Pharmacy omnichannel: Turning trust into everyday convenience

How can pharmacies turn local trust into an experience patients choose every day?

Local pharmacies have an advantage that digital-only providers cannot replicate: trusted personal advice and pharmaceutical expertise close to home. But trust alone does not guarantee patient loyalty. People also expect everyday services to be easy to find and use, from checking availability and asking a question to reserving a prescription, collecting a product, or arranging delivery.

Based on 31 qualitative interviews with pharmacy professionals and patients across Germany, this whitepaper explores the gap between the services local pharmacies offer and how easily patients can access them. The findings point to a practical opportunity: make pharmacies’ expertise more visible, accessible, and convenient across both physical and digital touchpoints.

Key findings

• Patients experience a pharmacy as a connected journey, from searching and asking questions to collecting products or arranging delivery.
• Five expectations shape that experience: availability, easy contact, digital visibility, speed and helpful orientation.
• Digital touchpoints can extend the trusted pharmacy experience; they do not replace personal advice.
• The biggest opportunity lies in reducing friction at key moments, such as checking availability, placing a reservation, and collecting an order.
• Small, focused improvements can help pharmacies become more accessible and strengthen long-term patient relationships.

Who should read this whitepaper?

• Pharmacy owners and managers
• Pharmacists and pharmacy teams
• Healthcare and pharmaceutical leaders
• Professionals responsible for digital services, patient experience or customer engagement

What you’ll learn

• How patient expectations are changing across the pharmacy journey
• How to connect the pharmacy, digital touchpoints and reliable processes
• Five practical levers to improve visibility, contact and convenience
• How to prioritize improvements over the next 12 months
• A practical checklist to help identify actions for the next 30 days

The whitepaper draws on qualitative research conducted by M.Sc. Marija Tomcic at NOVA SBE as part of her master’s thesis, including 31 interviews with pharmacy professionals and patients across Germany.

This whitepaper is available in German.