I work in a company that essentially markets and distributes European and American

pharmaceutical brands, food supplements and medical devices.

As the pharma division director I am responsible for the promotion of all our pharmaceutical
brands to physicians. The pharmaceutical industry business model relied on face to face
physician promotion conducted by pharmaceutical representatives. Needless to say that these
visits were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and that this disruption is expected to last long
and cause substantial changes, particularly in the healthcare system.
Customer experience
Putting a stop to in-person physician promotion have reduced traffic at clinics, dispensaries and
hospitals, and forced us to work from home. This challenging situation pushed us to rethink our
promotional approach especially that we were fully aware of the seriousness of this disease, and
the lasting impact it will have on the healthcare industry. As a matter of fact many institutions
and private practices are still refusing visits from drug reps now that the government has lifted
lockdown and that most businesses are fully operational.
According to a 2019 American study 47.3% of practitioners engage well with face to face medical
rep visits, nonetheless only 9.6% of them engage with digital promotion. This low level of
engagement meant that reorganizing the customer experience exclusively through digital
channels was not a walk in the park. Moreover our target audience is the first line of defense
against Covid-19, and the last thing we want is to add an extra burden on their shoulders. Our
role was clear, to provide valuable and relevant data that might help them deal with the
outbreak, offer support and assistance when possible, and promote our brands in a very subtle
way.
Every medical representative contacted his/her customers asking them about the most suitable
communication tool during lock down, answers varied, some preferred emails, others favored
WhatsApp, and many asked to receive phone calls when there is valuable information worth
sharing. We consequently developed the below content that suits each of the 3 aforementioned
communication tools.
1- Email: Most of the customers who chose to be contacted by email were academics and
highly scientific physicians who regularly checked their inboxes, this observation led us
to adopt a purely scientific approach without any promotional message. We sent the
newest clinical trials, expert opinion, and reviews on COVID from NEJM, the Lancet and
other high impact medical journals. Our customers received 1 publication each Monday
(we occasionally sent another one during the week if any major breakthrough paper was
published during that week) that was relevant to their specialty. The message body
contained a brief description of the attached paper, and the email signature contained
the name of the medical rep, and the company. This initiative was very successful, the
response rate exceeded 40%/week, and no one opted out (Customers could just reply or
send us a message asking to be removed from our mailing list).
2- WhatsApp and other messaging applications: we developed stickers of our brands and
short clips thanking the physicians for protecting the community, and sent them to our
target audience. We also texted them to inform them that we are ready to pay tem a visit
and hand them samples to distribute to their patients in case needed.
3- Phone calls: We called our customers checking on them, asking them if they resumed
consultations at their clinics, and offered to pass by and hand them samples if needed.
Moreover we organized webinars with international and local speakers who shared the newest
available data and their experience fighting COVID-19, or updates on our brands and diseases
they treat. These webinars were conducted either on Zoom or Microsoft teams.
The full virtual interaction with our customers was replaced by a hybrid format early May. We
resumed visiting physicians who accepted meeting with us face to face, and are still
communicating digitally with the others.
The experience was deemed positive by all customers who interacted with us. Accepting early on
that the post COVID-19 reality will undoubtedly limit face to face interactions and that the
pandemic will change many of our society’s habits, compelled us to consider the shift to digital
marketing as a major strategic move for our company. Furthermore being nimble and quick in
adopting digital communication as soon as the general mobilization and lockdown were
imposed enabled us to maintain or grow our market share for most of our brands.
Employee experience
The virtual approach to promotion wasn’t an easy task for the medical representatives. Many
cues that used to help them ace their sales call were lost: The customer body language that
reflected how convinced and genuine he was, if he was bothered, if he was in a rush, if he had a
bad day, if he was enjoying the conversation, served as a barometer for the medical rep who
used the body language signs to decide how to conduct the call and when to stop detailing,
moreover the in-person visits enabled the medical rep to identify the preferred visiting hours for
every physician based on her feedback. The virtual promotion whether through emails,
WhatsApp or phone calls made it practically impossible to gauge the real level of engagement of
the customer, created confusion in the mind of the medical representative when her customer
did not answer her calls, emails, or messages, and provoked some undesirable reactions from
physicians who were contacted while caring for a patient or having difficulty dealing with the
stressful events, or who were bombarded by pharmaceutical reps calls and messages, or who
simply did not want to receive any kind of virtual communication or phone calls from Pharma
companies during the lockdown.
On the bright side medical reps didn’t have to waste time driving from a clinic to another, or
waiting for their turn to meet with their customer, this precious time was now used to create
adapted content to be used when virtually meeting their customers. Moreover now that everyone
was working from home and that plenty of traffic and waiting time was saved, we were able to
organize daily online meetings to discuss the progress, share positive and negative feedback on
our initiatives, and conduct product knowledge and selling skills trainings. These daily meetings
as opposed to the regular once in a month face to face team meetings, enabled us to improve
inclusion and team spirit, this also reduced the feeling of seclusion and negative emotions that
the work from home experience during a pandemic can cause.
Our experience during this pandemic shows that when provided with a secure work experience,
employees will be more productive and effective no matter the circumstances.