Customer research can make or break a startup’s trajectory. But what happens when that research reveals something unprecedented? In a recent Category Visionaries episode, Amenities Health founder Aasim Saeed shared how extensive patient surveys uncovered a massive opportunity in healthcare loyalty.

The Zero Loyalty Discovery

Through 6,000 patient surveys, Amenities Health made a startling discovery: “We’ve literally not found a single patient that hasn’t been to multiple different healthcare brands in the last two years,” Aasim reveals. In an industry where customer lifetime value reaches millions, this complete lack of loyalty represented a massive opportunity.

Looking Beyond Physical Experience

Initial assumptions about patient experience focused on typical complaints: waiting rooms, parking, and appointment availability. However, the research revealed a deeper truth: “When we say we want to build loyalty and what is the two-day shipping and free returns in healthcare, everything in our research says that it’s not the physical experience.”

Instead, they discovered a more fundamental concern: “The number one problem in US healthcare today for patients is cost. It’s the fear of bankruptcy. I have no idea what this will cost and I won’t know until six months after I’ve already consumed the service and on the hook to pay for it.”

Translating Research into Features

This insight shaped their product development. “When we test features, we test things like no surprise billing, guarantee satisfaction, guarantee insights on who are the best providers and hospitals in your area,” Aasim explains. The research guided them away from surface-level improvements toward addressing core financial anxieties.

Building the Business Case

The research also helped quantify the opportunity. “If you could see 10% market share shift from their competitors to them because they created a better experience, now the profit motive and greed and all the best parts of capitalism take over,” Aasim notes. This potential market shift could be worth “$100 million new that year.”

Enterprise Sales Validation

For selling to health systems, the research provided crucial validation. Healthcare systems had never defined key metrics around loyalty: “There’s not a single health system in the country that can tell you the lifetime value of a patient. It is literally not a metric that’s defined.”

The closest existing metric, “network utilization management,” showed that even leading health systems only retained 30-40% of patient visits within their network. This data helped Amenities Health demonstrate the scale of the loyalty problem.

Research-Driven Product Focus

Their findings led to a clear focus: building a membership program addressing cost transparency. “You know what’s undeniable loyalty is when they’re paying $9 a month to be a member of your membership program,” Aasim explains.

For B2B founders, Amenities Health’s research process offers valuable lessons:

1. Question industry assumptions
2. Look beyond surface-level problems
3. Use data to quantify market opportunities
4. Let research guide feature development
5. Build validation into your sales process

Most importantly, be prepared to challenge conventional wisdom when your research reveals unexpected insights. As Aasim notes, “We’re trying to establish a financial model that the largest players in healthcare can get excited about to really shift the market for the majority of Americans.”