New technologies often dominate the conversation in the rapidly evolving landscape of life sciences, leading some to question the relevance of established next best action (NBA) platforms for customer engagement. However, NBA is far from obsolete. It is dynamically adapting to address the current challenges in life sciences and medical engagement. Here’s a glimpse into how next best strategies are poised to shape the future of customer engagement.

NBA remains more relevant than ever

NBA platforms help you find the optimal way to engage with healthcare professionals (HCPs). Think of NBA as a versatile solution that assists various teams—sales, marketing, medical affairs, and more—in identifying the next best customer to target. It determines the right channel for engagement, the right message to meet their needs, and the right timing. NBA is alive and well, with its role growing in significance across different functions based on several factors.

1. Demand for personalization: Not all HCPs behave the same way. It needs to be a very personalized journey for each HCP in order to actually influence their prescribing behavior so that the patients can get to the right therapy.
2. Information overload: HCPs are inundated with messages from numerous competitors about various products. With so much to process, it’s crucial to target them through their preferred channels. If we don’t, we risk missing the opportunity to engage them. Approaching HCPs in a coordinated manner breaks through the noise, helping them quickly understand what a product can offer to patients.
3. Expansion to medical: While NBA was once primarily used by commercial for post-launch HCP engagement, it is now recognized as crucial throughout the entire product lifecycle, including pre-launch medical engagement. Preparing for the launch of new products is vital, whether you’re the first to launch or entering a highly competitive landscape. NBA now builds on the foundations of omnichannel HCP engagement for medical affairs (e.g., HCP targeting and segmentation, identification of care and knowledge gaps, content development across effective channels, implementation of impact metrics) to enable personalized, agile responses to meet healthcare stakeholder needs and create more valuable customer experiences.

Life science companies can no longer afford to have inefficient interactions with their customers. Each touchpoint must be personalized—specific to that HCP at the right time, at the right place, tailored to what that customer needs right there, right then. And that might differ from what that customer needed a month ago. That’s the essence of an omnichannel journey, seamless across all channels of interaction.

It’s a misconception that NBA is just for sales reps

Initially, NBA was mostly used by sales reps post-launch for timely, personalized engagement. But now, with the need for prompt education and awareness across various stakeholders, multiple teams like MSLs and digital marketing can also benefit from using NBA. This helps them respond faster to healthcare professionals’ inquiries and behaviors.

As HCP behavior becomes more complex, it’s crucial to design NBA programs that effectively orchestrate HCP engagement across multiple channels. For example, it's essential to establish clear strategic objectives that can be linked to an analytical measurement framework. These frameworks are evolving to encompass not only omnichannel engagement and sales metrics but also HCP digital behavior changes and patient impact. Analytics are crucial for quickly responding to HCP needs and promptly adjusting execution strategies. Additionally, as competition intensifies, success increasingly hinges on identifying the highest value HCPs to target based on the initially defined strategic objectives. The industry is increasingly using AI approaches to quickly identify these high-value HCP cohorts.

Despite its potential, NBA remains underutilized in many organizations. Change management poses a significant challenge, particularly in driving awareness and adoption across the entire organization. Partnering with a seasoned expert like IQVIA can help you promote behavior change across the organization with clear program metrics, effective communication and hypercare support. Innovative approaches like conversational AI also help to further enhance operational efficiency, productivity and performance.

What’s driving the evolution in next best?

Two main factors are driving the evolution in next best. First, scalability. Customers are now using NBA for a range of strategic, planning, and execution activities focused on the customer. They need an NBA solution that can scale globally, allowing local teams to adapt to their market dynamics and quickly onboard additional brands.

The second key factor is advanced analytics integration. Companies need to incorporate more machine learning generated or machine learning supported or enriched insights within those action recommendations. It’s no longer good enough to just have a simple rule that notifies a sales rep about how to engage with HCPs. There’s now an expectation of a really nuanced understanding of that HCP and the overall situation within the organization.

AI and data make the difference together

IQVIA has found that it’s important to incorporate machine learning/AI enriched insights into next best action programs. It’s equally as important to have the right data available for NBA platforms to work with. If you don’t have the data coming from all of the different systems, all of the different locations, all of the different channels, you won’t be able to generate the insights that really drive value for end users. It’s not just data analytics—it’s the data foundation that’s critical for having really powerful insights.

The future of NBA: Generative AI

IQVIA is focusing on two key areas for the future. First, the opportunity for greater automation to shorten execution time and get field force teams interacting with HCPs. This is where generative AI can help create a more seamless experience that’s faster while being compliant and secure. The second area of focus is on using new metrics for competitive differentiation—that is, understanding how campaigns are impacting clinical practice.

Looking ahead, NBA may be approaching a turning point where its scope and capabilities have outgrown the “next best action” label. A new, more appropriate name might be required for what we call NBA, because in many cases it is now evolving to be the omnichannel customer experience driver.

NBA platforms such as IQVIA Next Best Action are evolving to meet the complex demands of today’s life sciences. Now enhanced with the generative AI capabilities of IQVIA AI Assistant, Next Best Action enables fast and efficient deployment across countries, personas and brands, while leveraging IQVIA’s global and local expertise.

By leveraging analytics, embracing automation, ensuring uptake across the organization, and focusing on the holistic customer journey, Next Best Action, part of the IQVIA Orchestrated Analytics with AI Assistant platform, empowers users to access the intelligence they need with guided insights and recommendations to improve operational efficiency and foster innovation. This solution can serve as the cornerstone of customer engagement in life sciences with the help of conversational AI.