The Perfect Data Myth: What You Really Need to Start Seeing Impact from Omnichannel

In this session, we cover:

  • How we should be evaluating the impact of our omnichannel investments, and how we can measure whether or not we’re positively impacting the customer experience
  • What common misconceptions life sciences organizations have about their readiness to implement omnichannel, especially when AI is involved
  • What kind of AI is possible for an organization with some foundational tech-stack elements in place (a CRM and a marketing automation platform, for example)
  • What three things life sciences organizations can do today to improve the effectiveness of their omnichannel outreach

Watch Aktana, Organon and Roche present at the March 2022 NEXT Normal

 
Webinar Transcript

Moderator

Welcome back to our regular sessions at Next Normal. And we are continuing this interesting Next Normal journey with another session which is having the title, The Perfect Data Myth-what You Really Need to Start Seeing Impact from Omnichannel, which I suppose, and I’m pretty sure will be a very interesting session. And pleased to welcome today, first of all Kimberly Friedrichs from Roche. Hi, Kimberly, how are you?

Kimberly Friedrichs

Hi, good. Thanks. How are you?

Moderator

We are all fine, I can’t complain. We have Rakan Sleiman from Aktana. An Aktanian. Hi, Rakan how are you?

Rakan Sleiman

Hello. Very good. Hope you are doing well too.

Moderator

Thanks you. Thank you. Thanks a lot. And Juan David Rodriguez from Organon. Juan David, same question to you. A tough one, right?

Juan David Rodriguez Sua

Hello guys. Nice to be here today.

Moderator

Fantastic. So let’s deep dive into the conversation, into the discussion. Also, I encourage our audience, if you have any questions to our audience, to our panelists, please ask them in the stage chat section. And our first question which we prepared for you today is, first things first, right? So how should we really be thinking about evaluating the impact of our Omnichannel investments? I think that we all know what happened in the last 24 months and how can we actually measure whether or not we are positively impacting the customer experience? We see a lot buzz being generated about and around customer experience. So let’s start with you Kim.

Kimberly Friedrichs

Sure. Happy to go first. I think I’ll probably take a bit of a step back. So success from Omnichannel, I believe can be evaluated from three different angles. So first of all, the overall general company success, which we could measure from quantitative metrics, but then there’s also, what is the added value for affiliates and those engaging directly with healthcare professionals. And most importantly, what is the added value for the healthcare professional? Because to me, it goes back to what we are trying to achieve with an omnichannel engagement approach. And what we all want to achieve in the end is to improve patient outcomes and how can we make this happen? So first of all, by enabling and empowering healthcare professionals, because we all know that science is increasing in speed and it’s becoming more and more difficult for healthcare professionals to stay up to date with the latest research.

So with a personalized Omnichannel approach, the aim is to make it as easy as possible for them to stay up to date and find the information they are looking for when they come to our websites and our people. And instead of offering several, I call them dead- end services, we want to provide them with a seamless experience, a flow, a Netflix or Amazon type experience that they are used to in their private lives. So back to the question, how can we measure success? What we want to measure in the end is an increase in awareness, in engagement, ideally conversion, which is really tricky to measure and overall satisfaction with their interactions with the company.

And there are several ways to do this. So you can start immediately when implementing omnichannel approaches by comparing the data sets you had before personalizing the experience and after, but most importantly, it’s always a value to ask the customer directly. So to implement real value add services, you really need to know the customer and his preferences and you really need to listen in. And to do that, what you can implement, what you can start implementing are some very standard satisfaction evaluation tools like CSAT, like the customer satisfaction score, the net promoter score or the customer effort score, which measures how easy or difficult it was to interact with the company.

Moderator

Thank you Kim.

Kimberly Friedrichs

Yeah.

Moderator

Fully agree, and I believe this is the holy grail of how to create this customer experience etiquette in our industry, because we all know that some other industries like already mentioned Mercedes, Starbucks, Google, or anyone else is very much known and famous for a unique and unified customer experience, which they deliver to customers, right? So thanks a lot. Rakan let’s hear from you.

