Putting the CX in the CT: Creating Excellent Customer Experience in your Clinical Trials

Customer Experience (CX) has become a hot topic and a full service industry of its own over the past years, complete with its own highly identifiable acronym. Ironically, this comes at a time when many points of customer experience are at an all time low. Think about how many coffee purchases you make per week, after which you are never thanked let alone wished a good day. Before finally voting with my feet and changing coffee shops, I started wishing myself a good day while driving away, just to improve my own experience! Consider the tip giving process. How enjoyable is it to have your waitress hang close with full expectation of a good tip entry into the mobile credit card terminal, while you are thinking “So you were my waitress? Where have you been the whole meal”? Now before you write me off as a cheap and critical customer, I will concede that expectations may be specific. But I come by it honestly, as I paid for my education by working in the service industry where I learned from the classic, old-school best when it came to serving my customers.

But my real journey and passion for excellent customer experience did not begin until my early medical device days as a young, eager-to-learn Clinical Director. My manager rolled out a Customer Experience campaign using the book: “Building Great Customer Experiences” written by Colin Shaw and John Ivens. It wasn’t until I read this book that I started really evaluating my own customer experiences and translating them into learnings to apply to my own services. This book takes you through a full process of predicting expectations, not just physical but emotional. Take my coffee experience for example - I not only expected my coffee hot and with cream, I wanted a smile and a friendly interaction that would indicate that my business was appreciated. And so even though my coffee was correctly prepared and maybe even delicious, I drove away unsatisfied when that interaction did not happen.

So what does this have to do with Clinical Trials (CT)? Well, since that has been my business for the last decade or so, I have spent many a moment trying to predict my clinical customers’ expectations. I have also spent many a conversation hearing about the most unexpected ways where a customer was not satisfied and making note for future planning.  It is clear that even with best intentions and meticulous planning, the process of a clinical trial can still fall short of a customer’s expectations. But even more clear is that when this happens, the Clinical Trial and trial Sponsor suffer.

The first question is “who is the customer in a Clinical Trial”? This is a good question with a convoluted answer. To a Contract Research Organization (CRO), the sponsor company is the customer. In some cases, the Sponsor may also become the customer of their own traditional customer when a specific vendor agreement is put in place for specialized services (e.g., MRI core lab at a specialized hospital). But we are not talking about either of these scenarios here. You may not be able to control your experience as a customer, but you can control the customer experience you provide. If you are in a company that is sponsoring a Clinical Trial, your customer is the clinical trial site. These customer relationships can get a little complicated since you are paying them for work also, but I believe if you create an excellent customer experience for them, you will receive excellent value of service in return.

Your customer is both the Investigator(s) and the Research Co-ordinator.  (As a side note, consider that their customer is the trial patient/ subject and this may impact their expectations in the trial.) The Investigator is the customer who could become a champion for the Clinical Trial or a product champion after the close of the study. He/She may be a thought leader in the community or an early adopter of the technology. Your Research Co-ordinator will be responsible for your enrolment success, your data quality and, in part, your investigator’s perception of the experience. So this customer experience will first effect your study success and then the clinical application of your study outcomes. It is, therefore, clear to see why customer experience is worth the extra investment of time and money when planning and executing a trial.

The best quality work can result in a negative experience if both the physical AND emotional expectations of your customer are not met. In their book, Shaw and Ivens lay out how to identify the critical points of interaction where you can meet and exceed both physical and emotional expectations. This is the beginning of your customer experience plan. Taking my coffee drive-thru experience as an example, let’s identify these critical points: It starts with the signage on the highway - do I know which exit to take? Next, the line up is evaluated. Proceeding through the drive-thru, is the quality of speaker allowing for easy and effective order placement. Next, are my selections available and is the product representing good value for the price? Is my product of excellent quality (read, I didn’t see them trying to pass it to the car ahead and then take it back, open it, smell it and then give it to me!). Finally, before I drive off, is there an indication that I am a valued customer? These are the critical stages in a customer experience to purchase a cup of coffee that I don’t even drink in the store! Start to think about the long list of critical stages that occur in a Clinical Trial. To clarify, these stages are not First Patient In, Last Patient Out, and Database Lock when we are talking about customer experience!

An important note about customer experience in clinical trials is that there are a number of points where the sponsor can lose control of the experience. Similar to a franchise situation, when parts of the experience are outsourced this risk exists. There are a lot of ways that this risk can be mitigated. You could try a dry run where you put yourself in your customer’s shoes and put your most critical customer face on. Where are the points of irritation? Does the electronic data collection (EDC) website work consistently, is the point person aware of the trial specifics, are the CRFs redundant? The risk of the dry run is: 1- making mountains out of mole hills, or 2- reducing mountains to mole hills. I suggest having this dry run with a clinical person and a field or marketing person to strike the right balance here. Another suggestion to maintain control of the customer experience is to engage a Clinical Trial Liaison. Some CROs offer this role within their organization, but you may want to consider having a third perspective who acts independently of the CRO for a more objective perspective. This person would act as an ambassador of the sponsor and give “voice of the customer” feedback throughout the trial. In either case, you want this person to share your same vision of excellence. Finally, consider creating a customer experience plan for your study and sharing it with your CRO and other customer facing vendors so that your expectation of the experience is clear and shared with the entire study team.

The benefits of an excellent customer experience for a clinical trial site are two-fold. The enhanced experience will result in better study engagement, thus better enrolment and data quality. Further, there will be less unplanned use of resources spent on “fighting fires” throughout the duration of the study. The next benefit is recognized after the study conclusion when results are being published, discussed and incorporated into clinical practice. The experience of your customers will effect their level of engagement at this stage too. If you have successfully delivered an excellent customer experience, your company brand will be strengthened, your study outcomes will have a more profound impact on your early adopter’s and you will be set up with a well vetted and experienced group of trial sites for your next clinical trial. The opposite holds true. The best study results can be overshadowed by discussion of a poor experience. Your commitment to provide an excellent CX in your CT can ensure that your company’s outcome is positive regardless of study results.

BESPOKE Business Solutions provides clinical strategy, oversight and brand enhancing execution consulting for clinical projects of all scopes. http://www.bespokebusinesssolutions.ca