Why CX Starts in SalesThe role of the rep in a seamless customer experience

A Little UnderstandingEmpathy for the patient delivers sales excellence

Your Friend

Creating a rapid-reaction, data-driven sales force

in Saleswww.eyeforpharma.com

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12A Little

UnderstandingEmpathy for the patient is

an essential sales tool

4Your Flexible FriendCreating a rapid-reaction, data-driven sales force

8Why CX Starts in SalesDelivering a seamless, positive customer experience

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In our data-rich, omnichannel, AI-guided world, the personal touch can sometimes be forgotten. Yet, the truth remains that people like to deal with people – it is an essential part of what makes us human. No interaction with or through a machine can ever be as satisfying as a handshake and conversation.

Sales reps have always been the human face of pharma and, in spite of doomsayers’ predictions, they look set to remain so for years to come. However, the role continues to evolve, with new challenges demanding new skills and new mindsets.

In this magazine, we view the big trends shaping pharma through the lens of the sales force.

In Your Flexible Friend (page 4), we ask what steps companies are taking to create the rapid-reaction, data-driven sales force that is needed to understand and deliver the needs of today’s customers.

Why CX Starts in Sales (page 8) does what it says on the tin. The focus on delivering a seamless, valuable experience for all customers might have started in the marketing, but now it is returning to its natural home – the sales force.

Understanding the customer used to be the whole ball of wax for sales reps but this focus is changing. Smart companies – and smart reps – know that customers respond best to an understanding of the patient and their needs. In A Little Understanding (page 12), we ask how reps can ensure they have a patient-focused mindset and what they can achieve through a genuine understanding of the patient experience.

I hope you enjoy this magazine.

Izzy GladstoneHead of Marketingigladstone@eyeforpharma.com

Giselle QuartinHead of Operations, Barcelona gquartin@eyeforpharma.com

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Creating the rapid-reaction, data-driven sales force of tomorrow

very business likes to believe that it knows its customers. We know who and where they are, what they like and what they don’t, and, most important of all, what they need.

In the past, we relied on anecdotal evidence and gut feeling, more recently on market research and segmentation. But now, as the data trickle swells to a

torrent and the digital revolution continues to transform our lives and our expectations, customers are seeking a fundamentally different, more personalized and evidence-based relationship.

The pharmaceutical sales force lies at the epicenter of this seismic shift.

Your Friend

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“Sales reps carry an incredibly valuable asset; they have a deep understanding of their customers, they know them inside and out,” says Patrik Grandits, Managing Director, Head Commercial Operations EAME Oncology, Daiichi-Sankyo Europe. “There is a great deal of insight and knowledge there, but I do not think it has been optimally leveraged so far in the pursuit to meet our customers’ needs.”

Sales reps’ insight and knowledge must be bolstered by other sources, he says. “Artificial intelligence, big data and digitization have to come in to enable us – at all levels of our organization – to truly understand our customers’ needs and patterns, so we can ask the right questions. We have cultivated data gathering over decades, but we don’t use the data in the smartest possible way.”

The entire sales force must now embrace the value chain – understanding requirements, gathering insights and utilizing knowledge to enable deeper customer sales force effectiveness.

“We must move away from the transactional model and try to have a closed-circle approach – you start a conversation, you ask questions and you try to identify the overlaps between the customer need and what our offering is, so you come to a win-win,” says Grandits.

A CURATE’S EGG?Yet, in the multichannel age, those conversations may not take place face to face.

“The sensationalists out there will tell you – and it’s trendy in some quarters – that sales reps are not going to exist in five years,” says strategic

biopharmaceutical commercial leader, Chris Gish. “But I can tell you that I got into this business in 1991 and I started hearing that in 1992.

“In the last 10 years, it’s been all about digital communication, but the most recent research has consistently shown that there is a strong minority – in the 40-50% range – that like talking to an actual human being as their preferred channel, or in addition to digital,” he says.

Reps have an opportunity to metamorphose into “curators of content”, using digital to their advantage. “It’s all about getting the right information in front of the right person at the right time,” he says.

