CPXM
EXPLAINED
The science behind X.
Integrated Customer and Patient Experience Management from pre-clinical to commercial
CX and PX are entangled together across supply chains
Customer Experience Management
Managing experiences of customers with your company. Experiences result from interactions along the journey from consideration to repeated use.
Customers? existing and potential partners with whom you conduct business e.g. wholesalers, hospitals, pharmacies, medical specialists, nurses, surgeons, opinion leaders, study sponsors, clinical sites, elderly homes
Interactions? anyway a customer can interact in person or virtual e.g. product usage, solving issues, deliveries, events, trainings, website, feedbacks, promises, surveys, meetings, negotiations, publications, news, emails, social media
Your company? everything that represents your organization e.g. brand, products, services, processes, management, employees, partners, suppliers, website, support teams, demos
Journey? interactions between your company and your customers occur in a journey, across multiple channels, prior and after sales, during life-time. Interactions form touchpoints during a journey.
Experiences? the sum of sensations, thoughts, feelings, emotions, reactions in response to an interaction - impressions that remain.
Patient Experience Management
Likewise, PX refers to managing experiences of patients with your company. These experiences result from interactions along the journey from personal diagnose and appointment scheduling till follow up of care. Patients have multiple healthcare journeys.
Patients include advocates, patient organizations, focus groups, volunteers, family members, care givers.
Interactions occur when patients are using approved products or services which are in commercialization, or in development during clinical trials, innovation or enhancement.
From CX and PX to CPXM
From development activities in preclinical, interactions and touch points with customers and patients are being initiated. The volume of interactions increase when products move through clinical development to commercial. Expectations are evaluated and experiences are created.
The management of these experiences is continued and entangled across supply chains. CX and PX become CPXM. The acronym CPXM is a 4XSCIENCE acronym and not widely used yet.
Expectations of customers and patients are rising beyond the clinical outcome
Experiences have become an integrated part of the product and service
Experiences are always present
Customers expect products and services to be useful and valuable. They also expect easiness and convenience before, during and after usage so their overall experience with your product and service is emotionally engaging. Not only the products and services contribute to the experience, also your supporting processes have a significant impact.
Likewise, patients expect products and services not only to be effective and safe, they should also be comfortable and gratifying. The clinical outcome is the number one priority, however it is not enough. Empathy, empowering, connecting, simple, being informed, easy and comfort are key elements in healthcare.
Experiences are always present, no matter what: for each interaction, customers and patients compare their expectations with their experiences and evaluate interactions as subjective, personal and emotional. The only choice is to manage or ignore this.
The more the clinical outcome of products and services are equal or personalized, the higher the impact of experience management can be. Experiences are created by products and services, and also by supporting processes before, during and after interactions.
It's not new: CX is everywhere
Experience Management is not new. According to several research studies (e.g. Gartner and Forbes) more than 80% of companies are competing based on customer experiences and not their product exclusively. More and more organizations are competing primarily on the basis of experiences. Most well-known examples? Starbucks, Disney, Amazon, IKEA. On a wider industry scale: car manufacturers, travel agencies, airlines, leisure, retail.
Healthcare is moving as well. A new transformation started.
Since a number of years CX is a hot topic in life sciences. Originally, driven from teams in sales & marketing or customer service. Copied from other industries and perceived as attempt to drive up sales by ensuring improved customer satisfaction and loyalty.
In parallel to CX, PX started to arise. As patients are the final customers for products and services, there is a win-win in engaging with them more closely. Patients become more and more empowered: they actively select, decline or promote drug products and services. In the current landscape, customers and patients are expecting more from their providers and brands. In order to follow up on their brand promises, the industry is investing in improved experiences across the ecosystem towards patients and customers.
Most life science companies created a "Patient First" mandate in their mission statement.
There is an entire science behind CX and PX to ensure a win-win for all stakeholders
Higher expectations
The transformation is happening at global scale in all life science segments. Big pharma, biopharmaceuticals, vaccines, cell therapies, medical devices, all of them are starting to act. And with them, they involve the entire end-to-end business process including distributors, hospitals, retirement homes, and even the small pharmacies. All of them are investing in improved experiences for their patients and customers. From pre-clinical, over supply chain and commercial to drug administration. Not only once, but for the entire life of a patient and the family. Both patients and customers want to experience a positive relationship when interacting during their journey. Implementing CX and PX allow actors to better interact to the benefit of their customers and patients. With the acronym CPXM, we highlight the fact that CX and PX are entangled across supply chains and must be addressed together end-to-end across divisions from pre-clinical to commercial.
Advancing technologies
The higher customer and patient needs are complemented by the immense acceleration of new digital technologies and innovations. New technologies are used to augment, complement and transform current processes and interactions. And of course, there is AI. Customers are actively participating along their journeys, moments of truth are changing. To stay competitive, all actors must embrace these new options when evaluating their customer and patient journeys. Focusing on products is not enough to meet new customer and patient expectations. Patients do expect more to stay satisfied and loyal. At the same time, these new technologies are being used during early development phases and allow life science actors to accelerate time to market and lower their delivery costs.
A complex landscape
Life science is a complex B2B, B2C and B2P landscape with many actors directly or indirectly interacting with partners. Some actors might need patient interactions for product development purposes, while others might need the same interactions for commercial purposes. In addition, the life science industry has an extremely wide range of interacting therapeutic areas with specific needs. Better experience management accelerates product development, lowers costs, increases revenues and results in improved healthcare for all of us. And the benefits are mutual: even for the small pharmacies and practices in towns, improved customer and patient experiences help to build higher patient satisfaction and loyalty levels.
Options and priorities
Over the last few years, we see a strong growth of tools and solutions acting in the CPXM arena. Some examples of technology options and components to engage customers include surveys, social media management, marketing automation, CPQ, content management, chat services, customer profiling, patient segmentation, cross-channel management, recovery management, patient trial enrolment, digital advertising. The list is endless and for many it is unclear where to start and what to select. Due to the end-to-end complexity, the implementation takes time. However, CX and PX is in the first place not about technology.
The science of X
Some companies deeply understand what customer or patient experience management is all about. Others still question if they need to invest in it or not. Many don't see the close end-to-end link between CX and PX yet. Most have started with active patient engagement and enhanced customer support initiatives to complement their Patient First Mission.
To make it real in execution it is important to understand the science behind X, behind experience management. Design Thinking. Voice of the Customer. Real Word Evidence. Patient Experience Data. PREMS. Inclusive Engagement. Quality of Care. Government funding. Return on Investments. Expectations versus Experiences. Moments of Truth. Peaks End. Ideation. Focus groups. Surveys.
Successful CPXM requires changes in many areas beyond the technology. Silos need to be broken. Similar to other sectors, life sciences need to become much more customer- and patient-centric from early phases onwards. Technology is the easy part of the entire story.
A story that only accelerates. No way back.
