CLM Support - A Critical Success Factor 2

4) Design CLM support model following good IT practices. This includes:
Single Point of Contact Helpdesk.

5) Record all requests and problems regarding the software and ways of working. Even a simple excel can be sufficient. This will allow you to understand which

6) Review the tickets on a regular basis, preferably together with the software provider so that you can learn what are the most common problems.

7) Use KPIs to monitor the quality of the IT service. Some basic ones might include: %tickets solved within SLA, average ticket resolution time etc..

8) Hire IT specialists with at least some business orientation. Develop them towards a greater understanding of the company's business goals and processes. Whenever possible try to bridge the gap between IT and business. Dual calls with representatives or IT tables during cycle meetings are a good way of achieving this.

CLM Support - A Critical Success Factor

There is little doubt that effective sales calls are a leading factor contributing to pharma company's sales success. An army of well-trained, motivated medical reps equipped with in-depth customer insight are a mean that everyone seeks. So far technology has been widely used in pre-call planning, territory management and call reporting, but not always during the calls themselves. Since CLM introduction this has changed dramatically. Every technical issue, even a minor one, has a direct impact on the sales call and the the image of the representative and pharma company as a whole. Imagine a situation when in the middle of a discussion on a recent cholesterol study the tablet battery dies or the system crashes. It is hard to imagine anything more frustrating for the representative and the physician himself. Therefore means need to be undertaken to ensure that a well tested solution is in place and that, if needed, excellent IT support is provided. Here are some guidelines that can be useful:

1) Run a pilot before the "Big Bang". It is amazing how different each implementation is and how different issues your team might encounter. No matter how experienced your people are problems will always occur. It's a fact. Make sure that you identify as many as possible at a small scale.

2) Have a risk and issue log and be ready to address each of them. Running a workshop with the implementation team entirely focused on the possible risks can be a good idea. Ask: “What Can go wrong ?”. If everyone identifies 3 major risks you will be well equipped at the end. Then consciously go through the possible contingency plans and solutions.

3) Choose a vendor wisely. Check how many of the to 10 companies use a given solutions, How many users worldwide and in your country are there ? Look if there is an implementation methodology in place.

To be continued..

Objection Handling

Pretty much as any other project, a CLM implementation might generate specific obections among the Sales Force. Some of the most common ones together with propositions of responses are listed below:



1) OBJECTION. CLM will increase the ammount of administrative work done by the Sales Force.

ANSWER: When integrated with CRM, CLM will in fact reduce the ammount of work done at home as all calls will be automatically transferred to the CRM System. No more call reporting.





2) OBJECTION: CLM means too much control - everything is recorded.

ANSWER: Data in CLM provides qualitative rahter than qunatitative infomration. In most cases there is no specific target. For example we see that some screens are more commonly used than others. This information is neither negative nor positive - it does however provide useful feedback to marketing and sales managers on the utilization of promo materials.





3) OBJECTION: CLM will force me to follow a specific route, therefor I will not be flexible during the call.

ANSWER: Unlike a traditional slide-presentation promo materials in CLM are organized in such a way that depending on the conversation flow we can easily access only those parts that are of most value to the customer. With the exeption of some legally required content, no screens will be automatically displayed.

4) OBJECTION: CLM will not be accepted by my customers. Research results prove that CLM is widely accepted among the customers and that in fact it can help to increase time spent with the customers. One of the reasons for this is the fact that promo items are easily adaptable to meet each customers needs. Also they are highly interactive.

Sales Force Buy-in

Closed Loop Marketing solutions can be easily sold to the Sales Force. Therefor unlike traditional ETMS/SFA systems their adoption is much faster. Key selling points include:



- Eliminating manual call reporting in etms (after CLM integration with SFA)

- Support in call planning (by reviewing content presented so far and/or by using algorithms suggesting additional content to be mentioned)

- Greater customer insight (e.g. surveys included in content)

- Increased customer interest during the call - due to interactiv content

- All-in one (one-stop-shop approach) - no need to search for materials if new topics are of the customers interest.

Integration with CRM

Integration with a CRM system, containing profiling and targeting data can greatly increase the added value of a CLM solution. By combining information on the utilization of specific promo materials with in-depth costomer insight one can determine: how can the marketing message be taylored to meet the segments needs, what other messages might be interesting to customers. Basic CRM segmentation includes such criteria as: customer potential, loyality, preffered communication channel, optimum call frequency. In addition to that more precise behavioral segmentation can be carried out. In the latter case data mining algorithms might be usefull. Clearly there are several obstacles that need to be considered including: database matching and interface manitenance.

Closed Loop Marketing

Closed Loop Marketing is a business strategy that aims at achieving higher customer satisfaction rates by:
1) gathering on-going feedback from sales details
2) easy modifcation and distribution of promotional materials
3) precise targeting of promo messages depending on customer segment and detail flow
4) using advanced data mining techniques for modelling

Closed Loop Marketing strategies are supported by several CLM systems that allow sales representatives to present any given content on a tablet PC with a touch screen. Depending no the conversation flow one can easily adapt the presented promo materials to individual interests. The concept of CLM is that it should combine all the benefits of e-detailing with the always-critical face to face meeting.

So far Closed Loop Marketing has been adopted by a number of companies in the field of live sciences and finance. Several surveys are being carried out the verify the true impact on the overall Sales Force Effectivneness.