, consumers gave the video options a 24.7 higher utility rating to video conferences
over emails. Our analysis of the overall sample in addition to the clusters lead us to actionable insights and
recommendation for TransNationalCare.
III. Marketing Mix Recommendation & Insights:
1. Pricing Strategy Recommendation:
Our analysis has shown that customer in this market are highly price sensitive and the utility ratings
in Figure 4 show specifically how price sensitive. As seen in the figure, the utilities of $55, $95, $125
across all three clusters are all highly negative compared to the base case price of $20. While it is to be
expected that all customers prefer a lower price, these utilities indicate that all of the customers in our
analysis shows this low price prefer to be very pronounced. As a result, we recommend that a base
package subscription for the Community Care Portal product from TransNationalCare start at the price
of $20.
2. Message Type Recommendation:
As discussed in the Customer section, all three clusters of consumers clearly prefer to communicate
with doctors through video conferences instead of emails. We recommend that TransNationalCare
provide video conferences as the main communication channel for clients using the Community Care
Portal service.
Clearly consumers would prefer to communicate via video conference, but we also believe doctors
will also benefit from adopting video conferences as the base message type. As mentioned in
TransNationalCare’s initial presentation, the doctors caring for a NRI’s parents were hesitant to give out
their private phone numbers. By adopting video conferences, doctors will no longer have to give out
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their private phone number to TransNationalCare’s clients. In addition, doctors will be better able to
explain the symptoms and conditions of NRIs’ parents through video conference because they would be
able to use any visual aids necessary.
We also recommend TransNationalCare offers clients the ability to add emails as a follow up to their
video conferences. During a video conference, especially when discussing complicated conditions,
doctors will be speak in technical terms that TranNationalCare’s clients might not fully understand.
However, clients might be hesitant to purchase another video conference to ask for further clarification.
These additional emails will give clients the ability to ask the doctor small, follow up questions after their
video conferences rather than buying and scheduling another full video conference. We believe these
follow up emails will improve service quality and increase clients’ satisfaction with the overall
experience.
3. Willingness to Pay on Max Response Time
We have established through our customer analysis that consumers for this newly launched health
service product are highly price sensitive and prefer to communicate via video conference rather than
email. Consumers across the sample also have a clear preference overall for a maximum response time
of 24 hours from their parents doctors, however consumers in different cluster perceive it’s importance
differently. As shown in Figure 4, the third segment has the most negative utility ratings in max response
time compared to the base case. We can interpret these utility ratings to mean consumers in this
segment are most willing to pay for the 24-hour response time option. Consumers in segment 1 also
prefer the 24-hour option, but less so than the consumers in segment 3. Consumers in segment 2 are
most flexible about the maximum response time.
Overall, the clear trend is that all consumer strongly prefer the 24 hour option over the 48 or 72
hour options. Using these ratings, we calculated each cluster’s willingness to pay for 24 hour response
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time. We first, determined a dollar per util conversion rate for each segment by dividing the actual dollar
amount difference between $20 and $125 by the difference in utilities. We then multiplied the
difference in utilities between the max response time options to determine a segments average
willingness to pay for that attribute. All of the dollar to util conversion rates and willingness to pay
calculations for the max response time attribute are shown in the Figure 9. Not surprisingly consumers
in segment 3 have the highest willingness to pay for the 24-hour response time option. Unfortunately
the willingness to pay calculations are unrealistic for this segment perhaps because the size of the
segment so small. As a result, we only took the willingness to pay of segment 2 and segment 3 into
consideration. The weighted average of these segment’s willingness to pay for a 24-hour response time
over a 48-hour response time is $13.35. The willingness to pay for a 24-hour response time over a 72-
hour response time is $25.49. We took these willingness to pay numbers into account in our final
product recommendation as an easy way to create a product tier system.
4. Ideal Product Profile
Based on above analysis, we have one ideal product profile for these segments. Since the size of
segment 3 is comparatively small and it has a much higher rating on “none” option than other segments,
the profile is based on the ratings of the first two segments. We recommend the basic product profile
consists of the following attributes:
For our decision about price, our analysis showed that all consumers in our study are price sensitive. It
seems as though the lowest price option is almost required to attract consumers as TransNationalCare
enters the health communication market. Our choice for base message type was also driven by
consumer preferences because the ratings on message type across our entire sample showing that they
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Message Type Max Response Time Price
30 Minute Video Conference 72 hours $20.00
prefer the 30-minute video conference. In addition, consumers from cluster 2 care most on the message
type and they are the largest of our three segments. We believe offering a product that provides a 30-
minute video conference with doctors accurately matches consumers’ demand. Lastly, we used
consumer’s importance ratings to make our decision on the base product having a 72 hour max
response time. Overall, even though our analysis shows a clear preference for the 24 hour option, max
response time is the attribute that consumers care least about. TransNationalCare could save on cost by
not requiring doctors, who are extremely busy to begin with, to respond to NRIs so quickly.