“There is no end to the internet, every bit of information is out there. The challenge is to curate that down to the vital piece of information that is relevant to a particular physician. I think about it like the gauges and dials on the dashboard of your car, a lot of thought has gone into why that piece of information is presented there for a driver to see at a glance.

“That’s where this will begin. Probably through a fair amount of machine learning and artificial

intelligence as big data is used more and more productively,” says Gish.

High-tech machinery aside, attitude matters, says Daiichi

Sankyo’s Grandits. “We have to move away from, ‘I tell you what you need and bring it to you’, to ‘You tell me what you need and let

me help you understand how I can support you’. It’s reverse-

thinking and will result in a completely different breed of sales

rep. The classical method is obsolete.”

“ Sales reps have great strengths; they have a deep understanding of their customers, they know them inside and out.”PATRIK GRANDITS, DAIICHI SANKYO

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Digital is just a means to an end, he adds. “Just because everyone is jumping on the multichannel train does not mean that everyone should. You have to first understand the customer need and then you utilize whatever multichannel tool you might have to serve that need. It’s important not to use it just because it’s sexy and new.”

Gish is more confident; he sees companies taking the first tentative steps towards this brave new world, although a full transformation will take up to ten years, he says.

“Many companies will first have to realize that they need to transform. They will have to rethink the skills they need and the type of people to hire and train. I was in the US Navy for six years and the pharma salesforce is structured in a similar way to the military – it’s very top down – so change will take time as people tend to resist it,” he explains.

“When you look at the way AI identifies different outcomes, what will begin to happen is that we need the person closest to the customer to begin to push information up about what the customer is saying or doing, so that the circle of resources can be fine-tuned based on that.”

As the role changes, fewer people are an inevitability, says Gish. “It’s going to be less about getting someone who can, for example, be in front of Doctor Smith twice a month, and more about someone who can manage a relationship with Doctor Smith on behalf of the company. Sure, they are going to show up in person on a regular basis but it’s just as likely that Dr Smith might prefer the rep skype him instead because it’s easier and faster.

“He may want to do it at 6.30 in the morning or for five mins at lunch rather than have you show up in his office

for half an hour. The rep has to be flexible.”Gish cites companies that, instead of simply giving their

reps a visual aid on an iPad (basically just a digitized version of the print one), are giving their reps an iPad that allows them to compliantly select and tailor the content they show their customer based on his or her preferences, and also drive the preferred channel. The new rep will call plays like a quarterback.

Pharma would benefit from the ‘quarterback’ model, he adds. “Right now, customers are forced to endure lots of duplicate material and communications, but in the future this is going to be a lot more coordinated. The rep will be much more of a business thinker, trained more in strategy and armed with a greater understanding of machine learning and big data.

“When we have a more coordinated approach, or the quarterback model, customers will be happier. They will want to invest five minutes of their time talking to a rep because they know they will benefit from that interaction.”

THE NEXT BEST ACTIONFor Matt Portch, VP Managed Markets at Sunovion Pharmaceuticals, the sales rep of the future must know as much or more about their customer as they do about their product.

“They will need a higher level of collaborative selling skills and clinical acumen, both grounded in data, than they have today,” he says. “And it will center more around health economics, not just around efficacy and safety as it does today.”

Yet, for all the talk about the utopian dream of a rapid-reaction, digitally empowered sales rep, can human beings ever cope with the complexity?

“ [Reps] will need a higher level of collaborative selling skills and clinical acumen, both grounded in data... and it will center around health economics.”

MATT PORTCH, SUNOVION PHARMACEUTICALS

www.eyeforpharma.com/sales

Meet our contributors

Patrik Grandits Managing Director, Head

Commercial Operations EAME Oncology

Daiichi-Sankyo Europe

Matt Portch VP Managed Markets

Sunovion Pharmaceuticals

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Chris Gish Strategic Biopharmaceutical

Commercial Leader

Peter Barschdorff VP, US Pharma Commercial Insights

GSK

Peter Barschdorff, VP, US Pharma Commercial Insights, at GSK, is more aligned with the idea of a smart, AI-driven engine that handles most instances of HCP multichannel engagement.

“There are certainly important decisions-makers who don’t expect reps to master all the intricacies of orchestrating optimal channel mix for HCPs, particularly given the complex and dynamic US reimbursement market, which also offers numerous means of direct-to-patient promotion,” he says.

