1. Share Of Voice (SOV) And Competition
As the pandemic unfolded, therapy areas—especially chronic specialty diseases—observed minimal decline in sales despite the reduction in field force promotion. This coincided with minimal shift in SOV across brands due to decreased promotion by all players. In the future, when pharma companies restart their focus on face-to-face calls, a significant impact may be felt by the companies that over-indexed the virtual model, and they may lose share to those that evolved their field personnel skillset, tech capabilities and content for a physical/digital hybrid world.

2. Appropriate Mix Of Face-To-Face, Virtual And Telephone Calls
Based on ZS analysis, HCPs were ~90% as responsive to virtual calls and ~45% as responsive to telephone calls as face-to-face calls. A hybrid model with an appropriate mix of face-to-face, virtual calls and telephone calls is needed to modify current plans and adapt to changing circumstances using HCPs’ preferences and needs, as well as the needs of their office and patients. As vaccination rates increase and practices reopen for face-to-face rep visits, pharma should also consider whether customers will be more open to virtual calling.

3. Quality Of Interactions
Quality of the interaction is gaining substantial importance beyond traditional quantity-based approaches. A different mindset is needed to sustain HCP engagements over time with a customer-centric approach, tailored to customer needs. Based on activity data across 300,000 HCPs, sustaining remote engagements over time has been a challenge. The majority of reps did not have a repeat remote engagement with an HCP they regularly called on in person, pre-COVID-19.

4. Digital Strategy Can Be A Key Differentiator
ZS’s statistical analysis indicated that digital channels performed well – in certain cases, these channels performed even better than pre-COVID-19 and created more customer engagement with reps (email, for example, requires more engagement). There is a significant opportunity for companies to accelerate their customer-centric vision through omnichannel enablement, rethinking their customer engagement models and adapting a fully dynamic approach.

Effective Drug Promotion After COVID: Follow Your Audience

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