Rakan Sleiman

Yeah, no. So I agree with pretty much everything Kimberly said. I think from my perspective, I do like to always just go back to basics and remind ourselves why are we investing so much in Omnichannel? And the reality of it is, we are doing Omnichannel and we want to do more Omnichannel because we do know that today, we are living very much in a multi-channel world where HCPs are being engaged with across a whole host of different channels. But the reality of it and Kimberly touched on this is, not all of these engagements are actually seamless. There is a lot of uncoordinated overlap, as marketing send content to a HCP or as a rep engages with the HCP. And what is the impact of this uncoordinated engagement with HCP is you start to lose engagement, right? HCPs may begin to experience digital fatigue.

And what that actually looks like as you start to try and measure Omnichannel is, engagement drops. They stop actually, let’s say clicking through on emails that may have been sent to HCPs. They stop making themselves available to be visited. They stop requesting visits from the field team, etcetera. The flip side to that is if you are doing Omnichannel the right way, you begin to have a very good customer experience. The HCPs are much more engaged. They’re engaging with emails, they’re requesting visits, etcetera. So a big part of how do you start to measure how well you’re doing from an Omnichannel perspective is really, I always go back to the basics, like know what you need to measure, know what are your success criteria, measure them and then track them, right? If over the course of time, your open rates or your click through rates are actually not improving, then you’re probably missing something somewhere in your omnichannel strategy.

Moderator

Thanks a lot Rakan. And so can we claim currently, based on our experience by working with many, many different pharma companies, that our current actions are triggering the wrong reactions?

Rakan Sleiman

I wouldn’t say that we are triggering the wrong reactions. I would say there is opportunity to drive better engagement. I would say overall, where we may have seen an initial, I would say uplift in digital engagement, that’s kind of plateaued. And if anything is beginning to go back to where it was, let’s say pre-pandemic. There is an opportunity to maximize engagement and it comes all the way back to ensuring that the handoffs between different channels are correctly orchestrated, right? So in your ideal world, you send content to a customer, to a healthcare professional. They consume that content, they follow up with that content through their own preference of the channel with whoever, with the appropriate actor if you like, who’s helping orchestrate the journey.

Moderator

Thanks a lot Rakan. Juan David, let’s hear your opinion about the very same question.

Juan David Rodriguez Sua

No, I guess that everything has been said already. The only thing that I would add, that your ability to measure the impact of the Omnichannel investments heavily relies on your ability to measure that you’re delivering on value. That you’re delivering value to the customer. That what you think is the problem you are solving for the customer is being solved. Because disregarding on the industry that you are, you’re always obsessed with the fact that you want to solve something for the customer, you want to make customer’s life easier, but we can do it in different many ways. So ultimately what you want to ensure is that you are solving for that problem and then you should enable those kind of metrics and indexes and KPIs to enable the organization to measure that you are delivering on your promise to the, to the customers.

Moderator

Thanks a lot. Next question. And let’s start this time with you Rakan. What are some of the common misconceptions life science organizations have about their readiness to implement Omnichannel, especially when you speak about AI, because we’ve heard about AI for the couple of last years but I think we are not moving in the right direction.

Rakan Sleiman

This is to some degree, an easy response from my perspective, which is, we are not ready, right? You go and you speak to different brand teams, different IT teams, different CRM teams. And by in large, there is this fear that their data is not in a state where they can begin to make improvements in the way they’re engaging with HCPs. So the first misconception is, we don’t have the right data. There’s also often concerns about the right technology is not in place to execute on an Omnichannel strategy. I think if we go back to what we spoke about a bit earlier, the reality of it is, you do have data, the data does exist and it exists because HCPs are being engaged with across many different channels right now. Might not be done in the most optimal way, but you do have information about we are trying to engage these HCPs across these channels, they’re not engaging with us or they are engaging with us.

So the data is there and it’s very rich. On the Aktana side, we’ve actually carried out many data readiness assessments. So it’s kind of like at the start of our projects, we plug into their CRM systems, we plug into their marketing automation systems and we go in and genuinely we’re going in to see the state of their data. And every time it’s kind of like, they’re afraid of the outcome. Our customers are afraid that we’re going to go back and say you have nothing to work with, when the reality is completely the opposite. And I would say it feels like every time we do these data readiness assessments, they’re even more ready, right? Part of this is almost a consequence of the last 24 months that we’ve been through.

Moderator

Okay Rakan. Kimberly?

Kimberly Friedrichs

Yes. I think adding to what Rakan said, I think also one of the of major misconceptions is that, has to be this major initiative that spans the entire company. I believe that you can actually, you can start small, start somewhere in a specific area with a specific audience, start getting feedback from customers, demonstrating value and impact, and then expand towards other areas.