With an AI-driven model taking care of omnichannel engagement, supported by a team of analysts and data scientists, reps would simply need synchronized, integrated, easy-to-use tools that convey specific directions about ‘next best action’ within a limited but effective HCP portfolio, he adds.

There is little doubt that the pharmaceutical sales rep stands at a new frontier of customer-centricity, but are they ready to step bravely forwards? Is the system itself even ready for such a transformation?

“In the UK, parts of the EU, in the US, Japan, every market has regulations designed to control how companies communicate with their customers,” says Gish. “Pharma is a highly scrutinized business and there is concern that change could raise the ire of regulators or state attorney generals, who like to sue pharmaceutical companies.”

Grandits adds: “Pharma is not yet ready. As an industry we are change-averse and as such we have not done enough to transform the system away from the transactional approach. We are still hiring share-of-voice reps and producing multichannel tools.

“We need to get out of our comfort zone and ask the fundamental question – What does the customer need and want? In the same way as we have individualized, targeted therapies, we need to have personalized, customer-centric, targeted and individualized projects for customers. Personalized customer service if you like.”

The debate is set to continue. There are many who truly believe the sales force is doomed, while the more optimistic believe just as strongly that the value of the sales force is irreplaceable. The truth – and the future truth – inevitably lies somewhere in between.

The only certainty seems to be that change is most definitely afoot.

It’s a question that foxes many, but if there is one role in pharma that needs no definitions – who know what CX is instinctively – it is

the sales rep.In its simplest terms, CX is a series of interactions

between customer and organization over the course of a business relationship, but it’s reach is far broader and deeper. CX is at once transactional and emotional; an individual or entity either forms a favorable enough impression to continue giving their custom to a respective company or they try their chances elsewhere.

As the concept of CX leads to real action on the ground, even the most hardened sceptics – who may once have seen CX as nothing more than a buzzword – are beginning to realize its power.

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Delivering a seamless and positive customer experience starts with the sales rep

Why Starts in Sales

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As a result, the concept and practices of CX are oozing out of the marketing department into their natural habitat – the sales organization.

“Medical reps are core to the concept of CX in pharma,” says Florent Edouard, SVP, Global Head of Commercial Excellence and Customer Engagement, at Grünenthal.

“A good rep can ensure the appropriate patient will receive the right treatment and therefore benefit fully from the HCP interaction, with the HCP receiving in exchange the satisfaction of being successful in his treatment choice.”

According to Edouard, pharma – unlike fast-moving consumer goods, for example – faces a “unique chance” to use reps to “both shape and gather feedback in an objective way on the customer experience, which is a long-lasting and integrated capability”.

He adds: “We need to take the full benefit of it, but to do that, we have to convince the reps that we do not collect the CX data to manage their performance, but to truly improve patient outcomes.”

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“ We have to convince the reps that we do not collect the CX data to manage their performance, but to truly improve patient outcomes.”

FLORENT EDOUARD, GRÜNENTHAL

Rafael Ramon Commercial Excellence Leader

EEMEARoche

Florent Edouard SVP, Global Head of Commercial

Excellence and Customer Engagement Grünenthal

Meet our contributors

KNOW THYSELFYet, no standard CX delivery model yet exists for pharma, says Rafael Ramon, Commercial Excellence Leader EEMEA at Roche.

“Customer experience is a term on everyone’s lips, but unfortunately it is not equally understood,” he says. “It’s not only reps; many marketing or commercial professionals think CX is customer service, while other think it’s promotion. The issue is not the sales rep herself – the issue is that CX needs to be at the core of an organization. The entire organization must commit to CX, and doing so, communicate its vision for CX.”

What’s more CX has no universal standard – as Ramon puts it, “a generic company competing on price should offer a different CX than an innovative company focusing on orphan indications”. Consequently, reps need to know their own company’s view of CX before they begin to approach HCPs.

“Having a clear understanding of CX, bringing stories around the desired behaviors, will help clarify CX and its relevance for the company,” he says. “This starts by a firm commitment from the entire organization. If done properly, CX provides reps with clear guidance and increases the strategic relevance of their tasks.”

