Pharma Sessions
Pharma Sessions
What Happens When Pharma Starts Listening?
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I think both actually. In order for pharma to stay relevant for the ACPs, we need to do some sort of transition. The access levels are declining, and it's harder and harder for us to come with a value proposition that they buy into. And I think what separates medical from let me just call it traditional sales is that traditional sales, in my view, is very inside out. Whereas medical with that specific skill set, but also given the fact that medical people usually have better time, they have less hard targets to meet in terms of number of calls, etc. They have better time to just listen. And I think one of the reasons why very good MSLs succeed is that they do listen and they don't just push their own agenda.
SPEAKER_01Hello, hello, and welcome to Pharma Sessions, a place for pharmaceutical leaders to come and learn from each other. I'm your host, Jonathan Kaskey. Technology and market trends are bringing change at an ever accelerating rate, and no person, team, or company can afford to be left behind. Here, we dive into the strategies and tactics that our guests use to tackle these challenges and create new opportunities and how you can do the same in your own organization. Welcome. On today's episode of Pharma Sessions, I'm thrilled to welcome Jens Olga. Did I get that close? Yes, you did. That was uh nice. Thank you. Jens is an innovative leader driving customer experience and commercial excellence at Novo Nordisk. And one of the reasons I'm most excited to have you on today is because of this idea of unifying cross-functional teams via data, via technology. I think it's so important when we think about multi-channel, about omnichannel, about ultimately providing a good and educational experience for the HCPs that we're all talking about. So, with that, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much. I have really been looking forward to have this conversation with you, Jonathan.
SPEAKER_01Wonderful. All right. So let's just dive right in. So your background is in clinical, clinical and research. So what inspired you to transition from that into this space you're in, this called commercial excellence or customer experience? What happened with the transition?
SPEAKER_00So I think it was a sort of a fluent transition over a few years. So it's correct. I have a background as a medical doctor. I worked a few years in clinical care. And then I transitioned into research where I did my PhD. And after that, I joined Nobonordisk as medical manager, a medical scientific liaison. And I did that for a few years, included some product launches. But with time, my role transitioned into being more cross-branded or above-branded and really focusing a lot on customer education. And I did that for a few years as well. And after a few years, we saw that some of the methods we used in education, where we focused a lot on customer centricity, on customer experience, on different customer segments in terms of not only their specialization, but also their level of experience and proficiency and their professional interests. We thought that we could actually broaden that out to the commercial space as well. We had been working a bit with data, the customer data, with customer satisfaction metrics, with commercial excellence methods, but that wasn't our key focus. So when the opportunity came up a little bit more than one year ago, I was really happy to accept to move into, let's just say, full commercial mode, commercial excellence and customer experience, to take those experiences we gained in the education team onto an even broader pellet.
SPEAKER_01It's really fascinating because the medicals at times has so much more access to these doctors, right? Where the doctor might spend 20, 30 minutes with an MSL in a deep discussion. Whereas with the commercial side of things, that's just, I don't know if that ever happens. Maybe it does. But I think for so long there's been this idea of medical and commercial, you know, these are separate things that you might not even be able to talk to each other. And now you're sounds like essentially trying to bridge that gap. So is that a culture shift or is that something that is you think is just the logical progression of how these things need to play together?
SPEAKER_00I think both. First of all, in order for pharma to stay relevant for the HCPs, we need to do some sort of transition. I think it's not a secret and it shouldn't be a surprise that across pharma it's more and more difficult to have customer access. The access levels are declining, being granted less and less time with the physicians, especially. And it's harder and harder for us to come with a value proposition that they buy into. And I think what separates medical from let me just call it traditional sales is that traditional sales, in my view, is very inside out. Whereas medical with that specific skill set, but also given the fact that medical people usually have better time, they have less hard targets to meet in terms of number of calls, etc. They have a better time to just listen. And I think one of the reasons why very good MSLs uh succeed is that they do listen and they don't just push their own agenda, they they listen up to these specialists or GPs or whatever physician they're talking to. And they listen and and they connect the dot from what is the customer needs and what is the offering that I have on my plate for them. And I fully recognize the task that we give our sales team, but I can also see from the data that we have in Nobel Nordisk in Denmark, when we create a content or tactics or events or whatever we do that is centered around the customer's needs, we get much more engagement.
SPEAKER_01How do you define that, right? Because it seems like you need to start by in this case, we're not talking about, you know, a small pharma organization. We're talking about maybe one of the largest drug launches of all time, right, on a global level. So, how do you define what a customer-centric strategy looks like? And where does sort of regionality and geography and all of the other million different things influence that? Sure.
