Health & Pharma
BD
Customer research, journey mapping and digital strategy across multiple divisions
About the client
BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) is a global medical technology company operating across diagnostics, medication management, and life sciences. BD Biosciences is a leading supplier of reagents and research tools to universities, the research industry, and biotechs – serving clinical researchers, clinicians, and life scientists across diagnostic testing, drug and vaccine research and development, and biopharmaceutical production.
The challenge
BD Biosciences had invested in a significant upgrade of its e-business platform, improving its online capabilities. With that foundation in place, the next step was developing a digital strategy that would provide a clear blueprint for digital marketing activities and programmes to help BD achieve its business objectives.
To do that effectively, a deeper understanding of customers was needed – who they were, how they made decisions, what role BD's products and expertise played in their work, and where the gaps and friction points in their experience were. Rather than building strategy on internal assumptions, BD and Zuni agreed that primary customer research was the right starting point.
Our approach
Zuni recommended and conducted a two-stage research programme designed to understand the customer journey, choice factors, and brand perceptions from the customer's perspective – with outputs feeding directly into customer journey mapping and content strategy development.
The first stage was qualitative: twelve in-depth interviews conducted via an online platform with respondents drawn from a range of roles and levels of experience, including both brand-loyal and non-loyal users. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analysed for themes and insights relevant to the research objectives.
The second stage was quantitative: working with the BD team, Zuni developed a 10–15 minute survey administered to BD's user database. The data was extensively analysed to identify clear customer segments and their prioritised pain points, challenges, and barriers.
Findings were presented in two stages – qualitative outputs first, which informed the design of the quantitative instrument, and then the full quantitative data. Presentations were tailored for different audiences: a full debrief for the whole team and a highlights presentation for senior management.
Customer journey mapping
The research served to finalise and add nuance to a range of customer journey maps – both touchpoint and experience maps – outlining the process customers went through, the role BD's products and business expertise played at each stage, and the audience segments, roles, and pain points encountered throughout.
The journey maps captured not just what customers did, but what they thought, felt, and needed at each stage of their relationship with BD – providing a foundation that went well beyond typical channel or process mapping.
The outcome
The research and journey mapping directly informed the development of a comprehensive digital strategy and content strategy, which has been implemented across the business. BD's marketing teams gained a far richer, evidence-based understanding of their customers – enabling more relevant, targeted communications and more confident prioritisation of digital investment.
This project is part of an ongoing strategic intention by BD to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of customer engagement, ensuring the process of acquiring and using their products is as easy and frictionless as possible.
Zuni has also worked with BD across the Diabetes and Diagnostics divisions, bringing the same research-first, journey-mapping-led approach to each product area and its distinct customer base.
Services involved