Moderator

Thank you. Juan David?

Juan David Rodriguez Sua

Yeah, no, I guess that we all have very, very high ambitions on when we start the Omnichannel kind of journey and we want to go with the big plan approach, and that the only thing that does is to dilute your efforts and your areas of focus. So I guess that there’s nothing wrong with starting small, maybe focusing on one, two channels that you can really orchestrate, that you can have a seamless experience between both of them and deliver the value that you’re promising to the customer, instead of trying to go broad and to cover all the channels that you probably haven’t tried before. So I think that’s one of the misconceptions. And the other one that I have heard every time, is that technology is not ready back to Rakan’s point, similar to the data point. People keep on saying that we have all systems and all legacy systems, but you wouldn’t believe what you can achieve with very traditional CRM systems and back-end systems, that if they’re used in the right way, you can achieve a lot.

Moderator

Thanks a lot Juan David. Yes, you would like to add something?

Kimberly Friedrichs

I would also say that technology probably is least of the problem, right? The processes are more the problem, making sure that we have everything in line, that also, we embed the type of Omnichannel approach in the day to day life of the Field force and of our colleagues interacting with healthcare professionals is probably something that is just as much of a topic as technology would be.

Moderator

Thank you. Thanks a lot Kimberly. Next question. Let’s speak about legacy systems, which CRM certainly is and how possibly we can embed into CRM AI. My question would be, for an organization that has some foundational tech stack elements, certainly a CRM and a marketing automation platform for example, what kind of AI would be possible to implement. Who would like to go first with this tough question?

Juan David Rodriguez Sua

I can go first. I always laugh when we refer to AI and artificial intelligence, because in the majority of the cases, there’s no intelligence behind, it’s only a rule based system that can solve for your needs. So I would say that don’t try to overcomplicate it. Just if you can paint the journey in the tools that you have for addressing the need of your customer, that’s enough. How dynamic you want the journey to be, that’s probably another story, but to start a rule based system that tells you, “You go from A to Z in this way,” is good enough to start. So again for example, just to make a very tangible example of what I’m saying, you can program very easily, that depending on the reaction of an email, then you can trigger a call with the Field force for example. Things like that are very simple to achieve and you don’t need rocket science technology behind it.

Moderator

Thanks a lot. Kimberly?

Kimberly Friedrichs

I’ll let Rakan go first.

Rakan Sleiman

No, no. I did want to add. I do agree with a lot of what Juan did say. I also have a slightly different perspective in the sense that depending, if you like, on how you use your CRM and how you use your marketing automation systems and to some degree, how much data you have consolidated in those systems, there is different kinds of AI solutions that you can begin to realize the benefits from. So at its most simple, if you imagine all your CRM is really being used for is logging calls, logging, let’s say face to face calls with healthcare professionals, then you can obviously leverage AI to try to optimize your scheduling, to maximize not only the reps time, but also the HCPs time, which is very valuable. Juan made this point earlier, which is, if you’re using just two channels, which is the reps are doing face to face calls, and maybe also managing approved emails to the CRM, then you can do a little bit of which is the better channel to use to engage with this specific HCP.

And AI can help with that. If you’re thinking about rep triggered emails in general, there’s a couple of other things that typically we see people try and do. One is, okay, let’s assume I’ve got two, three pieces of content, which is actually best piece of content to deliver via an email to this HCP. So helping select that content, and then, the most simple one, which for some reason we don’t actually do enough of, which is, okay, we have this email, we need to send this email, when is the best time to actually send this email, that this HCP is most likely to engage with it? So those are, I would say, your data sitting in your CRM is rich enough that you can use AI to help with those components of your execution strategy. Just tying in quickly before I hand over to Kimberly, if you think of marketing automation system as a separate channel, there’s very much the opportunity of you define your journey in marketing automation.

And a lot of the time you do want to leverage your Field force to help execute on that journey. So HCP email has gone out, HCP has engaged with it, ask the rep to follow up with either a face to face call delivering a message or even sending an email. AI can also then be like, when is the best time for this rep to execute on this action? Yes, the marketing team want it to happen within a two week window, but in that two week window, there is still opportunity for the rep to execute on that interaction at the most optimal time.

Moderator

Thanks a lot.

Rakan Sleiman

Long answer.

