This article is the first of four parts that will help you improve your customer experience. 

The pharmaceutical industry is navigating a rapidly evolving landscape, where delivering an exceptional customer experience (CX) has become a key differentiator and a critical source of competitive advantage. Healthcare professionals (HCPs), government payers, and patients are setting higher standards and demanding interactions that transcend traditional, transactional relationships. They increasingly seek personalized, value-driven engagements which have been tailored to address their unmet needs.

CX in the pharmaceutical industry is closely linked to increased revenue. A McKinsey study found that HCPs who are satisfied with their engagement journey and the pharmaceutical company’s contribution to it, are 2X more likely (compared to dissatisfied ones) to prescribe that drug. CX can be especially critical in markets with: 

• Low Product Differentiation: Where products have minimal differentiation based on factors like efficacy, safety, dosing, and route of administration 

• High-Cost Products: For therapies with high price points, such as cell and gene therapies that cost $1-2 million per dose, customers expect premium, “white glove” service, including superior communication and support. 

• Adverse Event Management: For products with potential to cause harmful side effects, proactive adverse event management is essential to ensure patient safety and build trust with stakeholders.

Engagement Model Design 

This is the first article in a four-part series, which focuses on key considerations for designing the future of customer engagement. Specifically, we’ll explore the who, what, and where of engagement. By addressing the unique needs and expectations of HCPs, we aim to provide actionable recommendations for building meaningful interactions that enhance relationships and drive commercial success. 

While the customer landscape in pharma is broad—spanning HCPs, Payer, patients, caregivers, and more—this article series will focus to HCP engagement. 

Customer: Understanding who you are engaging with 

The first step in designing a winning customer experience is gaining a deep understanding of who your customers are and what they seek from you.  

In the past, pharmaceutical companies primarily segmented HCPs based on ‘potential’, focusing on measurable factors such as specialty, prescribing volume, and patient volume. This approach allowed companies to identify high-value targets for engagement. 

However, many companies have since shifted towards ´behavioral and attitudinal´ segmentations, which provide a deeper understanding of HCPs’ preferences, motivations, and engagement styles. This shift enables sales representatives to tailor their messaging and strategies to meet HCPs’ specific needs, ultimately moving them up the adoption ladder—from awareness to trial and, eventually, advocacy.  

The specific dimensions used to segment customers will vary based on disease specific market dynamics and the factors driving prescription. Still, in this approach, we often see several generic / core segments emerging: 

• Evidence Seekers: Value scientific rigor and detailed clinical data in making decisions 

• Patient Advocates: Focus on patient outcomes and quality of life 

• Convenience-Oriented: Prefer therapies that are simple to administer, monitor, or integrate into practice. 

• Risk-Averse: Hesitant to adopt therapies with safety concerns or limited long-term data. 

Despite its potential, behavioral and attitudinal segmentations often struggle to gain traction among field reps. A frequent criticism is that the segmentation feels overly simplistic and doesn’t reflect the complexity of real-world interactions. Reps commonly report: “My HCP is actually a mix of two different segments, so I have to dynamically adjust my messaging to address their needs and motivations.” 

BUT! Now the industry is at an inflection point. With the explosion of data and advancements in AI and technology, pharmaceutical companies have unprecedented opportunities to understand customer needs, optimize their approach to segmentation and enable true personalization. This evolution paves the way for: 

• Personalization at Scale: Leveraging AI and analytics to craft hyper-personalized interactions that resonate with individual HCPs or micro segments (vs. generic segments). 

• Dynamic Segmentation: Adapting segmentation in real-time based on evolving behavior, feedback, and market conditions. 

To enable this future engagement model, pharmaceutical companies must take a structured and data-driven approach to customer experience. This involves consolidating all customer data into a single, unified platform to create a comprehensive view of each HCP. The types of data on this platform may include attitudes, needs, motivations, patient demographics, practice characteristics, channel preference, peer influence, etc… These data and insights may come from market research interviews, surveys, field insights and/or purchased data sets. 

The next step is to leverage advanced technologies, such as AI or ML to enrich the data and develop individualized, customer-specific engagement strategies which are linked to your brand´s strategy. 

Content: Being mindful about what you are communicating  

Once you understand the interests and motivations that drive your customers—and how these factors influence prescribing behavior—the next step is to develop content that aligns with these insights. In a world where HCPs are inundated with information, it’s critical to deliver content that is going to resonate and grab their attention. 

Effective content should be designed in a customer centric manner, and focus on communicating your asset’s value proposition, positioning and key differentiators. It requires grounding the message in the customer’s unmet needs and supporting it with robust clinical data to build credibility and trust. However, each HCP is going to find different messages, tonality, and formats interesting – and to enable hyper personalization we need to be able to dynamically adjust our promotional content.   

For example, take two very different HCPs, who fall into the same ´segment´ into consideration….  

• Dr. Ramirez (Patient Advocate) is interested in understanding pharma´s offerings around patient support programs and how they can optimize patient outcomes. She gravitates toward concise, visually engaging materials such as infographics and quick-reference guides that simplify complex topics and she can share with patients and their families.  

• Dr. Chen (Patient Advocate), prioritizes comprehensive, data-rich content such as clinical trial results, comparative studies, and long-term efficacy data. Dr. Chen values precision and depth for himself, often preferring to engage with detailed white papers and interactive webinars – he then prefers to explain the data to his patients, in easy to digest layman’s terms and make treatment decisions in collaboration with his patients.  

To meet Dr. Ramirez and Dr. Chen´s unique needs and unlock the full potential of an intelligent content ecosystem, pharmaceutical companies need the ability to predict affinities across a range of content features (e.g. key message, theme, aesthetics, and tonality). Moreover, the system must dynamically curate content experiences across multiple channels, providing a seamless experience. This is going to result in an explosion of content which needs to be generated and reviewed by the Medical, Legal and Regulatory teams. Achieving this transformation will require a new content generation and management process. 

Channel: Meeting the customer where they are  

Delivering content and meeting customers where they are at, requires balancing touchpoints across traditional channels with more novel digital channels.  

• Traditional channels: in-person rep & MSL visits, conferences, training workshops, printed materials 

• Digital channels: emails, webinars, web portals, mobile apps, digital ads, social media, online community forums 

While face-to-face interactions remain invaluable, especially for building trust and fostering deeper connections – the shift toward digital experiences is undeniable, particularly with millennial and Gen Z doctors. Additionally, challenges like limited face-to-face opportunities underscore the need for alternative channels to supplement traditional engagement. 

Digital channels offer flexibility, scalability, and convenience, allowing pharmaceutical companies to connect with HCPs in real-time, often at the HCP’s convenience. However, the true potential of digital engagement lies in achieving omnichannel consistency—delivering a cohesive and unified experience across all interactions, whether in-person or digital. 

A hybrid engagement model blends the strengths of both traditional and digital approaches. Next Best Action (NBA) technology is becoming a critical enabler in this engagement model, helping sales representatives determine the most effective action to take with each customer.