SPEAKER_00So, first of all, I have the privilege of currently working with a Danish market separately. So that's the that's a small market. But I think what is important is that we ask customers and we also dare to listen. It's not rocket science, but we conduct customer service service, no surveys where we actually ask them what are your pain points in your daily clinical work? How can we help you? For example, uh, we proactively use the objections that our field force encounters. That can be objections around usually not actually product efficiency, but more of like product safety or handling adverse effects. It can also be use of devices. It can also be more broad terms identifying patients eligible for reimbursement. And when those pain points come across, we actually quite deliberately and seriously discuss how we can gain bilateral value. I can give you an example. In Denmark, we have uh a public database of patients with type 2 diabetes, not identifiable by the individual patient, but we can see it on a regional level, on a municipality level. And from that, the ACPs are actually able to identify those of their patients who haven't been, for example, to a chair or who doesn't get the correct medication for their atherosclerosis and stuff like that. It's actually a pretty amazing tool. But the problem is that they are not really equipped to use it properly. So we have conducted education programs that take point of departure in this specific tool. We didn't develop the tool, we weren't involved with it at all. But we can see that if we are able to help the physicians and the nurses treating these patients to use this tool to actually enable them to do quality care that is more effective, less resource-consuming with them, also to stratify their patients in terms of what is the level of care they are needing. That kind of education, it doesn't have a no-nordistic brain anywhere at all. But what Gail is share of voice, it's trust, it's relevance.
SPEAKER_01Right. You're purely helping them better treat their patients by using some of these tools. I mean, you're a medical doctor. I'm sure there was I would be surprised if there was part of your medical training where they talked about leveraging software to surface unmet needs or something like that, right? It just is not part of the medical training. And then all of a sudden, if they don't do it, who will? I think you covered a lot because you talk about listening, right? About surfacing those insights and gave a couple of examples. I'm just on a very practical level, when you're talking about medical teams and commercial teams, how are you actually capturing what those objectives or insights are and then surfacing them up to the point that headquartered users have visibility and you can start to strategize around that?
SPEAKER_00Super good questions. And it's not really easy to do, but it can be made pretty simple. For example, I guess all CRM systems have the opportunity to register objections from customers. And I think for me, it's actually when we work with commercial excellence, for me, it's much more interesting to get uh the feedback from the sales teams, what are the objections than what key message are they detailing? They have obviously the same interest that I have in promoting our drugs, and I do have trust in the field force that they will convey these messages to the customers as they feel fit best. I'm much more interested in what they can bring back in terms of insights. And I think something I've been thinking a lot about recently is that over the last few years, at least in my perspective, that the frontline team's role has switched from being previously sort of the monopoly for fast and quality medical information. Let's look five, ten years back in time, there wasn't third-party websites and social media and all these other open source journals where people could get this information easily. So the pharma rep was what had the monopoly of this information. But now everybody can get the same information very quickly. And the web is more like a guide or working with customer success. But what their role, in my opinion, really is that they can gain the deep insights, they can gain the pain points, the objections, the real patient cases, et cetera, that that they can bring back to us in the back office teams where we can share them across. So it also requires the reduction change management with the frontline teams that their role is not anymore a hundred percent conveying a message from no-noise to a customer. It's actually more 50-50, like also conveying a message from the customer to no-noise.
SPEAKER_01And then I've heard people kind of making some attempts at using, say, AI, right, to standardize those objects. Honestly, this is something that I do, I deal with all the time on a much slower scale. But when we're out there talking to people about the product that we offer, I want my salespeople to be capturing what they're hearing. And it's great when people like it, but if people don't like some aspect of it, that needs to be captured. But it's much more helpful if they can be captured in certain buckets and categorized, because then we can take a look at that statistically. So, what are you doing around kind of data cleanliness and ways that you're looking at the data?
SPEAKER_00Super good question. And it's nowhere near easy. I think we have a quite interesting tool that we have developed in-house, which is an AI agent that sits on top of our CRM system, where we have devised both structured briefing for the frontline so they get a quality brief verbally before a meeting. So when they are in the car, then they can get brief on the next customer. But we also devised a debrief module where we can prompt different reactions. So who did you meet? What was the objective? Did you meet the object? What were the key messages? And then what were the objections? And then we created we're using the AI to sort of like we have uh typically a few known objections, typically four or five per side. And then at the same time, we also track are there any new objections. And that's super useful because we can see, first of all, the known objections, how much space are they taking up? Are they as generally applicable as we thought, or is it only maybe a few pockets of customers who are expressing this objection? But even more interesting is the unknown objections. So what is actually on the mind of the customer? So we have that in the dashboard, actually. It's super true.
SPEAKER_01And I think that that is the job of a good either an MSL or a salesperson, is you hear the primary objection and then you dig more to what might not be told. And when you capture that, that's absolutely gold, right? Because then you can understand what people, what the real hesitation is.
