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COVID-19 is a wake-up call for the life science industry to find digital alternatives for engaging their customers.
FREMONT, CA: In the past few years, life sciences organizations have been increasing the number of investments in and deployments of technologies in customer relationship management, field force mobile enablement, marketing automation, and digital content. In today’s life sciences industry, customers experience the new competitive battlefield, and the majority of firms now aspire to be a customer experience leader. With customer-obsessed organizations from other industries setting the standard of coordinated and frictionless experiences and technology promising life sciences with significant disruptions, it becomes imperative for industry leaders to re-examine their customer engagement models. Here are some tips to revamp the customer engagement model in life sciences.
• Digital Products and Service Offerings
Customer demands have changed due to social distancing measures and clinical safety precautions. There is a significant increase in demand for digital product solutions requested by physicians and patients, especially in chronic care. There is a strong push by care providers in the inpatient and outpatient settings for remote patient management.
The most prominent surge in inpatient and physician demand for digital service solutions has surely been for telemedicine solutions. All these can drastically improve customer engagement.
• Remote Sales Services
Medical devices require extensive explanations, beta testing, and hands-on product demos. It is not surprising that medical devices have been sold through an outside field force in the past. Similarly, pharmaceutical companies have established extensive field sales to push their drugs and motivate physicians to prescribe their products. In the current situation, field sales forces are forbidden to visit on-site. Therefore, the traditional sales engagement channel is challenged. Remote sales and services are a remedy for this.
• Tailored Digital Marketing
Digital marketing and communication is a vital channel that has not been crippled by COVID-19. With limited access to physicians, patients have increased their online self-education, and there is a steep uptake of online patient education material offered by manufacturers. For physicians, product launches and training have been postponed or been conducted through virtual meetings. For digital health solutions that directly target patient’s communication and interaction has moved completely onto digital channels.