Moderator

Kimberly?

Kimberly Friedrichs

Thank you. I think there’s a lot that you can do from a technical perspective. I think from my perspective, I’m working in the medical space and engaging with healthcare professionals in the medical space and I think there as well, what needs to be taken into consideration are the regulations, compliance requirements as well, because ideally you would want to provide this Netflix type approach on websites, but you need to be very careful there, to not go into a promotional direction. So that’s also something to take into consideration when implementing such artificial intelligence features.

Moderator

Thanks a lot Kimberly. Well, I believe you can all agree, we’ve really learned a lot in the last 24 months, right? And we are for sure smarter, the whole industry accelerated dramatically compared to the previous state of art. But let’s be even more concrete. And my question would be, what are the three things life science companies can do today immediately to improve effectiveness to their Omnichannel strategy and outreach. Who would like to go first with this very tough and concrete question? Let’s pick you Juan David.

Juan David Rodriguez Sua

I can pick only one if you want. It’s all about people, people and people. I cannot get tired of saying that it’s a cliché would say, but upskilling your organization is super important. I think when I look across learning and development program for marketeers and the commercial organization, I see common topics about agile and design thinking and agile ways of working. But I think that we need to raise the bar a little bit and provide a more hands on training for the marketeers to really understand what the tools can do for them, what machine learning can do for them, how they can apply to the business. So, we can get our hands dirty in other words with the technology and know how they can support our business aspirations.

And the other one, the second one, I would say is putting the customer again, in the center. Usually when you have these brainstorming sessions, you brainstorm with marketeers from your organization, but you don’t include a customer in the center. And I would love to ask all the marketeers, when was the last time that you went to the field to ask a customer what they need, how they feel, how they felt in an event, how they felt going to our portal, how they felt reading an email, and that really unlocks tremendous insights.

And the second side of the coin, is to test with them. I know this by heart that having prototypes and MBPs in our industry is sounds like rocket science and bananas because we have to approve all the content and all of that. There are ways to do it with market research organization, with blinded research, that we can throw out prototypes that are not branded with our logos, with our brands, that can help us to validate those hypothesis. So again people, putting the customer at the center again.

Moderator

Thanks a lot Juan David. Kimberly?

Kimberly Friedrichs

Yes. I agree with everything that Juan said. I would also add that, to just implement as many feedback features as possible. To experiment, try things out and implement as many feedback features as possible. And to also make sure that within the processes, we start really basing all decisions on data. So really having this data driven decision making as part of the culture. It goes back also to the people, people, people as Juan was saying, that piece of embedding Omnichannel approaches in the day to day life, not only of Field force, but also of the people taking the different decisions on solutions, on tools, on websites, on channels and strategies.

Moderator

Thanks a lot. And Rakan?

Rakan Sleiman

I agree with everything that’s been said. And I know both Juan and Kimberly have mentioned this, but kind of focusing on your customer, in my mind, it’s kind of like, know your customer. What are the pain points that they’re experiencing today in this let’s call it multi-channel world where we are trying to engage with them across all of the channels. And you can do that through interviewing HCPs, surveying HCPs, et cetera. But you can also do that by looking at your data. What type of engagement is working, what type of engagement is not working? So I would have one category of like know the customer and to some degree, their pain points should help you, which is, I would say my second point, which is set your KPIs. Right.

What are the leading metrics that you need to have in place, to going back to the first question, to evaluate whether or not your execution strategy or your Omnichannel strategy is working for them. And then the final one, and this is probably a cheat one, but it’s kind of just get started. Right? So it’s I think what Kimberly was mentioning, which is there’s so many opportunities out there, get started. Have a strong feedback loop, iterate and improve. Because even to the point that I made earlier, of people being worried they don’t have the right data, getting started, helps you generate the right data, right? So there’s this vicious feedback loop that getting started helps you achieve

Moderator

Exactly. Every journey starts with a single and tiny step. Right? In meantime, we’ve received a couple of interesting questions from our audience. And one in particular, I suppose, is connected to Rakan. And this is you referring to best time to send emails. In my experience with many target groups, I don’t see a difference in opening rate. What’s your experience with that?

