Omnichannel HCP Engagement
for Effective Pharma Marketing & Sales

As double board-certified physician Dr. Mandira Mehra sees it, communication with pharma reps needs to become more efficient and convenient.

"Physicians want engagement at their own pace, at their own time, and they want to initiate it," said Dr. Mehra. "I still have a stack of business cards with the information of 20-30 different pharmaceutical and medical device reps. I cannot think of any other industry that would do that—if I order food or call a cab, everything is streamlined and really done through the phone."

Dr. Mehra isn't alone when it comes to wanting a more convenient, digital-first pharma-to-physician relationship. Physicians now prefer digital communication to all other modes of engagement. In a survey conducted by Accenture, 87% of providers reported a preference for virtual, or a mix of virtual and in-person, meetings with pharmaceutical reps⎯even after the pandemic ends. In addition, the online HCP community Sermo found that 67% of its users felt pharma companies could improve communications with physicians and provide better support for prescribing decisions with on-demand access to reps.

• Can the solution be scaled to other business units, offices or countries?
• Can an HCP or staff member initiate contact with a pharma rep on their own terms, whenever they want to?
• Can HCPs leverage an automated service to get the commonly used material when needed?
• Does the solution provide analytical information that helps make future engagements easier and smarter?

That only scratches the surface of all that needs to be considered. However, the above are some of the most important things to consider. For example, technology can check off all the internal boxes, but it is useless if HCPs fail to adopt it.

According to IBIS World, there are 2,091 brand-name pharmaceutical manufacturing businesses in the US alone. If every company had its own app, or apps for each business unit, there would be far too many for an HCP to download. Not to mention, from 2010 to 2019, it was found that 25% of apps downloaded by mobile users worldwide were only accessed once after download. Marketing therapeutics is a hard enough job, so why add the pressure of marketing an app to the mix as well?

All of this functionality is a big reason why Gartner estimates that by 2025, 80% of customer service organizations will have abandoned native mobile apps in favor of messaging. It's also why we introduced the ZING Engagement Suite. ZING is a comprehensive unified communications as a service (UCaaS) solution that enables compliant HCP engagement by enhancing existing communication channels with tons of features, including text messaging, two-way voice and video calling, onscreen collaboration and form sharing, inbound communications with QR code scanning, artificial intelligence (AI) assistance, signature capture, easy access integrations and more.

All of these features are designed to help pharmaceutical sales teams engage with HCPs without barriers, which is something they have been asking for.

"The ZING Engagement Suite is the only platform available that equips pharmaceutical sales and marketing teams with everything they need to engage with healthcare professionals in a streamlined, digital-first manner; which is quickly becoming the norm," stated P360 CEO and Founder Anupam Nandwana. "ZING integrates with leading CRMs and is full of powerful features that enhance any sales enablement strategy or workflow. But for HCPs, ZING offers a seamless, hassle-free experience that is seen as nothing different from their normal mobile communication method. There are no apps to download or logins and subscriptions for end-users to deal with."

SMS messaging improves HCP engagement by:

• Enabling reps to overcome access issues associated with in-person visits
• Removing dependence on emails, which often go to spam
• Eliminating the need for cumbersome app downloads or HCP portal logins (too many apps and portals to log into and too many passwords to remember)
• Helping reps navigate compliance challenges
• Enabling reps to send digital assets instantly

Two-way video calling/instant video calling improves HCP engagement by:

• Enabling instant video calls with HCPs, which is now a must
• Eliminating the need for prescribers to use a laptop or desktop for video
• Making video calls easy, without the need for app logins
• Removing compatibility issues with video software and codecs
• Eliminating issues with Zoom-like scheduling and link sharing

QR codes improve HCP engagement by:

• Removing the need for business cards, which are easily lost
• Making it easy to keep contact information up to date, even with turnover, etc.
• Making it easy for HCPs to remember what drug goes with which rep
• Streamlining communications
• Eliminating the need for emails, phone calls and in-person visits
• Displaying a personalized QR code to get brand amplification within the HCP office

Integrated data management improves HCP engagement by:

• Providing reps with a clear view of their aligned HCPs from a single application
• Enabling easy access to digital product detailing bags
• Allowing teams to load HCP engagement data and updated sales profiles back into the CRM system with ease
• Removing redundancies in data management practices
• Ensuring reps have up-to-date data in real-time

In addition, ZING's intuitive user portal, which can be branded and completely customized, offers administrators a simple way to track individual messages, link clicks, digital asset views and more. And all of ZING's data can be stored for up to 10 years and pulled into a report for legal upon request. The data from the system also integrates back to sales profiles in existing CRM systems.

With all else failing, the client needed to find an innovative new solution quickly. However, it couldn't be any old system. It had to be one that was both effective and frictionless, offering HCPs and office staff a simple, intuitive user experience (UX) that wouldn't put an additional burden on them. It also had to be compliance-enabled and able to support corporate and compliance guidelines.

With a limited number of new touchpoints available, the idea of text messaging with HCPs surfaced within the company. But there was one drawback. Historically speaking, texting with HCPs was somewhat taboo within the pharmaceutical industry. However, as with all things, the world of pharma-to-physician engagement was quickly evolving. Texting with HCPs was becoming a cutting-edge way for reps to communicate with HCPs.

Historically, reps were allowed to use SMS text messaging for logistical text messages, but team leads weren't able to access the underlying data within those messages. ZING removed these blind spots and the risks associated with texting by offering a transparent view of all engagement activities.

Since deployment, the client has made ZING its standard for providing compliance-enabled unified messaging to HCPs. And they are in the process of deploying the solution across multiple brands and therapeutic areas.