IMS Learning Solutions has recently joined forces with the three leading Closed Loop Marketing providers in Europe (Agnitio, Proscape, Skura) to develop two simulation-based workshops on CLM and Interactive Detailing. Marking the launch of these workshops, IMS talked to the CEO of Agnitio A/S, Morten Hjelmsø, about Closed Loop Marketing in the pharmaceutical industry.
What are the key success factors for pharmaceutical clients when implementing closed loop solutions?
There is no doubt in my mind that the key success factor when introducing Closed Loop Marketing (CLM) is to remember the overall objective: providing additional value – not creating adding effort or inconvenience. The biggest single reason for failure when implementing CLM in a Pharmaceutical company is that some companies don’t actually implement Closed Loop Marketing, but rather Closed Loop Control!
CLM at the core is about tracking customer behaviour and response and then employ this information to direct and refine your marketing strategy. That can of course only be done if you are focusing your CLM initiative on facilitating the interaction between the rep and your customer, then tracking your customer’s response – as opposed to controlling your sales reps’ behaviour!
Although your sales rep is the one in the driving seat, ie in charge of the “mouse” during the presentation, what you really want to know is what the customer would like to see or hear. The interesting person here is NOT the driver, but the passenger.
The difference between flexible and paper-based detailing is like comparing a bus to a taxi – the bus is following a predefined route, and by tracking the bus you will only get told about the driver’s ability to follow the route. The taxi on the other hand is also being driven by your driver… but where the car is going is totally up to the customer – if you track the taxi you will not only learn about the customers preferred destination, you will also monitor your driver’s ability to find the fastest way.
The benefit for the sales reps lays in the computers flexibility to make truly differentiated presentations, pin-pointing the exact areas of interest of the individual customer, whether a physician, a nurse, a patient or healthcare economic. The very nice thing is that doing so is also a major benefit to the customer, hence ensuring a valuable exchange and resulting in easier access, longer visits and ultimately increased sales.
When implementing CLM your first customer is your sales rep and it’s crucial that he/she understands the aim of the initiative and the many benefits it can bring.
What are some pitfalls you've seen in implementation, and how do you think they can be avoided?
Closed Loop Marketing is not a software – the software is only the enabler to perform that interactive marketing that is making Closed Loop Marketing possible. One of the major pitfalls in CLM implementations is looking at each element individually rather than looking at the project as a whole.
In our experience as one of the first CLM pioneers in Europe, the following important elements should be in place to ensure a success
A. Give value to the sales rep – we often say that your first customer is your sales representative. Consider how you can make life easier for your rep using:
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animations to explain the difficult issues and thereby expand the comfort zone,
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trouble-free navigation to make it easy to present the right information,
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CRM integration to reduce post-call reporting,
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utilize the media in the way that you can have all the articles, abstracts and studies on the computer you like, etc.
B. Give value to the customer. If the customer experiences that he or she obtains more value in the encounter with the sales rep he/she will welcome the initiative – and issues like access and call duration become issues of the past. Make it easy to involve the customer and turn him/her into a dynamic participant instead of an inactive listener.
C. Keep it simple. Do not make the first digital detailer too sophisticated. Give the reps a chance to grow with the media – start out by turning your current paper-based detailer into a multimedia presentation rather than creating en entirely new presentation. This way your reps can recognise the content and focus on using the system to deliver additional value to the customer rather than loosing the tread with new content or messages.
D. Train your reps. Not only in the new software. Use simulation-based training to learn how the new approach can be used in different real life situations.
Many companies embark on pilots, but relatively few of these have so far been transformed into fully-fledged operations. Why do you think this is the case?
Going from a “lifeless” paper detailer to a digital tablet pc-based multimedia detailer is a major leap for most companies.
All of the sudden we are communicating through a much more sophisticated media, embracing interactivity, animations and calculations - all in purpose of delivering a more individual and comprehensive presentation and thus creating value to the customer.
Many companies consider the technology leap too great and decide to pilot by “transmitting” paper in their new digital media channel. Doing so, the only thing they will be able to track is the sales reps’ ability to apply the marketers decided “message strategy”. This can of course have great value in itself, however, if you want to utilize the media for CLM and total different insight information about your customer’s behaviour and motivational drivers – you need to use the media in a far more advanced way.
Successful CLM pilots are those that embrace the full CLM potential with a limited group of representatives, rather than using parts of the CLM approach with the full sales force.
In Europe the CLM market has mainly been driven locally – and often by innovative marketers and sales managers. I can of course not speak for the whole CLM vendor market but I can see that by far the most of our implementations continues after the end of the pilot phase – and it is more the rule that once one therapeutic area in a country have experienced it’s first success – the colleagues are joining the success.
The decision patterns and buying power is changing rapidly all across Europe these years, it’s no longer the individual family doctor that decide and prescribe the treatment; A complex network of stakeholders are emerging, all with different knowledge levels, interests and motives to act. A one-size-fits-all paper detailing belongs to the past and every week another company get ready for the era of Closed Loop Marketing.
For more informanion on the Closed Loop Marketing Workshop contact IMS Learning Solutions at LSCM@uk.imshealth.com.
* Agnitio A/S: a leading provider of closed-loop marketing software aimed at supporting the sales and marketing organization of pharmaceutical companies by helping them control and shorten complex sales processes.
** Morten Hjelmsø: CEO for Agnitio A/S and has considerable experience in designing sales strategies and groundbreaking presentation tools. His expertise covers innovative segmentation approaches, customized message development and Closed-Loop Marketing for maximising impact on sales and marketing efforts.
