DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION SERIES - Improving how we add value

I'm passionate about helping pharma field teams feel confident using technology to engage with HCPs. I want them to feel good about themselves and achieve amazing results.

To explore this topic, I've been interviewing inspiring pharma leaders to learn from them as part of my Digital Transformation Series.

Rick Hollis is the Business & Customer Excellence Director at Ipsen UK & Ireland, and has 20 years’ of experience in pharma. He has become really focused on elevating the customer experience when engaging with pharma companies, looking to improve both in-person and digital interaction.

We initially met online in June 2022 on LinkedIn.

I then saw Rick in action on a panel discussion during a digital Pharma Unlocked webinar in November 2022. In February 2023, we were on a panel together, and I really got to know him. I was impressed and inspired, so I wanted to invite him to chat more about his views.  We have not met in person yet, and this goes to show it is possible to create meaningful relationships remotely.

I was delighted that Rick joined me to share his opinions on this topic on his birthday, and share his insight on field force digital transformation.

Please note, these are Rick's own views, and not those of his employers.

What inspired you to work in the pharma industry, and what aspects of pharma are you most passionate about?

Like a lot of people, a sales job was my first job. I did a biology degree and I was always interested in the human body and how it works. I still remember a biology lesson when we were learning about homeostasis, how the body regulates itself.  I thought the system was beautifully designed. Ever since then, I've been obsessed with how the body works, and this led me to medicines. The science fascinated me.

Throughout my career in sales, I've done a lot of sales management, and I've seen what good looks like. I'm convinced as an industry we've got real value to add to customers and I want to improve how we add that value.

 

What do you think HCPs prefer when it comes to the blend of digital and in-person interactions with pharma? Is the starting point virtual or is it face-to-face?

Many salespeople in pharma in the UK have been doing sales for a while now. They’re not just meeting the doctors for the first time. But if I were going to take a launch situation, where we don't know the customers, I think it makes sense for it to be digital first. The future is more digital-first, but if there’s a pre-existing relationship, it’s probably in-person first.

Do you think the preferences vary by physician age group?

It’s so content-specific; for example if I'm on a train, I'll react differently to content than if I was at home or in the office. It's good to have options so that customers can opt for what fits their preference, but whatever route they go down, they should get a good customer experience.

The younger generations have been brought up with digital, but it doesn't mean that older generations can't do it. A lot of that is mindset, in my opinion.

Do you think hiring field people who already know many of the key customers is the most important for launch success, or do you feel that people with the right skills can build the right relationships?

That's really interesting. My view is that good people can build relationships, but it's essential to have the skills to build those relationships, and you've got to have a value proposition. Skills come first, but you've got to have the value proposition.

How far do you think Pharma is on the journey to adopting a truly customer-focused approach?

With digital interactions, we can gather much richer data about how they engage with our content, so we can provide them with more of what they want. It's not just about what they say; it's about what they do. The more data we get, the easier it gets.

My point is, with that data, we can personalise more, whether that's by age or segment. However, we segment them - channel preference, areas of interest, where they are on the adoption ladder - we need to give them more of what they want.

The old-fashioned way was telling everyone the same thing. We had three key messages. The more we can tailor it, the more the customer can pull on what we've got, rather than us just pushing it to them.

How can we use KPIs to measure the performance of the sales force?

What you measure is what you get. Field people in pharma are results-oriented. If you tell them to go see a hundred customers, they'll do it. Imagine if a rep is targeted with sending so many emails because we want to digitise our customer engagement: they'll do it. But it won't be the right emails to the right customers necessarily, they'll just deliver what has been asked.  We have to be more thoughtful about what we're asking the field team to do. It involves more trust in our field team. Leaders still ask about coverage and frequency because it's been there forever.

Sometimes the reps do know best about where they should be going and what they should be doing but we are measuring them on something different. It's a leap of faith to let go of that coverage and frequency. Some bits are getting in the way of pharma making that leap.

At the moment, the reps largely select their own target list. They also are the only way we have of placing a customer on an adoption ladder. We get sales at an account/hospital level but within that hospital, you could have five different customers all using our products with varying degrees of belief in our product. The rep is sort of marking their own homework. They find the customers and then they tell us what the customers’ beliefs are. But if we could do all of that in a data-led way, we could then tell the rep, we know where the customer is on the adoption ladder due to these metrics, now you just go make it move and shift the HCPs' beliefs and behaviours.  I just don't know how to do this yet!

Outside of our industry, are there any companies that excel in customer-centricity that you think we should aspire to be more like?

The honest answer is I don't know. In my own experience, when redoing my car insurance, I was working with Direct Line, and that was a real omnichannel experience between web, text, and email. Another example I have is going for an eye test at Boots; I booked the test online, got a phone call about what I needed to do at the appointment, so I turned up prepared. They're going to get more eye tests through doing that, and I felt prepared and knew where I was going and what was going to happen.

I'm sure we all have experiences of what good looks like. The more we can share the vision of what we're trying to achieve, then that's when field teams will start to join the dots as they know the customers best.

Who has the budget and accountability for developing people?

It's a great question, and there's not much budget. Part of the challenge of making omnichannel happen is that we're often dealing with lots of legacy systems that don't speak to each other. We're trying to create this joined-up experience for the customer, but we're working with one webinar platform here, an email platform there; the whole thing is quite disjointed. I think that's part of the challenge.

How do you plan to approach this at Ipsen?

The honest answer is making slow incremental changes to make things better than they were.

I know that the expectation is really high, the investment in digital is high, and people want to see results tomorrow.

That is an ongoing friction of senior leaders saying 'What are the results?' 'How's omnichannel doing?' I'm really interested in building it properly for the future. And that takes time.

I think to satisfy both, what we need to do is to get little projects to work better than they did. Small sequences of interactions where we can support one particular area, message, and build a better customer experience around that one little thing and show that it worked.

What is the final takeaway for the reader?

What are we trying to achieve in the first place? We're trying to give our customers a really positive experience from working with us, add value, and shift behaviour. The closer we can get to measuring that, then everything else flows towards that. The more we can think about the value you add to drive a shift in behaviour and measure it in a more data-led way.

In conclusion, the journey towards enhancing customer engagement and satisfaction in the pharma industry is marked by a passion for innovation and a commitment to understanding the evolving needs of healthcare professionals.

Through insightful interviews with industry leaders like Rick Hollis, we gain valuable perspectives on the importance of personalised, data-driven approaches. The shift towards digital interactions offers unprecedented opportunities to tailor content and provide customers with precisely what they want.

However, it's not merely about measuring results; it's about measuring the impact of value-added interactions.