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06 May 2025
Customer experience (CX) has become an important differentiator across industries, especially in life sciences. Every interaction a customer has with a brand shapes their perception, satisfaction, and loyalty. A seamless, personalized communication strategy with users can lead to greater engagement, trust, and advocacy, while a poor experience can result in disengagement and lost opportunities.
In the life sciences sector, customer centricity extends beyond traditional customer touchpoints. It influences how patients, HCPs, caregivers, and researchers interact with companies.
A well-designed CX strategy ensures:
Patients
can easily schedule appointments, refill prescriptions, receive timely reminders, and access educational resources.
HCPs
benefit from simplified access to patient data, personalized engagement, and streamlined workflows.
Caregivers
have access to support programs, medical resources, and mental health services.
To create meaningful and personalized experiences, organizations need reliable, transparent, and actionable data. However, traditional data collection methods face increasing challenges due to data privacy regulations and evolving customer expectations. This is where zero-party data (ZPD) come in.
What Is Zero-Party Data (ZPD)?
Zero-party data (ZPD) is information that customers intentionally and proactively share with a brand. Unlike first-party data, which is passively collected from website interactions or purchase history, ZPD is willingly provided by customers in exchange for personalized services, recommendations, or rewards.
Examples of Zero-Party Data in Life Sciences
ZPD is often considered the gold standard of customer data because it is permission-based, transparent, and highly reliable. In life sciences, this may include:
Preferences & interests
such as treatment options or communication channels
Purchase intentions
including interest in specific therapies or products
Personal context
like life events, medical conditions, or wellness goals
This data is typically gathered through methods such as:
Surveys and feedback forms
Patient advocacy or caregiver support groups
Polls, quizzes, and assessments
Engagement on social media platforms
For life sciences companies, the strategic use of ZPD unlocks several advantages. It enables tailored patient education and support by delivering relevant health information, improves HCP engagement through more personalized content and insights, and deepens understanding of patient and caregiver needs. Together, these benefits help shape more effective treatment strategies and foster stronger, more meaningful relationships across the healthcare system.
From Traditional Data to a Customer-Centric Approach
Historically, life sciences companies have relied on operational data such as NPI (National Provider Identifier), CID (Consumer ID), and PID (Patient ID) to drive decision-making. While useful, these datasets primarily capture what customers do rather than why they do it.
With third-party cookies becoming less viable and first-party data facing growing privacy concerns, organizations must adopt a more ethical, transparent, and customer-driven approach. Zero-party data fill this gap by offering deeper, self-reported insights that help companies understand customer motivations, preferences, and expectations.
Enhancing CX with Zero-Party Data: A Pharma Case Study
A leading pharmaceutical company partnered with Indegene to gain deeper insights into customer experiences beyond traditional satisfaction metrics. The goal was to move past generic feedback and capture genuine customer sentiment using zero-party data (ZPD) collected through surveys. Indegene designed a two-pronged approach to enhance the client's customer experience strategy.
1. Zero-Party Data Collection
Customers were encouraged to voluntarily share their needs, challenges, and preferences through strategically designed surveys. For example, HCPs conveyed their preference to have more depth in the content of the videos hosted and navigation issues in the site. This approach ensured that the data captured was intentional, permission-based, and highly relevant to optimizing future interactions.
2. Experience Management (XM) Platform for Advanced Analytics
Indegene leveraged an advanced XM platform to capture and analyze real-time feedback, driving measurable improvements across key CX metrics:
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
A 12-point increase in NPS was recorded within six months of implementing the Voice of the Customer (VoC) platform across key brands.
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
CSAT scores improved by 18% across medical information touchpoints, reflecting better quality of interactions.
AI-Powered Open Text Analysis
Leveraging AI-driven analytics, the client reduced manual analysis time by 60–80%, enabling faster, deeper insights from open-ended feedback.
By combining ZPD with advanced analytics, the organization transformed its CX strategy. Proactive HCP feedback provided granular insights into unmet needs and preferences, while AI-powered text analysis revealed the underlying drivers of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. With a unified view of customer sentiment, the company refined its engagement strategies and optimized processes—resulting in more personalized communication and an effective CX approach.
Building a Unified Customer View with Zero-Party Data
For life sciences companies, the next step in enhancing customer centricity is integrating multiple data sources to obtain a holistic customer view. This approach brings together:
Customer 360
A centralized platform consolidating all customer data for a comprehensive view.
Experience Management (XM)
Advanced XM tools to capture real-time feedback and sentiment analysis.
Zero-Party Data (ZPD)
Voluntarily shared insights that enable deeper personalization.
Key benefits of this integrated approach include:
Hyper-personalized interactions
With enriched customer profiles, companies can deliver highly tailored communications, recommend relevant products, and design engagement strategies that resonate with individual needs.
Stronger customer connections
A deep understanding of customer preferences enables businesses to engage with them on their preferred channels and at the right time, fostering meaningful and lasting relationships
Data-driven decisions
A unified CX framework provides real-time insights that drive more effective marketing, informed product development, and optimized service strategies.
As customer expectations evolve and privacy regulations tighten, zero-party data is becoming a critical tool for building trust and delivering personalized experiences. Moving beyond traditional data collection methods, life sciences companies can promote more meaningful connections with patients, HCPs, and caregivers—leading to better healthcare outcomes.
Indegene brings deep life sciences expertise to help organizations harness zero-party data for a more personalized and data-driven customer experience. By integrating the right strategies, and technologies, we enable life sciences companies to drive long-term success.
Connect with us to explore more.
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