Integrated Customer Service Models Accelerate

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Lasting change in customer centric service models

Traditionally, the pharmaceutical industry has been organised around product. Armed with blockbuster drugs, strong brand equity, uncompetitive pricing models and relatively straight forward market access, pharma companies have enjoyed comfortable margins.

Little by little over the past decade, this landscape has been changing but that change has been both accelerated by and brought into sharp focus by Covid. The commercial and operational model of successful pharma companies is adapting to the rising challenge of more complicated buying environments, the dominance of digital communication and increasing time pressure as providers manage increasingly complex and sophisticated healthcare options.

As advisors, we are helping our clients find new ways of doing business, one that is fundamentally organised around the customer - whether that is payers, researchers, KOLs, doctors and nurses on the frontline of healthcare, or the patient who is the ultimate focus.

What COVID has revealed about healthcare professionals (HCPs)

The pandemic revealed they missed in person peer-to-peer networking opportunities with their colleagues and MSL interactions at medical congresses. We learned that they prioritised scientific educational content over branded communications and that traditional “sales rep” ways of working did not meet their needs in these areas.

We learned that in this new environment, HCPs primarily used digital channels for professional learning development. This has forced us to rethink the way information is presented to them. The HCP is now in full control of the experience because information is being delivered across devices and on demand at the time and place of the doctors’ choosing.

Integrated Customer Experience

To bridge that gap between the pharma industry and their customers, an internal consolidated focus, investment and alignment is needed to place customers front and centre. So, how is this achieved? We first need to assess customer needs and address educational gaps through the use of learning science. Increase relevance, frequency and quality of content to ensure its presence on both independent and pharma owned and operated platforms to show transparency and fair balance.

Being mindful of the local environment is critical. Our Chief Learning Scientists says “Culture eats strategy for breakfast, lunch and dinner”. What this means is that you can have the best strategy in the world, but if you don’t account for cultural differences, your strategy will fail. Therefore, a major focus should be placed on providing HCPs with local relevance to global data released at medical congresses, as well as prioritising their preferences when it comes to their preferred formats, channels, platforms and devices. Internally, it is equally essential to facilitate global to local affiliate alignments during this process.

Customer centric KPIs

We should look to learning science to understand how adults learn and how they receive information. They don’t learn like medical students, questions arise in clinical practice – at the point of care. We need to make sure the information given is germane. To do this we need to adopt an educational framework which assesses their needs before, during, and after they receive information. From there we can use outcome measurement frameworks such as the transtheoretical model to measure the stages of behaviour change – moving the needle from contemplative to adoption. This will allow KAMs to tailor their conversations with customers.  

Customer Experience and Satisfaction is Critical for Engagement

As the roles of medical, commercial and market access converge, there will be an increasing equalisation of budgets so all customer facing teams can create communications materials that meet customer expectations. With this in mind, many pharma companies will accelerate ‘customer service’ models by integrating above-brand and brand customer journeys. KAMs will play an essential role in supporting customer engagement throughout those journeys.

The integrated teams will need to adapt to and adopt these new ways of engaging with their customers and ultimately more sophisticated KPIs and measurement frameworks will determine what success looks like. New KPIs will emerge based on qualitative positive customer outcomes rather than volumetric data.