DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION SERIES - Humanising the digital process

I am really passionate about helping pharmaceutical sales teams to feel confident about using digital technology to better communicate with healthcare professionals. To explore this topic, I am interviewing inspiring pharmaceutical leaders to share their perspectives.

I recently chatted to Koen Janssens, Associate Director of Field Force Effectiveness at Norgine, and Kym Jacks-Bryant, Head of Digital Centre of Excellence at Norgine. As a company, Norgine has been leading the field in using technology for both healthcare professionals and patient engagement. They were also one of the first companies to invest in the Cheemia ReSET training platform, to help their sales teams adapt to remote working back in 2021.

I have developed great working relationships with both Koen and Kym and thoroughly enjoyed interviewing this dynamic duo about the change of culture in the pharmaceutical industry, now that remote engagement is here to stay.

Background Information

Koen: Koen started with Norgine as a medical representative in 1992. He describes the early 90s as the dinosaur ages as there were no mobile phones, no laptops, basically no digital. He says, "We were using big books to find streets as we didn't even have GPS to find doctor’s offices."

In the beginning of his career, Koen worked in various parts of Belgium where different languages are spoken and realised that even in the same country there are cultural differences. Within his now Global role he has worked across Europe which helped him realise that wherever you are on the planet, sales meetings are just an interaction between two human beings. The sales representative is just trying to get a message through so that the HCP can help their patients.

Koen enjoys his role and believes that anyone can be a good salesperson, they just need to use their personality, "My inspiration to work with people is to help them use the maximum of their potential. If I can make them 1% better, then we are successful as a team.”

Kym: Kym’s career began in 2012 at Takeda where she set out as a Marketing Assistant on a three 3-month contract but stayed for three years working in a variety of roles. She got hooked on anything that touched digital and when she moved to Norgine, she was the first UK digital hire, working on their digital marketing. She now covers digital and marketing across all of the Norgine territories.

Kym says, “The majority of my job is dragging people into the new age but making sure that technology works for them. For me, it’s about designing things that suit people.”

Now that digital transformation has been embraced in the pharma industry, and lockdown is a thing of the past for most countries, what is the new normal?

Koen: The new normal sits between face-to-face engagement and the new remote engagement channels. I think remote engagement started before COVID-19, but the industry wasn't ready to use it to its full potential. HCPs were reluctant to use the tools and the only digital communications they did use were email and phone. But during lockdowns, there was a tsunami of requests for video calls and sales teams were willing to try anything in order to stay connected to their customers.

In this new normal, we can now decide how to engage in order to save time, energy, and distance. Remote engagement helps us to interact quickly with customers to update them on things we want to share with them. Face-to-face is back but remote engagement is a real add-on and sales teams need to realise that doctors see the benefit.

Kym: I think the future will be a mixture! There's a difference in opinion across the healthcare industry. Some HCPs are loving remote calls and don't necessarily need to see people face-to-face, but some aren’t! Sales representatives need to understand individual customer preferences as well as their own. Having that understanding of exactly what each customer wants is a challenge because people change. Companies need to make sure that the support is there; the mechanisms that give the sales force that give the right information from marketing at the right time to communicate it effectively to HCPs. It’s about making the technology usable and simple enough.

What are the biggest challenges?

Koen: Deciding when to use digital is definitely the biggest challenge. We can't forget that we are working with people. Sales representatives also need to use the digital content, that marketing creates, correctly. Companies need to invest in training so that they can use it effectively and confidently.

There is also a cultural difference between countries. Many Northern European countries prefer remote calls but Mediterranean countries like face-to-face, but also enjoy WhatsApp communications. There are different levels of remote engagement implementation to adapt to the end-user, and where they live.

I am curious to know, how does the pharma sales rep role have to evolve to thrive in this multichannel environment?

Koen: The sales representative has to be more than a deliverer of a message, they need to become a trusted partner. They also need to be able to trust remote engagement and realise that it is as valuable as face-to-face interaction.

Sales reps will need to have tech skills to guide HCPs through the potential issues that can arise with digital and they need to be able to deliver remote calls in a functional way. It's crucial that people need to be trained and companies should be investing a lot in that digital journey. This world is evolving so much in digital that you really need to jump on that train.

Kym: A lot of sales representatives have the skills they need, but they need to apply them in a different way. They need to understand the customers’ challenges, their preferences, and how they communicate best. They will need to communicate the marketing message along with describing the technology as well. Finding digital scary can be a mindset thing but if sales representatives transfer their skills, the role can be similar.

Do you think confidence has a lot to do with this?

Kym: When we launched iPads you could tell who had spent time to get comfortable with them. They were the ones that were more confident and had better calls when technology was involved. Sales representatives need to spend time working with remote tools to become confident.

Koen: People that are able to use technology well are very close to recreating the face-to-face chemistry. These people don't forget that they are interacting with another human being.

If you get used to the technology you can get back to your skill of interacting with the customers. When the doctor realises you're comfortable, they see you as a trusted advisor. If people invest time in training and get used to it, they will recreate the face-to-face chemistry.

If you were going to give one tip to organisations about the human transformation of HCP digital engagement what would it be?

Koen: Humanise the digital process and don't alienate people from technology. Technology is here to help us, it should not be a barrier. It should help us interact better. Let your team make mistakes, go through the journey, and invest in the training. Don't force them on a timeline, remember it is an ongoing journey and as they move along they will get better at it. Don't seek perfection, allow people to evolve.

Kym: Don't forget the operator, ultimately the member of the sales force that is in front of your customer is one of the most expensive assets you've got. But, we don't invest enough in them, in terms of creating something for them to use. Use their knowledge and understanding to build what you need and create the tech around that. Then, invest in training and make sure their comfortable showing it off and relating back to their transferable skills. They need time and investment to do that.

Summary

In 2020, we developed Cheemia ReSET, a cloud-based training platform that focuses on the human transformation of digital HCP engagement. Norgine created a safe environment for their sales teams to practice and evolve gradually by using the platform.

Some people describe it as the Netflix of pharmaceutical sales training and it has helped sales teams from all over the world to increase their confidence, and improve the quality of their virtual and face-to-face engagements. In some countries, we've seen a dramatic increase in the number of interactions, as much as ten-fold. We have also seen an increase in face-to-face meetings as a result of effective remote engagement.

We are evolving and developing new content and modules to help develop an omnichannel engagement mindset and create good multichannel habits. If you’re looking for a solution to help your sales team gain confidence and embrace digital tools, please get in touch with us. We’d love to hear from you.