Pharma’s Customers Are Ready for A New Engagement Model: Is Pharma?

With thousands of pharmaceutical sales representatives sidelined as a result of the pandemic, manufacturers are replacing in-person meetings with virtual interactions including email, video calls and new forms of advertising.  Some companies are delaying launches of new medicines to contemplate new ways to engage customers. Prior to COVID, the US health care system has been evolving in ways that make the current sales model obsolete.  The industry has been slow to respond and now faces the daunting task of reinventing its approach to customer engagement.

How did we get here?

Physicians are crunched for time and access is limited. Over the past decade, the number of interactions between sales specialists and providers have been cut in half with no signs of getting better in a post-COVID world.  Access to prescribers is limited as they are pressed to see more patients, manage administrative burdens, and a growing belief that the latest clinical information can be obtained through digital platforms instead of traditional sales calls. 

The individual clinician is less influential.  Vertical and horizontal consolidation is creating fewer customers along the pharmaceutical value chain.  Decision making is shifting from point of care towards institutional guidelines, pathways and national and regional payers’ formularies; leaving individual physicians and practices with far less authority.  As a result, providers are far more interested in understanding the nuances of insurance coverage, access to clinical trials and patient assistance programs. 

New Payment Models are shaping how companies show up.  Payers and providers are assuming greater financial risk while reimbursement is shifting from “fee for service” to “pay for value.”  The result is prescribing decisions being influenced by cost, quality, patient outcomes and satisfaction to a far greater extent than ever before. Customers expect pharma to deliver value in every interaction, every service and their medicines in order to improve the patient experience, population health, and lower costs. 

Digital is the new norm.The rise in digital solutions and non-personal promotion is leading many physicians to question the value they receive from in-person sales engagements. Nearly half of doctors say there is rarely a question or need that can’t be addressed online or virtually. However, the most disruptive force may be pharma’s response to COVID.  Pharma is investing more than ever in digital communications to deliver information directly to healthcare providers and patients. 

Pharma’s reputation is at an all-time low.The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most innovative and transformative.  Yet, we sit here todaywith the most recent Gallup Survey finding the pharmaceutical industry ranking as the most poorly regarded industry.  An effective response to COVID coupled with a new approach to customer engagement may be the cure to this ailment.

Elements of a new model.

In response to these trends, pharmaceutical companies are long overdue to respond. Leaders must redefine, reimagine and act boldly to evolve their interactions with customers to deliver a better experience and outcomes for patients.  To succeed, leadership must align on a set of objectives that reorients the business towards their customers with a bias towards action. While specifics will vary based on unique company characteristics, there are some common elements:

• Establish a clear value proposition for every customer interaction. Companies must reorient themselves from selling medicines to delivering better outcomes and comprehensive solutions for patients.  Everyday customers are saying through their words and actions that they don’t want to be sold products.  Instead, they want partners who will help them deliver sustainable health care.
• Greater integration and coordination in front of the customer.  Create smaller, empowered, diversely skilled teams that breakdown organizational silos and bring together the company’s abilities across research, medical and commercial. Customers don’t differentiate or care what role your people play so long as they can help them get the answers, information and resources to deliver their business objectives.  
• Shift from national to regional and local strategies.  National strategies and resourcing models obscure regional and local differences and needs.  Creating a model that empowers local teams to act quickly in addressing variations across local geographic markets will allow for a tailored approach to the unique needs of payers, providers, and patients. 
• Make digital a core capability.  Establish real-time, customer specific insights that can be shared and coordinated across team members to enable rapid response and empowered decision making in front of customers.  Coupling this with new digital sales tools such as e-mail, webinars, portals and virtual on-demand engagements will further demonstrate a willingness to deliver value in ways that best serve customers. 
• Invest aggressively in talent. Well-trained, digitally savvy team members with the right mindset, technical skills and customer orientation remain critical to success.  Maintaining excellence in scientific acumen and patient-centricity must be supplemented with expanded capabilities in strategic account management, team selling, fluency in reimbursement, patient support programs, and health economics and real-world evidence. 
• New incentive structures.  New performance metrics are needed to complement traditional sales measures.  Success must go beyond pills and vials sold to include impact on timely patient access to medicines, lowering costs, improving patient outcomes and customer satisfaction. Beyond the obvious customer benefits, such a shift can also lead to better internal alignment on organizational goals and priorities while enhancing employee job satisfaction.

Getting Started: These are some important steps that senior leaders must openly discuss, agree and commit to before getting started:

• Senior leaders must own the work. Don’t delegate.  The work must be led by individuals with a mindset and incentives that focus on the long-term success of the business and across the entire portfolio.
• Start with a blank sheet of paper. Act like you are starting a new company and have the ability to create a customer engagement model from the ground up.  
• Take a comprehensive approach that touches all aspects of your company’s operating model: structure, process, governance, people, and culture.  
• Get someone from outside of the organization that will constantly challenge you to be bold and challenge conventional thinking.
• Look outside for inspiration. Seek inspiration and insight from outside the industry.  Seek to learn from companies that deliver an exceptional customer experience with large, complex customers.
• Embed customers into your efforts. If you truly want a model designed to serve the needs of your customers; involve them all along the way.
• Create with flexibility and start experimenting. Don’t try to be perfect.  Begin by empowering those closest to the customer, treat every interaction as means to learn and iterate so as to build the muscles to rapidly respond to the changing external landscape and evolving customer needs. 

For now, virtual engagement is a reality.  Pharmaceutical manufacturers have the opportunity to use this time to set an ambitious agenda, challenge the status quo and reinvent how to engage with customers.  Doing so will have a profound impact on patients, employees, the health care industry and the pharmaceutical industry’s tarnished reputation.