As advances in technology accelerate alongside medical and health-related discoveries, the challenge of merging the two continues to get more complex. While it’s easy to get distracted, the focus should remain simple: putting the customer first.

The health and wellness industry will get a much-needed look into emerging technologies at the 2018 Connected Health Conference (CHC) this October in Boston. Cantina will serve as a conference sponsor and facilitator of two sessions focusing on designing and building connected health solutions. Cantina’s speakers will emphasize the importance of utilizing human-centered design and customer experience principles throughout the development process.

Why CX Matters

• Research from Salesforce indicated that 75% of consumers expect to have a consistent experience wherever they engage with a brand.
• Research from Accenture reveals that 48% of consumers expect better treatment for being a loyal customer.
• Another report from Accenture found 41% of consumers switched companies over a lack of personalization, costing businesses $756 billion within the past year.

Research shows a strong trend toward customers wanting a better brand experience. They want to be seen as individuals, be treated as VIPs if they are loyal customers, and have a consistent brand experience everywhere they interact with the company.

According to a recent Gartner customer experience survey, customer experience is the new marketing battlefront. In two years, 81% of all marketers believe they will be competing almost entirely on the basis of a strong customer experience.

The modern customer experience is less transactional and more emotional — customers are wearing their hearts on their sleeves when it comes to decision-making. Trust and an emotional connection to the brand are moving to the forefront, with customer experience being paramount to both factors. Forrester’s most recent Customer Experience Index results show that companies are struggling to create that type of connection.

This is not a question of delighting customers…this is a crass and clear story of financial risk, - Forrester Customer Experience Index

The 2018 Connected Health Conference audience includes movers and shakers in the healthcare industry, allowing companies to showcase the latest technologies and offer insight into the future of technology-enabled health and wellness. Cantina’s discussions at CHC will tie together best practices around rapid prototyping, human-centered design, and demystifying product development.

Our workshop will discuss the importance of prototyping during the discovery process. Today, designers work on products far more complex and challenging than they were 50 years ago; that’s why a focus on experience prototyping early on is crucial to discerning whether you’re making a product that actually addresses a customer need. Prototyping helps teams to ensure their product is desirable, technically feasible to create, and viable from a business standpoint.

Our panel will show what it actually takes to build a strong connected health solution. Connected health is at a tipping point, with myriad purpose-driven ideas but no real concept of what it takes to build and ship a successful product. This critical view will express the reality with examples from real products, clients and business challenges.

The channels of traditional business are merging like never before. In a recent article about the role of design in creating new customer experiences, McKinsey&Company said, “Highly successful companies have realized that the boundaries between products, services, and environments have blurred.”

Being able to capitalize on this concept through thoughtful customer experiences will help differentiate companies within the health and wellness industry in currently unfathomable ways. We hope to help conference attendees discover ways they can transform their business for the better at the 2018 Connected Health Conference.