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REPS ARE NOT DOCTORSFor Ramon, the best kind of CX is built on a deep understanding of the customers. While reps are perhaps not expected to have the same level of clinical knowledge as doctors, by immersing themselves in the healthcare environment they gain a greater appreciation of what their customers really need.

“Reps aren’t doctors, but if they can educate themselves about CX, it may help,” he says. “You can talk to doctors – it definitively helps – and you can spend time with them in their hospitals, shadowing if possible, letting them share their stories.

“This approach will generate the best insights. Sales reps that are close to doctors – and who are often the first contact point to the company – are pivotal for this approach.”

The good news for reps is that they are starting to be held in higher esteem by doctors, says Ramon. This because companies have changed tack from rep-doctor relationships based almost exclusively on product to one of mutual trust.

“On the ground, I have seen many sales reps well-accepted by doctors,” he says. “This is a strong fundament to build on but not sufficient to allows the doctors to open their hearts and minds.

“ The key to becoming a trusted partner is trust itself... if you fake it, they will know.”RAFAEL RAMON, ROCHE

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“The key to becoming a trusted partner is trust itself – the customer must know that you sincerely and

genuinely care about their issues. If you fake it, they will know. Again, unless you have an organization-wide approach

where everybody is committed to CX, the customers will know it’s only a buzzword.”

PROFOUND RE-ENGINEERINGSales reps are beginning to realize that they need an image makeover as the concept of the slick salesman no longer washes with customers, says Edouard.

“Reps need to become better educated medically so they can help the physician identify the right patient for a product,” he says. “They also need to be more aware of HCPs and account constraints to help them achieve their cost containment objectives.”

Edouard admits there is “still a long way to go” on this front. So, what’s holding reps back?

“For now, it is about peripheral or superficial initiatives – in one country, one business unit or one company – that do not survive when a leader moved to another function,” he says. “What we need is a deep, profound re-engineering of the pharma model.”

In CX, customer needs always come first, so to enable reps to deliver on this, Ramon returns to the significance of a company’s “shared vision on CX”. In the end, it is always culture that dictates how reps approach CX.

“CX is about loving your customers’ problems, not your problems with the customer,” he says. “It sounds like an overused slogan but it holds some truth. I have seen many reps genuinely caring about their customers. In my eyes, the key question is not ‘How do reps do this?’, but ‘How do we create an environment to enable reps to do this?’.

“ What we need is a deep, profound reengineering of the pharma model.”FLORENT EDOUARD, GRÜNENTHAL

It is more about removing organizational obstacles and creating a shared vision on CX than it is about training the reps, he adds. “If you see your reps as ‘message delivery agents’ or ‘data delivery professionals’, then they are competing with Google. Good luck with that!

“Instead, reps will need new skills to shape a collaborative engagement approach. I see a need to increase customer understanding skills, such as probing, as well as storytelling skills to engage on a deeper level with their audience.”

The goal of CX is customer loyalty and, even better, customer champions who actively promote you to others.

“What do people care about?” ask Ramon. “Themselves. If reps can pass on the message that ‘We –the entire organization – are here for you, and we care about your problems and support your objectives’, they will become the trusted partners of doctors.

“What do you do with a trusted partner? You recommend and promote them.”

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Little UNDERSTANDING

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Make no mistake about it, the role of the pharmaceutical sales representative is in flux. But, then, when has it not been?

In truth, looking at today’s small, data-fueled sales forces, it’s hard to conceive that back in the early nineties more than 100,000 pharma reps were plying their trade in the US alone.

Back then, the name of the game was – in reductive terms – to flog as many blockbuster drugs to healthcare professionals (HCPs) as possible. Ok, it was always much more nuanced than that, but it never approached the complexity of today’s environment, where reps are increasingly expected to focus on patient outcomes to deliver their targets.

To do that, companies are increasingly focused on tracking patients and building high-resolution, holistic pictures of the patient journey, every twist and turn, every bottleneck and pinch point.

Once the preserve of company HQ and global marketing departments, now, an understanding of the patient experience is a vital weapon in the arsenal of the sales rep.

While this sea change is welcome, says David Fortanbary, Senior Director of US Performance Training at UCB, it goes deeper than patient understanding.