From this base product line, we further recommend that TransNationalCare create different
tiers of packages much like their competitor IHHC. Decreasing the max response time is a clear example
of how this tiered system could work. If there are customers looking for a faster response time,
TransNationalCare could offer them a better product that decreases the maximum time a doctor has to
respond to them. We would recommend TransNationalCare charge a higher price for these higher tier
product offerings based on the willingness to pay calculations for faster response time. The table below
shows how the tier system would operate.
Customers would be able to change their subscription package whenever they needed, so if
their parent developed a serious condition they could easily switch from the 72 hour response time to
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Message Type Max Response Time Price
Tier One 30 Minute Video Conference 72 hours $20.00
Tier Two 30 Minute Video Conference 48 hours $32.00
Tier Three 30 Minute Video Conference 24 hours $45.00
the 24 hour response time. We believe TransNationalCare could apply this strategy for message type,
additional follow-up messages, or other future attributes as well.
Overall, our analysis showed some clear consumer preferences for a health communication
product. With a clear target market of NRIs and product profiles that meet these consumers’ needs, we
believe TransNationalCare can be successful with this product. Using the proper segmentation,
targeting, and positioning strategies, TransNationalCare could earn a sufficient market share as the
market size grows up in the future.
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IV. Figures
Figure 1.
Results from previous TransNationalCare Survey regarding health communication product
Figure 2.Distribution of TransNationalCare’s US Telemedicine Service
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*TransNationalCare.com
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Figure 3. Importance Ratings, Demographics and Behavioral Questions by Cluster
Importance Ratings Demographics Behaviors
Size % Cluster Message Type
Max Response Price Time Spent
in US Age Gender(1=Male)
Value health communication
Stay updated on family's
health
Tech Savvy
Like to feel in control
39% 1 25% 16% 59% 11.6 38.4 1.2 3.9 4.1 4.4 3.944% 2 52% 8% 40% 6.6 34.3 1.5 4.1 4.3 4.4 3.817% 3 28% 40% 32% 17.0 42.5 1.3 4.7 4.7 4.5 4.3Overall Sample 34% 19% 47%
(Please Note: Behaviors are similar among 3 clusters because small volumes of observations)
Figure 4.Utility Ratings by Cluster
Message Type Max Response Time Price
Size % Cluster
3 Emails vs.
30 Min Video
9 Emails vs.
30 Min Video
15 Emails vs.
30 Min Video
15 Min Video vs.
30 Min Video
45 Min Video vs.
30 Min Video
48 Hours vs.
24 Hours
72 Hours vs.
24 Hours
$55 vs. $20
$90 vs.$20
$125 vs.$20
None
39% 1 -13.161 -1.142 -8.25 -3.452 5.81 -27.359 -47.521 -114.005 -121.47 -178.419 -5.38644% 2 -43.034 -78.366 -38.779 -6.967 -41.58 -10.796 -24.943 -21.784 -45.924 -118.575 -12.32517% 3 -52.977 -33.67 -62.623 -9.582 -25.745 -93.271 -120.741 -46.768 -51.943 -96.085 -153.683Overall Sample -36.39 -37.73 -36.55 -6.67 -20.51 -43.81 -64.40 -60.85 -73.11 -131.03 -57.13
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Figure 5.Cluster 1 - Relative Utility Ratings per Attribute
3 Emails
9 Emails
15 Emails
15-minute Video
30-minute Video
45-minute Video Cluster 1 - Message Type24 Hours
48 Hours
72 Hours
Cluster 1 - Response Time
$20
$55$90
$125
Cluster 1 - Price
Figure 6.Cluster 2 - Relative Utility Ratings per Attribute
3 Emails
9 Emails
15 Emails
15-minute Video 30-minute Video
45-minute Video
Cluster 2 - Message Type
24 Hours
48 Hours
72 Hours
Cluster 2 - Response Time
$20
$55
$90
$125
Cluster 2 - Price
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Figure 7. Cluster 3 - Relative Utility Ratings per Attribute
3 Emails
9 Emails
15 Emails
15-minute Video 30-minute Video
45-minute Video
Cluster 3 - Message Type
24 Hours
48 Hours
72 Hours
Cluster 3 - Response Time
$20
$55
$90
$125
Cluster 3 - Price
Figure 8. Overall Sample – Relative Utility Ratings per Attribute
3 Emails 9 Emails 15 Emails
15-minute Video30-minute Video
45-minute Video
Overall Sample - Message Type
24 Hours
48 Hours
72 Hours
Overall Sample - Response Time
$20
$55$90
$125
Overall Sample - Price
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Figure 9.Willingness to Pay for Max Response Time
$ per Util WTP (24vs48) WTP (24vs72) WTP (48vs72)
0.588502346 $16.10 $27.97 $11.87
0.885515497 $9.56 $22.09 $12.53
1.092782432 $101.92 $131.94 $30.02
Combined WTP $13.35 $25.49 $12.14
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