The Customer Experience Gap in Pharma

Based on new research from Deloitte, pharmaceutical companies are facing a clear gap between how they view customer engagement and how healthcare professionals experience it. More than 80% of surveyed pharma executives were satisfied with their current customer-engagement strategy, yet fewer than 28% of healthcare professionals felt that customer-facing resources met their needs well. The finding suggests that the central challenge is not simply increasing communication, but making communication more relevant, useful and easier to access.

Deloitte's research among healthcare professionals in the UK, Spain, France and Germany highlights three connected priorities: customer experience, content and channels. Together, they point to a shift away from product-centred communication towards engagement designed around the needs and working environments of healthcare professionals.

Match communication to the customer

Healthcare professionals want information that reflects their clinical context. They value communication that is concise, objective, easy to understand and adapted to their particular environment. However, 56% of respondents said sales representatives did not tailor their messages effectively, particularly when explaining the scientific story.

This creates a practical customer-experience problem. Even accurate information can have limited value when it is delivered in a generic format, at the wrong level of detail or without sufficient relevance to the healthcare professional's role and patient population.

The research also found that 52% of healthcare professionals were actively seeking more clinical data and treatment results. Clinical evidence remains central, but its impact depends on how clearly it is presented and whether it answers the questions healthcare professionals face in practice.

Provide useful, credible content

Clinical data was the information most regularly sought by respondents, but healthcare professionals obtained it from non-pharma sources 79% of the time. This indicates that pharmaceutical companies are not always the preferred or most accessible source for information that is important to clinical decision-making.

Healthcare professionals also highlighted the need for information about how to use medicines, appropriate patients, costs and side effects. Content should therefore be clear, practical and evidence-based rather than primarily promotional. Educational programmes were viewed relatively positively: 80% considered them at least somewhat effective or very effective.

Use channels according to preference

The most valuable interaction identified was a pharma-sponsored event, such as a seminar or webinar. At the same time, 64% of respondents preferred quarterly interactions with sales representatives, while 42% said their main challenge with medical science liaisons was insufficient interaction.

The findings do not support a single universally preferred channel. Instead, they suggest that companies need to combine personal, medical and digital engagement, using customer preferences to determine the appropriate frequency, format and level of interaction.

The underlying message is straightforward: better pharma customer experience comes from matching the communication style, content and channel to the healthcare professional's actual needs - not simply increasing the volume of engagement.

Source

Deloitte, Unlocking the Future of Customer Engagement in Pharma