What Are Some Best Business Practices That Make Clinical Trial Participants Feel Like Valued Customers?

A. I AM NOT CONVINCED WE WANT TRIAL PARTICIPANTS to feel like customers. A customer relationship tends to flow one direction — from seller to buyer. My goal is to have a bidirectional relationship with trial participants where they are sharing insights and data, and I can share information and data back. But I definitely want them to feel valued in that relationship, which I can get closer to realizing by acting on shared insights, being transparent with information, and quite simply – saying thank you. Driving consistency is hard in a large organization and requires appropriate change management to help teams along with clear expectations from company leadership of the importance of demonstrable patient engagement. I recently heard one executive suggest that maybe everyone in the organization needs a goal to sit and talk to at least one patient this year – perhaps that is where we begin.

CRAIG LIPSET
Craig is head of clinical innovation within worldwide R&D at Pfizer. In this role, he works across units and stakeholders to define Pfizer’s vision for the future of clinical trials and enables the initiatives and investments to create that future.