Safety Price Estimator
Following the success of the Oncology Price Estimator, I was asked to evaluate whether Charles River Labs could scale the self-service quoting model to its Safety Assessment business unit.
The goal was to assess customer appetite, validate feasibility, and determine if automation could add value without compromising trust or efficiency.
Organisation
Charles River Labs
My role
Strategic Research & Design
Timeline
6 months
My approach
Scoping and strategy
Framed the study around desirability, feasibility, and viability.
Defined success criteria and research questions to uncover friction in quoting, customer expectations for self-service, and internal barriers to scale.
Mixed-methods research
Combined qualitative and quantitative approaches:
– Ethnographic observation of sales calls to map real-world decision flow
– Voice-of-Customer interviews and focus groups with 25+ stakeholders
– Data analysis of quoting timelines and conversion rates
– Competitor landscape review for CRO pricing transparency
– Mapping to visualise workflows, dependencies and bottlenecks
Co-creation and testing
Facilitated a 25-person workshop with leadership, Sales, Product, and Tech to align on needs and co-create hypotheses.
Partnered with a designer to develop wireframes and a prototype, tested with 12 participants to validate clarity, value, and risk.
Key insights
Small Biotech clients wanted fast, high-level estimates but still valued human follow-up.
Inconsistent site pricing created confusion and rework.
Data reliability issues threatened trust in automation.
Consultants preferred direct engagement for high-stakes studies.
These insights reframed the question from “How do we build it?” to “Should we build it now?”
Outcome
Guided leadership to pause the build, redirecting investment to data integration and governance
Saved months of development effort and improved long-term scalability
Created new Safety Buyer Personas to inform sales training and CRM segmentation
Delivered quick wins for Commercial teams, including improved quoting scripts and centralised data references
Introduced repeatable research templates and Dovetail tagging to strengthen ResearchOps
“I can’t believe how much we’ve achieved in such a short amount of time.” – Safety Executive Stakeholder
