Building an omnichannel CX strategy? Don’t miss out on these 4 things

Omnichannel experiences are a top-of-mind priority for many life sciences organizations looking to place their patients, healthcare professionals (HCPs), and other customers on a personalized, seamless, and coordinated journey.

In an insightful panel discussion at the Indegene Digital Summit 2022, experts from Gilead Sciences, Incyte, and Viatris shared their thoughts on what it takes to build an effective omnichannel customer experience strategy. Here’s a quick glimpse of key takeaways from the session:

The panel also laid down the foundational blueprint of omnichannel success – laying emphasis on four critical elements.

1. Focus on the value proposition

Value proposition is one of the most important factors that make all the difference between bringing your customers into the fold - or pushing them away. For that reason, it becomes imperative to create a unique value proposition that clearly tells your customer why they should choose you. The key is to know where your customers are in their decision-making process, what they need, and where and how they engage with life sciences content. Then align your value proposition to those customer goals, preferences, and habits.

"A successful omnichannel journey to me is when you deliver a full-scale personalized engagement across all channels with a value proposition that makes sense to your customers. Laying emphasis on their personalized story is what contributes to a good value proposition", Chitra Narasimhachari, VP of Global Data Decision Sciences and Insights at Gilead Sciences said.

2. Win leadership buy-in with evidence

The fastest way to get leadership buy-in for an omnichannel campaign is to show proof of concept and evidence to support the idea. This reinforces the 'why' behind driving omnichannel change within the organization. Start small, focus on one brand at a time, devise a marketing content strategy that is unified and supported by integrated operational capabilities, orchestrate omnichannel journeys across preferred customer channels, and report the outcomes back to your leadership team. When your efforts demonstrate promise, you naturally begin to drive omnichannel change organically.

"We started small, focusing on one brand, and tested new approaches to engaging customers. Initially, we got very strong buy-ins from marketing and sales teams, and as we continued to demonstrate results, it piqued the interest of leaders in other parts of the organization," Liang Zhang, Director of Multichannel Strategy and Analytics at Incyte said.

3. Build a high-velocity omnichannel team

Build a team of individuals who bring the right DNA and attitude towards omnichannel teamwork. Omnichannel initiatives require a plethora of talents, often requiring individuals to wear multiple hats. While identifying the right skills, the panellists emphasized the importance of hiring for potential and learning agility. This will ensure that your omnichannel team has the right attitude, the zeal to build scalable analytical solutions, the enthusiasm to learn from positive and negative recommendations, and the determination to address challenges proactively.

"The omnichannel skillsets, roles, and responsibilities of the future will fuse, and boundaries will become more permeable - evolving from their rigidly defined form today. Individuals will wear multiple hats depending on the omnichannel project requirement. Focus on hiring for the attitude and potential because learning agility and nimbleness come with that", Ashish Jajoo, VP of Head of Global Digital Marketing and Tail Product Strategy at Viatris said.

4. Define the business use case first, then apply analytics

Advanced analytical models are certainly crucial for omnichannel progress. However, an omnichannel initiative cannot start with analytics alone. Organizations must first define their omnichannel goals, identify the means to get there, and then use analytics to enable that progress, rather than approaching it the other way around.

"Before starting an omnichannel project, don't start with a machine learning model and then ask if it fits your business needs. Sit down, identify your goals, think about how you can achieve them, figure out if it can be done in a simpler fashion, and then build a model based on the need. The key to implementing that is getting buy-ins based on the willingness to do something different with the data before we go ahead and actually build the model," Liang said.

Conclusion

Omnichannel customer experiences are born out of the convergence of many things, including analytical skills and capabilities, the right mindset, a renewed customer engagement vision, data and analytics, and more. While there is no single method to getting things right, the 4 factors above will help organizations carve their omnichannel strategy on top of a foundation that is strong, agile, and robust.