There's Always a Smoother Way to Communicate and Build Relationships with Physicians

VALUE is the Trending Word of 2023Pharmaceutical companies will be under increased pressure in 2023 to demonstrate that their products provide real valuehttps://www.biospectrumasia.com

I recently read Steve Peretz's 2023 pharma trend analysis in BioSpectrum. His take on communicating with HCPs lines up closely with what I've been seeing in the market. Key points from the analysis:

Optimizing digital transformation means paying attention to customer experience and the quality of every customer touchpoint. That will be the central challenge for sustaining revenue and relationships in 2023.

In 2023, that trend will inevitably continue… next iteration will focus on leveraging the industry’s growing digital maturity to offer increased patient value while achieving measurable business goals… caregivers, physicians and other healthcare professionals… they want to see more advanced and useful user experiences.

The future lies in consolidating communication into a single channel, rather than asking HCPs to download and register for one program, app, or website after another.

…For customers and healthcare practitioners, there are few things more cumbersome than having to register for, or download, countless pharmaceutical programmes… we can expect Pharma to … ultimately provide a single online experience. This could be a single platform for CRM across brands, a single app platform, or a single website for all health conditions.

In 2023, data remains at the heart of pharma decision-making.

Data has been the key driver behind the pharmaceutical sector’s new product-focused business approach — and in 2023, we can expect companies to get even better at managing the vast amounts of data at their disposal…

From an HCP's point of view, if every pharma company asks them to download its own branded program, the user experience suffers, and with it HCP adoption and the effectiveness of brand communication. Meanwhile, a CRM on its own, whether Veeva, Salesforce, or any other system, can't generate any data without the tools and touchpoints to reach people.

Optimizing digital communication channels raises adoption, which lets pharma companies collect more data and feed it back into the CRM you already use, supporting downstream data analysis and market planning.

Taking these trends together, the solution pharma companies need should deliver the following on their side:

1. Serve as a channel for engaging HCPs and capture how HCPs interact
2. Organize data and integrate it with the CRM
3. Offer a widely adopted channel with high reach

And on the HCP side, it should:

1. Require no new program or app downloads
2. Be something they already use every day, with nothing new to learn

In the Taiwan market, a LINE Official Account meets every one of these needs at once. It gives you a direct line to HCPs on LINE, with higher conversion rates than SMS or email, and lets you build lasting relationships through interaction while increasing brand exposure and collecting data. My clients have tripled their touchpoints and grown their interaction conversion rate sixfold. For digital transformation, communication, and data collection, it's arguably the best online solution available today.

That said, using a LINE Official Account to communicate with HCPs still raises a number of regulatory issues. We'll save those for the next post.

Just read "Value in the trading word of 2023" of Steve Peretz in BioSpectrum, sharing 2023 pharmaceutical industry trend analysis. About communicating with HCPs, it aligns very well with my recent market observations. I conclude 3 key points as follows:

1. Optimizing digital transformation and focusing on the quality of customer experience and customer interactions will be the key challenge for revenue and relationship maintenance in 2023.
2. In order to keep up with future trends, it will be important to prevent having HCPs download too many programs, apps, or web pages, and instead provide a one-stop communication channel.
3. In 2023, data will continue to be a major factor in pharmaceutical decision-making.

From the HCPs' perspective, requiring HCPs to download a brand's program from each pharmaceutical company can reduce the satisfaction of user experience and decrease HCPs' usage ratio(MAU) and communication effectiveness. However, only having a CRM, e.g. Veeva, Salesforce, without any tools, nodes and touchpoint for interaction cannot generate any data.

Optimizing digital communication channels can increase user usage ratio(MAU), increase data collection for pharmaceutical companies, and integrate data to the CRM you are using, benefiting your data analysis and market planning.

Based on the above trends, the solutions that pharmaceutical companies need should be able to achieve the following from the pharmaceutical company's perspective:

1. Serve as a channel for interacting with HCPs and collect data on HCP interactions
2. Organize data and integrate it with the CRM
3. High channel penetration and high reach

And from the HCP's perspective, the solution should satisfy the following:

1. No need to download new programs or apps
2. Can be used normally without relearning

In the Taiwan market, using "LINE Official Account" can satisfy all of the above requirements at once, and establish a direct communication channel with HCPs on LINE, with higher conversion rates than SMS or email and the ability to establish long-term relationships through interaction, increasing brand exposure and data collection. My clients have successfully tripled their touchpoints and increased their interaction conversion rate six-fold. It should be said that it is currently the best online solution for digital transformation, communication and data collection.

However, there are still many regulatory issues to tackle when using "LINE Official Account" to communicate with HCPs, which will be discussed in the next post.

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