Overview: Customer-Centric Marketing in Healthcare

Introduction

The digital age continues to evolve, increasing the volume and speed of data, analytic possibilities and connectivity of businesses with customers. In many industries, businesses are delivering personalized engagements down to a “n of 1”. The healthcare ecosystem is not immune to this evolution. Both patients and providers now expect the same level of personalized engagement from healthcare as they experience in other industries. Unfortunately, most healthcare companies aren’t ready to meet this challenge.

This evolution, coupled with a few significant driving forces in healthcare, accelerate the urgency for the healthcare marketer to transform their engagement to a more customer-centric marketing (CCM) model. These forces include:

• Patients are bearing a growing portion of the financial responsibility for healthcare
• Patients, caregivers and social media figures are presenting an increase in consumer-type behavior by exerting stronger influence on healthcare product choice
• Greater payer and institutional impact on product selection is beginning to eclipse the traditional dominance of traditional healthcare providers
• The rise of “precision” or personalized medical care in more established therapeutic areas deepens the need for more tightly focused customer targeting
• The increasing focus on the “triple aim” – outcomes, economics and experience - are pushing healthcare companies to be better able to communicate the value proposition offered by their products

ZS research indicates that a customer-centric approach is so powerful that even those companies taking just some initial steps toward it significantly improve their customer engagement rates and marketing ROI, increasing top line sales by 5%.

This article provides an introductory discussion on the topic of CCM and the challenges healthcare companies face in making the transformation. At the end of this summary there are links to white papers, articles, videos, case studies and blog entries from ZS CCM experts that will be of help to companies navigating these needed changes.

 What do Pharma companies need to do to succeed in the future?

• Micro-segmentation - getting to “n of 1”: Companies will need to divide target customer groups into micro-segments, map each of them onto custom customer journeys and prioritize micro-groups based on their business potential using both first- and third-party data. One successful consumer example is how BMW’s “BMW Connected” and their “Open Mobility Cloud” are used to help the company better understand their customers and assist them with personalized and contextual in-car information.
•  Precision messaging - tailoring the engagement: Precision messaging is reciprocal – the customer indicates their preferences and needs through data – e.g. browsing data, purchases and social media and the company, in turn, utilizes the data to supply a personalized intervention of value to that specific customer (and often in real time). Enabling precision messaging requires an AI-enabled repository of interventions mapped to customer preferences/needs. For example, Netflix uses customer data to customize its subscriber homepage and viewing recommendations based on watched content and how customers otherwise interact with them, giving prominence to favored actors or actresses and original streaming content likely to be of higher interest to that customer.
• Omni-channel strategy - deliver an “experience” and not an interaction: Omni-channel CCM uses customer touchpoints to create a seamless customer journey. The journey requires physical and digital connections with the customer in an imperceptible manner. Creating an omni-channel experience requires the company develop an in-depth understanding of their customer’s needs and journeys. Healthcare companies have a multi-layer customer set (e.g. payers, providers, patients, caregivers, etc.) that needs to be considered in planning a omni-channel strategy. For instance, Disney leads the way in executing on its omni-channel strategy by coordinating customer interactions across many channels including their “My Disney Experience” trip planning site and connected mobile app.

Why haven’t healthcare companies gotten there yet?

There are 4 major challenges that need to be overcome for most healthcare companies to overcome in their transformation into a customer-centric one:

1. The need for deeper insights: Traditional healthcare data sources have looked at macro-prescriber segments using data that often lags market activity by months and lacks deep insight to the patient, caregiver and payer roles in those prescribing decisions. Additionally, many firms have not invested in the data, systems, and analysis algorithms needed to gather and use insights gained from that data. Ultimately, the need for this data and systems are driven by C-suite decision making on marketing investments.
2. The enormous volume of content needed: Due to their marketing culture, compliance review, and business processes, most healthcare companies struggle to generate, review and deploy the much larger volume of content needed to be a truly customer centric (“n of 1”) organization. Making this change requires a significant investment in organizational skills and knowledge development, as well as a change management effort driven from the top of the organization. Often a foundational challenge to the necessary transformation is a deeply ingrained traditional and cultural focus on generating the relatively simpler amount of mass market content that is needed for the traditional smaller number of major channels (especially the sales force).
3. The challenge of creating quicker turnaround and responsiveness: Many healthcare companies struggle to gain the speed needed for true CCM. Their marketing processes and decision making, compliance review structures and promotional investment mix have been built around a fixed 1-year brand planning and POA cycle. By streamlining and automating, companies can eliminate (or reduce) hand-offs from one department to another where errors or bottlenecks to speed are often found.  Unfortunately, this is a nascent capability for many companies that is further burdened by cultural resistance borne of frequent regulatory corrections (Corporate Integrity Agreements, mandated promotional materials recalls, etc.).
4. The complexity of orchestrating touchpoints across the organization: Well-orchestrated CCM using expanded digital capabilities requires an iterating transformation across 10-20 channels to generate a rich set of messages delivered to the full range of customers involved in use of healthcare products. Many companies have yet to make the strategic shifts necessary to generate this range of customer contact. An especially significant challenge for healthcare companies is in their siloed organizational structures and budgeting systems, all of which make the creation of an integrated, omni-channel marketing approach harder (and slower) to execute. 

Closing Thoughts

Generating full capabilities in orchestrated CCM requires companies to invest in digital tactics, the underlying data infrastructures and technology, including machine learning algorithms. The biggest challenge, however, often is building the organizational engagement where the company is prepared to accept, adopt and effectively and efficiently use these new capabilities. 

ZS Associates CCM experts have learned that making this transformation requires that companies:

• Understand the major challenges they will face in becoming a customer centric marketing company
• Grasp what “good” looks like in other industries and how that knowledge can be applied in their regulated marketplace
• Plan and execute the large scale strategic and tactical changes in systems, data and capabilities needed to make the transformation work for their product mix and marketplace

Suggested Further Reading

ZS CCM experts have provided a rich range of insights and information on its ZS.com website that has proven useful for organizations engaging in the transformation to placing the customer at the center of their marketing efforts. A few particularly valuable resources can be accessed at the links below:

The future of customer centricity - The pharma industry is becoming more customer focused over time. ZS principal, and CCM expert, Pete Mehr shares how expanding across customer type will take customer centricity to the next level.

Creating a more personalized customer experience: A key step to improving customer engagement is understanding customer preferences. This v-blog entry shares the customer preference details what pharma companies need to know to create a more personalized customer experience.

Omni-channel marketing case study: How a pharma company increased engagement, sales and ROI through customer-centric marketing

White paper: Here’s what real customer centricity in healthcare looks like – and why we aren’t there yet.

Five bedrock principles of analytics in customer centric marketing: Pratap Khedkar, ZS principal and CCM expert cautions that when using analytics in customer-centric marketing, there are five cautionary principles that would be good to keep in mind.

The Keys to Unlocking Customer Centricity: Pharma companies invest in new marketing tools, yet still struggle with customer centricity. ZS principal and CCM leader Pete Mehr covers the changes and strategy necessary to automate customer centric marketing.