How to bridge the CX perception gap through robust external benchmarking

Beverly Smet | SVP, Global Accounts, Precision AQ

Co-authored by Fonny Schenck (former CEO, Across Health).

Despite years of progress and investment, the gap between how companies perceive their customer experience (CX) delivery and how customers actually feel remains stubbornly wide across industries – including biopharma. This long-read blog explores the persistent CX perception gap, why it matters, and how robust external benchmarking can help close it. Drawing on data from industries at large and from Precision AQ’s own insights into HCP engagement, we examine the real impact of CX on Net Promoter Score (NPS), the power of omnichannel strategy, and the untapped potential of using comparative CX data to drive sustained business advantage. For pharma leaders ready to act, the opportunity to differentiate is clear – and increasingly urgent.

Mind the gap: Customer experience evolution across industries & over time

Let’s start with a truism: customer centricity implies that you listen to your customers. But many companies only track internal metrics and/or only survey their best customers – and then assume they know what their customers think. This was already described back in 2005 by Bain & Company, who called it “the delivery gap”¹: more than 95% of surveyed management teams claimed to be customer-focused and 80% of companies believed they deliver a superior customer proposition – vs 8% of companies whose customers agreed with this.

That was 2005… Let’s look a bit closer to more recent times (2018), where one would expect the gap to have closed at least to a certain extent. However, when Capgemini did the test, they concluded that the gap persisted: with 82% of retail executives thinking their organizations were making emotional connections with customers, yet only 16% of these customers agreeing.² However, this average “customer experience perception gap” (in line with Bain’s “delivery gap”) of 66% did vary by industry and by geography.

“Companies do not take the time to really understand their customers, and if they do, they are not using what they learned to design a better experience; and finally they fail to get the organization aligned around the work to be done and the experience to be delivered.”³

Fast forward to 2025, when Amdocs surveyed nearly 1000 business leaders and over 2000 consumers across 14 industries and countries:⁴

• The customer experience perception gap has shrunk further, but is still 56%: only 24% of customers feel their expectations are being met, vs 80% of leaders who think they’re doing great
• 85% of loyal customers consider switching brands after repeated bad experiences
• 60% of customers actively recommend brands based on positive experiences
• Many organizations are focusing on the wrong metrics, implement technology without purpose, and fundamentally misunderstand what customers truly value in their interactions with brands.

“Companies don’t fail at CX because they don’t care – they fail because they don’t see the gaps. Real progress starts when leaders stop assuming, start listening and make CX a true business priority, not just a talking point.”⁴

NOTE: The (slow) closing of the gap is due only to improved customer assessments; business perception has hovered around 80% since the 2005 Bain & Company report.

Does a similar gap exist in biopharma? And how important is CX in this industry?

Decreasing HCP accessibility and the increasing importance of omnichannel engagement have been key drivers in the recent uptake of CX as a discipline in the go-to-market for pharma.

To drive lasting and impactful change (i.e., “make change a true business priority, not just a talking point” as in the above quote), you need to have strong data to support the business case. Fortunately, these exist in pharma, and Precision AQ has a treasure trove of insights to validate the business impact – and other hypotheses.

Firstly, let’s look at the link between CX, business outcomes and NPS. The latter, aka the “Net Promoter Score”, is a robust customer experience KPI focused on customer loyalty and satisfaction that asks customers how likely they are to recommend a company's products or services (on a scale between 0 and 10). Depending on the response, customers are categorized into promoters (9–10), passives (7–8), and detractors (0–6). The NPS score is then calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters, resulting in a score ranging from -100 to +100. 

After Bain established the cross-industry concept decades ago, it continues to be a “golden” question through to today. It is widely accepted that NPS has a predictive power for revenue evolution…and that CX is a key driver of NPS.

BUT…does it also hold in pharma? The answer is a clear “yes”. Indeed, the Precision AQ team established that on average 60% of the NPS score is determined by CX – ranging from 40% for detractors (60% is product-driven there), to 67% for passives and 70% for promoters. Interestingly, this number has been going up over time: in 2017, Bain found that 40% of HCP brand preference is attributable to customer experience factors beyond the product⁵ (Precision AQ launched its Navigator365™ Cx Benchmark in 2020, so only has data since then).

Does omnichannel improve CX – and NPS?

Secondly, should pharma only focus on the key channel of the rep to improve the customer experience or should it accelerate its omnichannel efforts as well to achieve maximum NPS impact and hence revenue potential? To answer this question, we analysed almost a hundred recent Navigator365™ Cx Benchmark reports (5002 HCPs in 19 TAs and 22 markets; Q4 2024–Q1 2025). The predictive value of rep leadership for NPS leadership is 62%, i.e., 62% of the brands that only led at the rep level also achieved the highest NPS. Brands that led on both rep AND other channels had a much improved 85% chance of also being the NPS leader – a 23% higher probability vs rep-only leadership, confirming the sizeable additional value of non-rep channels. (5% of respondents gave the highest NPS score to a brand that did not lead on the rep channel).

How can external benchmarking help?

According to our annual Maturometer research into the state of digital maturity in pharma (2023–2024), only 52% of 2024 pharma respondents track (or consider tracking) external data for CX benchmarking⁶ – still a low number, but a strong increase vs 2023 (32%). Satisfaction with this type of benchmarking is also increasing, but is still only 55%.

Conclusion

The famous strategist Peter Drucker put it beautifully: “what gets measured, gets managed…[and]…what gets compared, gets improved”. In order to achieve both, external benchmarking is key. When done systematically – and when rigorously acted upon – such programmes should help build and sustain a competitive advantage in customer engagement and market share growth. Agreed, the leading brand in a particular setting may not be the ultimate best practice, but offers at least a comparator and input for an “art of the possible” approach to match and beat the current leader.

For bold leaders ready to kick things into high gear – in a pharma landscape where almost 50% of companies are still holding back on truly involving the customer in CX initiatives – the strategic advantage will be significant. And as we have seen in other industries, the CX perception gap is slowly but surely narrowing over time, arguably holding promise for the early movers in pharma as well. This mindset requires ruthless prioritization on addressing genuine customer needs rather than internal agendas or competitive feature parity. Customers do not stay for what you sell, they stay for how you make them feel. And regular external brand-level CX benchmarking is an instrumental part of the CX toolbox.

Want to dive deeper? Check out our recent webinar, featuring an evidence-based benchmarking case study, and/or subscribe to two further upcoming blogs on this topic here.

If you're interested in using Navigator365™ Benchmark to uncover actionable customer Insights and drive meaningful change in your brand’s customer experience and performance, get in touch!

References

1. Allen J et al (Bain & Company). Closing the delivery gap (2005).

2. Capgemini & Retail Touchpoints. Master the customer experience (2018).

3. Franz A (CX Journey Inc). The #CX Perception Gap. (2018).

4. Amdocs Studios. CX20 Report: CX without illusions (2025).

5. Natanek R et al (Bain & Company). The Cure for Pharma's Commercial Productivity Woes (2018).

6. Precision AQ. Maturometer research, 2023–2024.