SPEAKER_00So that sounds like a pretty cutting-edge approach, but it re-emphasizes that we need to make the frontline feel safe about spending time on digging deeper. Because if you only have 10 minutes with your customer, you have to feel safe that okay, now I spend two to three minutes diving more deep into this objection because that's actually more valuable than me repeating the brand name four times.
SPEAKER_01Right. Well, then you you get into what you're I believe your title is customer experience, right? And if you think doctors are people, right? Any person is going to have a better experience when they're actually listened to, rather than if you just show up with your iPad and you go through the slides and you click check delivered, you know, it's it's looking at what is actually a good experience for them. So, how do you think about, I mean, with all of this, how much are you experimenting with whether it's new techniques, how do you balance the core need to deliver education or to deliver, you know, your brand message with experimenting? Because there's also the option, like when you're hearing maybe you only hear an objection from a few people, there's a danger in changing messaging around that if that might not be as universal as you think. For example, how do you balance your experiments with just the normal day-to-day?
SPEAKER_00I think we try to always like when we get a sentiment, for example, let's say there's a new objection, then we try to say, okay, then in our next marketing email, then we try to do something around this message. That could be, let's say there was an objection about injection device. The patients have a hard time managing the injection device. Okay. Then we in the ranked team we will say, okay, then we need to devise uh, let's say a patient instruction video. And then in the next email newsletter, then we will promote this video that we will host on our HP portal. And then we will see whether it generates the amount of engagement that we uh we thought. And we have tried that, we really hit it spot on with uh creating something that really helped them and drove a lot of engagement. But we have definitely also seen the opposite, where we thought, ah wow, this will be the part of gold because everybody is questioning this and no one understands it, and we really messed up the communication or whatever that could be. And then we craft uh a lot of materials around it, and people can download and watch whatever, and zero. So definitely you have to remember then we also have, I mean, customer service, I believe, is an underutilized channel in Farm because they get so many insights. They really get the complaints and they get the questions and the objections. So you also need to take that into account as very valuable source of uh information as well.
SPEAKER_01There's a quote, I don't even it's kind of an unpleasant quote, but it's a Mike Tyson quote where he says, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face, right? And every now and then you kind of need to go out there and get hit. And then you realize, okay, well, we thought in the conference room it all sounded great, but you sometimes you don't know until you actually go out there. But it sounds like you're creating a structure where that's acceptable, right? To make a good guess and it doesn't go as planned. And you say, okay, we'll adjust or we'll kill that and we'll try again.
SPEAKER_00And then we take it as a learning opportunity.
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SPEAKER_00When we set out to establish this customer experience team that I'm now fortunate to hit up, uh, we actually had a pretty clear strategy of hiring people, at least 50-50. We had somebody from within the organization that we just knew we must have on that team. But then we said, okay, so the rest of the team, approximately half, they need to be from outside farm. So what we tried to do was identify companies which would uh share customers with us, but in a completely different space. So one thing we, for example, did was to assess so one of the customer groups where we have a hard time, that's the uh younger female physicians. And I can just uh tell you from UK data that women between 30 and 40 years of age, they are now the biggest demographic segment among physicians. So they definitely take up some space, and and everybody has a hard time engaging them because they are so different in their needs and preferences that that baby boomer male segment that has been the biggest until now. So, what we did was to discuss what would be brands in Denmark that really appeal to this segment. And we found, for example, a fashion company, and we also found uh a food delivery service company and a few other brands. It could also have been, let me just have fantasized Tesla, for example, could be big in this there would be brands appealing to this segment. And we actually found someone from some of these industries where we share the same customer group but in a completely different setting. And that I have to say, this has really paid off. I mean, we have had so many learnings and positive experiences with that, even though they come with very limited to zero farm experience.
SPEAKER_01I love that story because 50% is that's a lot, right? You're not saying I just want one or two people. You're saying I want half of the team to come from outside of pharma. And the theory is that I mean you're you're an MD PhD, right? You're a double doctor. If you can't lead a team to speak scientifically, we're in we're in trouble. But so what are some of the what are some of the things that they brought to the table that you wouldn't have otherwise thought of?
SPEAKER_00So, first of all, they come from a a much more consumer-driven world. So we have learned a lot about consumer segments, consumer behavior. Also, just we have really been challenged by them about, I'm struggling to find the right expression here because I would say not aggressive is too much, but how much can we push the needle in terms of how close can we get to the customer?
SPEAKER_01Are you referring to you know, you know more and more stuff because you're gathering it, but you don't want to necessarily make people feel like they're spied on? Or what are you what are you meaning?