Rakan Sleiman

So difference from both opening rates and click-through rates. We do see this. There are definitely pockets of HCPs that engage with content at different times in the day. I would say that we see this not only within brands, but also within markets, right? That certain markets tend to have HCPs more willing to engage with content on certain days of the week, certain times within the day. So I would say that we do see that, we have seen that difference. And if I just go back, part of what Aktana does is suggest the best time if you like to engage with a healthcare professional. Part of what we do in that suggestion is this is the right time. Like literally this is the time of the day to send this email. And part of doing that is because we see a difference.

Moderator

And what’s a good open rate from your experience?

Rakan Sleiman

More than 20%.

Moderator

Okay. More than 20%. What’s your experience Kimberly, Juan David?

Juan David Rodriguez Sua

Kimberly, you want to go first?

Kimberly Friedrichs

Please go ahead Juan.

Juan David Rodriguez Sua

No, I think that it varies. It varies a lot depending on the audience and how specialized your audience is or how small your audience is. I have seen rates from 40% to 20%. And I guess in my view, what matters is click-through rate. So I’m a bit more easy on the way that I measure email efficiency.

Kimberly Friedrichs

I think that’s a good point. Depends on the audience and what you’re trying to achieve. If you’re only sending something out to a very small group of audience, but you really expect them all to open the link because it’s part of one of your KPIs that you set in the very beginning, then 20% would not be sufficient. But it really depends on what you’re trying to achieve.

Moderator

Exactly. However, my biggest learning for this session is certainly a quite simple advice, and this is ask your customers, right? Because you have to ask the customer, maybe he just needs a simple advice, maybe he just wants to see you either face to face, either via zoom whatsoever. So this is certainly something on what we should build on and certainly our industry should move into that direction. Next question. Let’s pick one. Usually if the content is rich, I save the email and study later. Well, that’s an interesting one. I do the same, but frankly speaking, I’m not opening that so often, right?

Juan David Rodriguez Sua

And if I don’t do it immediately, then it’s on the backlog.

Moderator

Exactly.

Juan David Rodriguez Sua

I see a very interesting comment from Edward. That the content side is also another pillar that you need to look very carefully when designing Omnichannel experiences. And I think that is a spot on comment. To work in a way, to have your content ready to be delivered on any of the channels depending on the preference of the customer. If you don’t do that, then what you’re using is just taking paper to a PDF and sending it through the channels. So it’s a very good comment.

Moderator

Speaking about the content, have you noticed in the last 24 months, that our content went from this push strategy to the pull strategy or still this is quite uncertain in your personal experience? Rakan, maybe you can speak because you are really working with a lot of different pharma companies, right?

Rakan Sleiman

I would say from a content perspective, what has been clear is there’s more content to work with today than there was 24 months ago. There is a desire, and this desire is coming from HCPs, which does show that we are investing in better understanding the customers. HCPs want to request content. But the reality is we are still seeing a lot of push, right? We’re still seeing a lot of campaigns, customer journeys, that very much depend on content being created, content being delivered to certain segments of accounts in a certain period of time, right? So there’s still very much, I would say a push mentality out there. But it’s clear that there is an appetite to switch.

Juan David Rodriguez Sua

Yeah. However, I do believe Rakan that there is like a discussion between who is the good guy here, either push or pull. And I think that you need a good combination depending on the channel and the need that you’re solving for. So for example, awareness is where you can have push dynamics, whereas advocacy or evaluation is where you want to have pull options for your customers. I think that a good combination, depending on what you’re solving for, is a good basis. It’s not one or the other one, is how you combine both. In my view.

Rakan Sleiman

No, I would agree with that.

Moderator

Kimberly, anything to add?

Kimberly Friedrichs

No, it comes back to putting the customer at the center like Juan mentioned. I think that’s the most important. And then we will understand more and more, what the preferences are also with regards to push and pull for which type of content. And it’s down to delivering value in the end. What is it that they need from us so that they can help improve patient outcomes. And that’s where we need to get even closer to the customer to understand what the preference is, what the needs are, and then to base all of our decisions on that.

Moderator

Fantastic. Kimberly, couldn’t agree more. Very smart and wise final words. So thank you once again for joining this quite interesting session. Thank you Kimberly, Juan David and Rakan and hopefully to see you also very soon in person. Take very good care.

Kimberly Friedrichs

Thank you.

Juan David Rodriguez Sua

Thank you so much.

Rakan Sleiman

Thank you Kimberly and Juan. Take care. Bye.

Kimberly Friedrichs

Yeah, Bye.