THE REALITIES OF PHARMA SALES DURING A PANDEMIC: ADVICE FROM A 3X CERTIFIED VEEVA ADMINISTRATOR
Executive Summary: Pharma and Biotech companies are using Veeva Approved Emails and Engage Meeting more than ever due to the pandemic. In this post, you will hear about the opportunities and challenges from a Veeva expert on the front lines who is helping companies make the most of both options.
As the pandemic stretches on into the foreseeable future, Pharmaceutical and Biotech commercial executives are left with many questions related to the logistics and effectiveness of virtual sales activities while sales representatives are prohibited from meeting Health Care Professionals in their offices or at speaker events. We recently had the chance to talk to Rick Sternquist, the founder of Viata Cloud and a 3x Certified Veeva Administrator, about what he is seeing with his clients in the field.
GIVEN THAT VEEVA IS THE GO-TO CRM PLATFORM FOR PHARMA AND BIOTECH, HOW ARE YOUR CLIENTS USING THE PLATFORM TO INTERACT WITH HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS?
My clients are focusing on two specific features of Veeva CRM to help their field teams connect with their customers virtually:
Veeva Approved Email, which enables field forces to reach out to hard-to-reach customers by sending compliant emails from within Veeva CRM.
Veeva Engage Meeting, which enables field forces to conduct remote meetings and show compliant content over the Zoom platform from within Veeva CRM.
These two features have become must-haves during the pandemic where access to HCPs has been very limited.
HOW LONG DOES IT TYPICALLY TAKE TO GET VIRTUAL ACTIVITIES UP AND RUNNING THROUGH VEEVA?
From a technical perspective, Approved Email and Engage Meeting can be configured and deployed in most organizations within weeks. However, there are other workstreams to consider for successful deployment. Change management and training are critical. In addition, these features work in conjunction with marketing content that needs to be developed such as email templates and digital sales aides.
HOW HAS ADOPTION OF THE NEW TOOLS BEEN GOING?
The adoption of these two features has been mixed. Approved Email is an established feature and was commonly used prior to the pandemic. Because of its effectiveness and ease-of-use, the feature has always been well-adopted when accompanied by compelling content.
Like Approved Email, Engage Meeting is also an established feature. However, Engage Meeting was not readily used by Veeva customers prior to the pandemic. As HCPs began reducing access, Engage Meeting was quickly deployed to field forces to help them connect to their customers when they could not visit with them face-to-face. During this rush, some organizations did not properly consider the change management and training needed to successfully support Engage Meeting and I believe adoption may have suffered.
WHAT IS THE FEEDBACK FROM SALES REPRESENTATIVES/SPEAKER PROGRAM COORDINATORS?
The feedback from coordinators that have been executing these virtual sales activities has been mostly positive. They understand that new tools and technology are necessary as the promotional landscape has changed and may never be the same. To be successful, they understand that they will need to change and accept this new digital landscape.
FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE, WHAT HAS BEEN THE MOST PRODUCTIVE OF THE NEW INTERACTIONS?
In the short-term, Approved Email has been the most productive and successful virtual activity in Veeva CRM. Approved Email already had higher-than-average open rates prior to the pandemic and have significantly increased since then. In the longer term, remote meetings conducted through Engage Meeting will become more productive as field forces improve their ability to orchestrate this interaction and HCPs become more accustomed to interacting digitally with pharma field forces.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE CHALLENGES YOU HAVE RUN INTO?
The execution of a successful Veeva Engage Meeting can be challenging. The success of these virtual interactions depends on several factors with varying degrees of control. Field forces need to be well-trained in the execution of a remote meeting as well as the technology provided by Engage Meeting. This is going to take a strong commitment by the sales and marketing organizations. As the pharma industry becomes more adept at executing virtual activities such as remote meetings, HCPs will become more open to engagement over this platform.