If reps truly want to improve their interactions with HCPs, they need to demonstrate “genuine empathy” for individual patients’ experiences.

In effect, they need to step into the patient’s shoes. “Empathy absolutely improves interactions with the HCPs,” he explains. “Once empathy is achieved, learning and understanding the data and the reasons why your products or solutions are good choices for that HCP is a lot easier.

“Your mind is opened up when you dig into the data; you understand it and you want to learn more, because you are intrinsically motivated to do something for the benefit of that patient.”

With the sheer complexity of our omnichannel world, it’s easy to lose track of what customers want from sales reps – clarity and simplicity. As a result, these two highly valued qualities can get lost in the mix.

Little UNDERSTANDING

Understanding the patient experience is vital for the modern sales rep

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For Fortanbary, the guiding principle for the sales force is simple: value.

“There’s no question about it, as pharma and biotech representatives, we have to be prepared and ready to deliver insight and value to our customers,” he says. “Every minute they give us, is one less minute they can see patients, which can have an impact on their income.”

You have to create and generate value from day one, he adds. “That comes from preparation and conviction, and understanding the patient, understanding the products and understanding the disease area as much as possible.”

Commercial leaders have a responsibility to nurture a learning culture, says Lutz Bonacker, SVP and General Manager, European Commercial Operations, at CSL Behring.

“The majority of our regional business managers (RBMs) and sales reps have a decade of experience in their role, which provides them with a detailed understanding of the entire patient experience. This is backed up by a high level of clinical knowledge, by continuous learning based on interactions and conversations with customers, and through close working partnerships with HCPs, which helps them to understand the challenges that patients face.”

At UCB, the focus is on creating immersive learning experiences, says Fortanbary. “We do everything we can to create empathy and to simulate what it is like to be in a patient’s shoes.

“ We do everything we can to create empathy and to simulate what it is like to be in a patient’s shoes.”DAVID FORTANBARY, UCB

David Fortanbary Senior Director of US Performance Training

UCB

Lutz Bonacker SVP and General Manager, European

Commercial OperationsCSL Behring

Meet our contributors

www.eyeforpharma.com/sales

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“We have elevated the production value of our sales meetings – it’s no longer about PowerPoint slides but about creating an environment where you feel you’re with the patient as they experience symptoms, at first diagnosis, and the experience of aftercare treatment.”

Simulation of the patient experience is increasingly forming a key part in the training of today’s reps, with many companies, including UCB, bringing in real patients. Reps are also encouraged to not think of patient understanding as a tick-box exercise – “one-and-done” – rather an ongoing journey to build a personal connection to the patient.

Reps need to draw on this connection when they meet their HCPs, says Fortanbary, but it is only the first step.

“Once you have it, then it’s about how you connect that patient to the representative’s personal life. Everyone has a story, so if you can find out what that rep’s ‘why’ is, if you can find out the purpose of why they do what they do, you increase the chances of creating a strong bond and purpose. But it all starts with the patient.”

At CSL Behring, patient understanding is built on many levels – through engagement with patient groups, to regularly monitor and re-evaluate the patient journey to HCPs, and patient advocates delivering talks at internal training sessions for RBMs.

It’s all about staying “ahead of the curve”, says Bonacker, who also admits that the shift to a truly patient-focused approach for reps is not without its challenges.

“It requires a committed approach to gathering insight and staying connected, together with ensuring that a regular forum exists, in which relevant findings may be communicated effectively to our RBMs,” he says.

“On the external side, we recognize the need to maintain a transparent and ethically-sound relationship with HCPs. It falls, therefore, to our RBMs to build and maintain that trust with HCPs.”

Fortanbary adds: “As industry leaders, we have to be consistent in our approach. It has to be embedded in our culture.

“It’s not just a picture on a visual aid, it’s spoken across every level of the organization – the tone at the top must be the same as the message in the middle, and everyone must be aligned around one single thing – delivering value to patients.”

DAVID FORTANBARY, UCB

“ We recognize the need to maintain a transparent and ethically sound relationship with HCPs. It falls to our RBMs to build and maintain trust with HCPs.” LUTZ BONACKER, CSL BEHRING