It’s important to enhance customer experience so that existing customers are more loyal

What are the market drivers that make it imperative for pharma companies to deploy CRM software solutions? Can you give examples of RoI due to CRM?

Pharma has always been at the forefront of deploying great technologies on the clinical, manufacturing and sales/distribution side. In the last few years, pharma companies have realised that customer experience, for B2B partners (pharmacies, distributors etc.), B2C customers and internal customers is crucial, and this has been a focus area.

Using Kapture, some of the leading pharma companies have managed to bring all interactions with B2B/B2C and internal customers on one platform, irrespective of channels like phone, chat, email, social media and more. This has helped improve RoI significantly by improving customer experience, increasing customer lifetime value, repeat orders and more. Putting out information about products, both clinical and generic, has become a lot easier, thereby again enhancing RoI.

The COVID pandemic has changed pharma companies’ interaction with doctors due to social distancing norms. Some hospitals are making pharma medical reps pay a consultation fee to interact with consulting doctors. Can CRM software help in this situation?

Kapture is specifically focused on making interactions between companies, their people and their customers a lot more seamless. Today, pharma companies don’t need to send their representatives to hospitals and clinics to complete routine sales tasks. Mediums like chat combined with machine learning-enabled platforms have made even doctors prefer interacting with companies digitally.

How can automated solutions like CRM software help build long-term trust between pharma brands and doctors, and patients?

Today’s pharma companies realise that growth doesn’t necessarily only come from new customer acquisition. It’s equally, if not more, important to enhance customer experience so that your existing customers are more loyal. In terms of pharma, where many patients are going to be with the company for a much longer time, especially those with lifestyle ailments, etc, knowing your customers is important. Pharma companies are spending more time and effort on understanding customers better and personalising product strategy to suit every customer, considering how important the product is to the customer. A CRM helps bridge this gap and brings a layer of personalisation, making both sides happy, leading to an environment of trust.

In general, what are some CRM strategies and methodologies that work for pharma clients? Can you give examples of such deployed solutions?

Pharma is unique. Apart from having complex customer workflows and large distribution challenges, there are also tons of regulatory and non-regulatory compliances to be factored. The right CRM strategy doesn’t just have to address business requirements, but should also comply with every guideline out there. Right from HIPAA to GDPR to various local and international rules, privacy and data security are sacrosanct and non-negotiable. Kapture has a dedicated focus on infosec, privacy and data protection, making it a huge value-add to a pharma company that’s looking for digital transformation.

How can such CRM platforms become a competitive edge to pharma companies and help them gain market share as well as mind share of the prescriber and patient?

In today’s era where products and services are increasingly getting commoditised, customer experience is the key differentiating factor. Whether it’s doctors, patients or anyone involved in the pharma customer ecosystem, it’s necessary for companies to identify, address and manage expectations unlike before. The right CRM not only helps identify these factors, but also manage customers more effectively. Whether it’s a patient calling about a drug’s side effects, or a doctor trying to understand the composition better or a distributor looking for inventory availability, a CRM should be able to manage all this in a truly omnichannel way.

During the pandemic, we have seen pharma companies asking patients to connect them to their hospitals to supply critical medicines to prevent hoarding and black marketing. Many pharma companies have sizeable sales from hospitals. How can Kapture CRM help to build better relationships between pharma companies and healthcare institutions, especially in pandemics and other emergency conditions when there are shortages of medicines, vaccines, etc.?

Getting the right people working on every individual service request is crucial in order to reduce turn-around times (TATs), offer contextual resolutions, and improve CX. Kapture helps you to do just that. This makes it easier for relationship managers to interact with chemists and physicians through a comprehensive unified omnichannel platform with an always-online and extensive knowledge base.

Kapture also helps in managing inventory, where you can set a certain number for medical supplies. When the quantity goes below your specified number, the system notifies you and an order can be placed for medicines, vaccinations, etc. Distribution channels can also reach out to smaller hospitals and directly supply to the patients that help in preventing black marketing.

Depending on the pincode, MR or distributor channel can provide mediations, vaccinations, etc. The number of orders and quantity can also be tracked within Kapture to ensure there is no mishap in the order.

How much of Kapture CRM’s revenues come from the pharma and hospitals, med-tech business? Can you name some of the clients? Do you see this percentage increasing as sales to the travel sector decrease during the pandemic? What is the revenue mix now between the sectors served by the company?

Kapture is heavily invested into the overall healthcare and life sciences vertical. With a large set of clients in this space, ranging from medical devices industry leaders like Abbott and Transasia, hospitals like HCG and pharma companies like Sun Pharma, we work with a large diaspora and are expanding rapidly. Our product team has a dedicated focus on making our offering more relevant and customised to this space.

The pandemic has expedited digital transformation across key sectors like healthcare and pharma. With limitations around face-to-face interactions and increased social distancing, teams across sales, distribution and service have pivoted to different methods. Kapture has helped companies to manage these teams more effectively showing huge efficiencies that also lead to higher revenue and increased cost savings here.

And what’s the strategy to expand further into pharma, hospitals and med-tech?

We have partnerships globally with consulting firms, ITeS companies, sector-focussed service providers and more to help clients discover our product in an easier way. With an expedited digital transformation push due to the current situation, clients’ expectations have changed. Our product has evolved significantly over the last 18 months. With enhanced distribution and a dedicated team that has experience in pharma and med-tech, Kapture is poised to expand even further into this space.

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