Pharma organizations’ efforts around omnichannel engagement will transition away from investing in an increased number of channels, and instead, reorient around ensuring a consistent and seamless CX across various touchpoints.

The demand for frictionless CXs across digital, virtual, and in-person channels will continue to rise at a pace driven by the need to differentiate beyond the pill in increasingly competitive drug markets. Omnichannel engagement must no longer be only about providing a unified experience across different channels, but shift to focus more on seamlessly integrating these channels.

This means that whether an HCP engages with a rep in the doctor’s office, visits a brand’s website, engages on a social media platform, or through a digital companion app, the experience should be consistent and interconnected. It is also equally critical to acknowledge that a customer’s journey might begin on one channel and move through several others before reaching their end, and this sequence will differ between each customer. Additionally, it is also very likely that the path for an HCP to become a prescriber or for a patient to become adherent differs drastically in each and every real-world scenario.

With the increased use of mobile devices, digital channels, and social media amongst HCPs (and patients), biopharma organizations must ensure a consistent and user-friendly experience across every touchpoint. The ability to not just plan, but to measure and pivot towards an optimized experience will separate the success stories from the failures.

We see 2024 as a true turning point for organizations in terms of understanding what the biggest influences on CX are and how to create succuss for their brands throughout their lifecycles.

In 2024, we expect brand teams and commercial leadership to intensify their efforts in identifying more insightful metrics for CX and satisfaction. There will be growing pressure to better evaluate the current state of their brand's CX and uncover opportunities for enhancement.

Our research into the evolving needs of brand leaders concerning CX reveals significant gaps in insight. Closing these gaps will empower the development of more informed strategies and tactics, ultimately leading to improved service for HCPs and patients. The pursuit of enhanced customer metrics is largely motivated by the need to learn how to personalize the CX while considering the diverse needs and interests among individual segments. In particular, we understand that brand teams currently face challenges in measuring and responding to various dimensions of customer engagement and the overall experience.

Augmenting more traditional CX measurements, like Net Promoter Score and Customer Satisfaction, with an understanding of product access, patient support experiences, or the quality and depth of clinical information, will help commercial leaders not only understand what is driving CX, but also which levers to pull in response.

The biopharma environment is changing rapidly across several key dimensions – including the types and complexity of products, the size and experience level of companies going to market, and the number and inter-connectivity of stakeholders. The need to rewrite launch plans in this era is based on building a more sustainable patient population. Now, more than ever, patients’ needs should take precedence over short-term financial gains.

Throughout 2023 and early 2024, we have seen two notable developments and predict they will continue. The first is continued evidence generation post-approval and across the product lifecycle, with deeper incorporation of medical insights into commercial strategy. Specifically, multiple indications and new formulations are playing a greater role in galvanizing established brands.

The second is a proliferation of transitional assistance programs, where manufacturers are taking on greater responsibility for reducing out-of-pocket costs for patients with the goal of quickly maximizing patient acquisition until more favorable coverage can be secured.

As a result of these shifting dynamics, a synergistic cross-functional partnership between medical, marketing, and payer teams is paramount to allow for iterative, longer-term planning and the ability to pivot quickly based on market developments.

As the industry converges in more specialized and rare therapeutic areas, the patient population as well as the target prescribers have become condensed. The patient journeys, reimbursement hurdles, and access to specialists’ time have become more complex. With most of the industry focusing on this smaller target audience, it is becoming more and more critical to stand out with a differentiated and seamless CX.

While the industry is trying to deliver the ideal CX, everyone else is struggling to figure out the right mix of omnichannel, digital, and personal promotion, powered by artificial intelligence. Currently there is no playbook and there is no time to “wait and see.” Leaders must adapt a more agile “test and learn” mindset which allows them to accelerate the deployment of pilots. In 2024, we envision contract sales resources to be leveraged more frequently to enable agility for biopharma organizations. This agility will allow them to utilize a more flexible and rapid deployment model of specialized resources, coupled with the data and insights, to meet local business needs.

Biopharma organizations will continue to be under pressure to deliver compelling CXs to physicians, patients, and providers alike, seamlessly delivering the right content, via the right channel, at the right time. This superior experience can only be achieved through optimal coordination across channels and prioritization of investments in engagement.

Field and remote teams will likely have increased reliance on understanding how to conduct this type of engagement, which rather than based solely on logic determined at the start of a sales cycle, must flex over time and adjust to the changing conditions and responses from customers. In order to achieve such fluidity, it requires the automation of analytics as well as the ability to capture the reactions from both the customers and teams live as they happen. This all requires organizations to make predictions on outcomes for different engagement types and prioritize the one(s) most likely to add the most value.

The next step would be to communicate the suggested engagement(s) with enough clarity and transparency to be quickly understood and followed. The type of predictive analytics we see here driving suggestions for customer-facing teams and then leveraged for automatic engagements within non-personal channels will likely spread to more brands and teams while covering more channels. We will also begin to see more experimentation with generative AI contributing to the analytics and communications with users and customers.