SPEAKER_00That would be an example. But also, for example, how do we implement some of the tools that are being used in, for example, FMCG, other consumer brands? And we have implemented uh something that looks like an RFM model that, to my knowledge, from the people I've been talking to, uh have not been implemented before in Pharma. And it's what is RFM? Recency and frequency and monitoring. Uh so how much do they engage, how frequently, how recently much money are they spending? Obviously, there are some data gaps we cannot get in pharma, but we can still use the methodology. And we've learned a lot about our customers. For example, we have gained a much better understanding of customer churn, customer loss, new customer acquisition metrics and stuff like that. It's been super interesting. We've never had that sort of language before.
SPEAKER_01That's fascinating. I also love that in general. Sometimes we think about our competitors as the other drugs on the shelf next to it. But if you really think about it for what you're trying to do, which is gain people's attention and answer their question, your competitor is really everything else that's competing for that attention. So it might be you're competing against somebody scrolling TikTok, right? Competing against a lot of different things, whether it's medical or not, when you're looking for that time. So go getting somebody who's used to fighting at that level for attention sounds just really, really smart.
SPEAKER_00And one of the things we learned was that, well, when we want to engage, especially the younger generations, there's a lot of engagement to be gained outside the doctor's office. So for example, TikTok is not a possibility now, but for example, Instagram. We were first moving in inside uh known audit in terms of adopting Instagram as a communication platform. Because we saw that, well, they're actually not able to make a decision during the busy workday about whether they want to attend an event or not. But in the evening, when they have uh doom scrolling time, then they are much more receptible to this. And they're much more receptable on Instagram than, for example, email, because email will not be used as a work tool.
SPEAKER_01All right. I don't know whether to feel happy or sad that the term doom scrolling has made it over to Denmark. I don't know if that's a good side or not. It definitely makes a lot of sense. So let me ask you a question. So as you're building up this team and interviewing, because a lot of people that listen to this are in leadership positions, are building teams. What are you asking to try to make sure you're hiring with the right mindset?
SPEAKER_00One of the questions we tried to ask was so let's say this is our most challenging customer group. What do you know about that customer group that I don't know? But make it much more broad. And I really love that you said before that doctors are human beings because that's one of my main points because they might be doctors, but they are also mothers or husbands or car drivers or grocery buyers or whatever. And they might be easier to engage on that uh with that perspective. So we had some really good discussions during the job interviews. So, what can you tell me about these kind of people that I don't know already? We try to group them in one way, but if you had the opportunity, how would you group them?
SPEAKER_01It's again, you're looking for that non-rigid thinking, right? And you're looking for there's this concept of uh, I mean, I'm hiring people on my team right now, and I'm looking for people that know stuff that I don't know, basically, or are better at certain things that I don't know. Because when you're trying to build a team or an organization, the only way that that it grows and gets better than the sum of its parts is if people are bringing those unique understandings to the table. So, okay, so I saw you just chatted me that your kids are about to come home. It's about to get loud in here. So let's we'll wrap up with just one final question. Um, but I guess looking back on your journey, what advice would you give to your younger self about navigating this intersection of medicine, of data, of customer-centric strategy in pharma?
SPEAKER_00That's a really difficult question. Staying true to my values and the insights I have as a medical doctor. I think that has helped me a lot. And I actually see my current role as being quite diagnostic within the organization and taking on a diagnostic approach to problems. What advice I would give myself? I think being maybe more patient with myself and my stakeholders, because I think some of my main points and interests they might be quite disruptive. Some would call them innovative innovative, some would call them disruptive, some would call it annoying, that I tend uh to like to challenge status quo and to to challenge ideas that that have been held and been working very good for several years. So I think that I could have been much more patient with people and with myself, just in knowing how fundamentally challenging my views have been to people.
SPEAKER_01A really interesting part, and that could be a whole nother conversation, right? About how do you bring change to a large and successful organization? Even this idea of having half your team not be pharma experts. I can imagine that there were some people who thought that was a terrible idea, and you have to you have to make a strong justification in order to do so. So maybe we'll save that one for part two. Jen's, I really appreciate your time today, and it's been an absolute pleasure. I really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you so much. Absolutely. And for anybody on YouTube, you just saw my new kitten walk past the background, and you'll get a glimpse of her, I'll hold her up. And if you don't subscribe, I'm gonna have to give her back to the pound. And that's a wrap on today's episode of Pharma Sessions with me, Jonathan Kaske. If you enjoyed today's conversation, don't forget to hit follow or subscribe and share it with someone else in the pharma world who might need to hear it. For more on pharma trends, career growth, and business strategies, connect with me, Jonathan Kaske, on LinkedIn. Until next time, thanks for listening.