CSL Behring

Lutz Bonacker

he ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has forced  our industry to rewrite the way in which we  engage with our stakeholders, including HCPs  and patients. In order to address this to the  best of our ability, our companies will need to be more  flexible and more agile than ever. 

Some 20 years ago, we interacted with our  stakeholders either by telephone or through face-toface  meetings. There was sparse use of email or other  engagement vehicles. It was a few years before we  transitioned to multi-channel engagement, with the arrival  of social media, but there was little, if any, harmonisation of  this approach. 

What CSL Behring sees as being key to enhancing  stakeholder engagement will be the concept of  Omnichannel Orchestration. It is not simply about having  a wide range of channels, but more about delivering  seamless, consistent and valuable experiences and  interactions across all channels. The main aim is to align  the channels and harmonise the message, the timing and  the delivery to the stakeholder. In fact, to obtain optimum  stakeholder experiences, the message also has to be  personalised. 

One of the approaches through which CSL Behring  believes we can achieve this, is by first identifying the  end goal, essentially defining how we can deliver the best  stakeholder engagement possible. The word “stakeholder”  in a wider sense refers to a wide range of people, including  HCPs and patients. It cannot be confined to stakeholders  with whom we have commercial interactions. As everything  we do focuses on patients, we engage with them in a  variety of ways across the organisation. Other important stakeholders include payer organisations, governments,  hospitals, integrated delivery networks and wholesalers.  However, when we look at where omnichannel  orchestration is likely to have the biggest impact, it is  going to be on HCPs and, as appropriate, with patients. 

CSL Behring’s focus has always been on providing  therapies for rare and serious diseases. To do this well,  continuous effort in improving stakeholder engagement  is important, but our efforts were given greater impetus  by the advent of the pandemic during the first quarter of  last year. At this point, the opportunity to engage face-toface  with stakeholders, essentially, interactions that have  taken place very regularly, were cut noticeably. While  virtual engagement was already happening between reps  and HCPs before the pandemic, what we see, is that it is  becoming much more entrenched now, and has gained  an air of normality. 

As we exit the pandemic, it is doubtful that HCPs  will abandon the virtual engagement model, because of  convenience and efficiency it offers. What we are going  to witness is the emergence of a hybrid model, in which  HCPs, depending on preference, make use of both the  face-to-face and virtual models. Accordingly, company  offerings will need to be targeted and compact, relying on  impactful content that evolves consistently to ensure that  HCPs remain informed and engaged. 

What is clear from our perspective, is that virtual  interactions are certain to continue and, as an increasing  number of doctors feel more comfortable with this mode  of interaction, industry will require new engagement  models, with more personalised, tailored messaging.  At CSL Behring, our aim is to reach out to the right  stakeholder, via the right channel, with the right message  at the right time. 

The key, then, is creating this quality content  that carries the right message for the right group of  physicians. What is crucial here is to generate insights  by analysing and leveraging factors that drive their  professional life and engagement. For example, if we  know that an HCP wakes up each day and reads the NYT  and his Twitter feed, an advertisement on either of this,  could be far more fruitful than sending a simple email  that he may not even open before getting to the office.  It is not a holistic approach to stakeholder preferences,  but rather a personal approach that focuses on individual  information preferences. 

This is already incredibly successful in the retail  world. You might be browsing for a product and  subsequently find ads on your social media, relating to  this product. At CSL Behring, we are looking to utilize  components of what the retail world has achieved,  by understanding what the key needs of the patient  or HCP are. This means that it is our responsibility to  provide them with the right tools and capabilities to  support decision-making along the entire spectrum of  the diagnosis and treatment and after/continuous-care  journey.

 However, the approach has to go even further,  if we are to optimise omnichannel orchestration. By  implementing effective follow-up, we will be able to gauge  how HCPs are reacting to the content so that it can be  adapted to their needs. The engagement, coupled with  the analytics, will allow for actionable recommendations  to be made on engagement and timing. Moreover,  enabling this seamless flow would be an automated  algorithm that is capable of recognising the nature of a  particular query and delivering a templated response –  effectively an electronic-mandated standard response  letter. 

When all these issues align – data, content creation,  algorithm and follow-up – the omnichannel approach can  be optimised, obviously within the legal framework set by  the countries we work in. . Essentially, it is an extension  of the multichannel approach, but instead of each  channel being operated in a silo, CSL Behring is focusing  on achieving a harmonisation of the offering to provide a  personalised and rewarding stakeholder experience.