CRM systems help to keep track of customers and maintain relationships with them easily. The role of Custom Relationship Management is especially important for pharmaceuticals. Small and large pharma companies need to manage data effectively and face various challenges on a daily basis. Why CRM in the pharmaceutical industry is so important? How can your company benefit from this solution? Finally, what is the top CRM software? You will find out the answers in the text.
What is Pharmaceutical CRM Software?
Speaking of benefits a CRM software in pharma is a solution that can drive your success in the fast-changing market. However, taking a more practical approach we will explain to you what Customer Relationship Management is and how it works.
Pharmaceutical CRM is a tool that can help your company to adhere to compliance requirements, complete sales campaigns, gain sales and marketing efficiency, and monitor relationships with customers or employees efficiently. It is a complex digital solution, and it opens up lots of opportunities for the pharma industry. Whether you run a small or large business, automated processes, integration with industry databases, or activity tracking are just a few of the benefits that a CRM can bring to your company.
What type of CRM is used in the pharmaceutical industry?
We can singularise a few types of CRM used in pharma. You can choose from them according to your needs. To increase your company’s work effectiveness, even more, combine different types of CRM systems. Each of them provides unique functionalities. Let’s see what are the most common types of CRM tools.
Operational CRM – this type is usually the most beneficial for the front office team. By capturing data from customers, it helps manage and automate sales, marketing, and service processes.
Analytical CRM – this type analysis customer data that can be helpful in market campaigns and customer data management.
Sales Intelligence CRM – this type of CRM sends alerts to the sales team on sales performance, customer trends, margins, and alignment.
Collaborative CRM – this type improves the quality of service delivery by compiling the information collected from various departments.
Campaign Management CRM – this type allows combining the data from the operational and analytical CRM.
If you manage a pharmaceutical company, a CRM system is a must. It is entirely up to you which one you will choose or whether you decide to combine a few of them. Moreover, if you find presented CRM types insufficient for your needs, you can always develop a custom CRM tailored to your specific requirements. And if you are looking for someone to guide you on that matter – feel free to contact us to estimate the project.
How can the pharma industry be benefited by implementing CRM?
Implementing a Customer Management Relationship system can bring many benefits to any company in the pharmaceutical industry. Let’s see what they are.
Automated Processes
Automation is visible in almost every industry and every sphere of our lives. No wonder it benefits the pharma industry too, and it does on many levels. For example, you get to import data from various sources in just one click. It gives you a handy pack of useful viewpoints for your sales team and their cooperation with distributors or pharmacy employees. With such a complex view, you can quickly analyze your results and adapt to current market trends.
Automated processes are very useful in creating a drug database with detailed descriptions of each of your products. Collecting all this data in one system enables you to manage pricing and plan better sales strategies.
Also, intelligently automated lead assignments can streamline the process of lead management. A CRM can automate scheduling visits according to the real-time demand and physician’s availability and provide you with sales automation tools.
As a result, you get to maximize the effectiveness of your company’s overall workflow.
Integrated Customer Database
It would be a tiring and challenging task to take care of all the bureaucracy on paper. It would be inefficient too. Implementing the right CRM will solve all your problems with unorganised data.
With a CRM, you will collect and store customer data and regain it to take appropriate action. If you have an internally developed IT infrastructure choose a CRM that will allow you to interexchange the data between your system and the new tool. Thus, you create a new potential for data analysis.
Enabling a connection between all your company’s systems and departments will streamline the overall workflow. Everyone entitled will have access to the relevant data when they need it. Also, data navigation, analysis, and planning future sales and marketing strategies will turn out to be much easier.
Customer Journey Tracking
To make sure you provide your clients with satisfactory products and services, you should track their activity, document their experiences, and let them interact with your brand. And what a better way to do so than with a CRM system.
With a Customer Relationship Management tool, you will manage the customer database and offer customised services. You will see clearly what your customers require and how to answer those needs.
Account and contract management tools in the CRM allow discovering when a client is unhappy or, on the contrary, interested in an upsell or cross-sell. Based on the customer’s journey, you get access to the customer’s interactions and communication history. With such a wide range of data, you will adapt your services to be adequate and proactive to consumer demands.
Enhanced Customer Engagement
It is a good idea to engage your customers in marketing and sales strategies in the pharmaceutical industry. Such an approach can help you stay ahead of the competition. Based on a CRM innovative plan allows you to know your customers’ wishes, reduces the number of resources, and saves your valuable time.
Customers are very willing to cooperate. By involving them in sales and marketing processes, pharmaceutical companies get an improved view of what works and what doesn’t. Clients eagerly share the data about their health and treatment to help others and get better treatment. Thus, you get a first-hand guideline on how to adjust your services for better profit.
Optimised Lead Management
Any time a lead is generated, the data gets stored in your CRM system. This way, you keep track of customer and employee interactions. The data scope can range from sales call transcripts to website chats to form submissions and document downloads. This benefits the pharma industry in gathering more accurate information and a better understanding of which channels are the most effective.
It’s a practical solution for a sales department as they recognise early if a lead is ready to convert by charting the behavior patterns that lead to a purchase decision.
Improved Marketing Strategies
The pharmaceutical industry, like every other, needs to promote its products and services to attract potential buyers. Based on customer’s behavior and habits, a CRM system will gauge the current market conditions. It will help you stay compliant with new regulations and realign markets by territory or products.
An insight into marketing data provided by a CRM tool helps pharma companies to divide into sections various groups (such as physicians, clinics, hospitals, HCPs, etc.). As a result, the marketing and sales teams can plan exactly when and how they should engage with each group to deliver the best results and produce maximised campaign ROI.
Optimised Products and Services
Profiling both patients and potential customers using CRM is another solution that brings a number of advantages for pharmaceutical companies. With such treatments, manufacturing and service delivery can be tailored to drug delivery and therapy. This is especially useful for patients with chronic conditions for whom re-medication is part of the daily routine. Companies with a wide range of data required to produce specialised drugs (e.g., weight, age, patient’s sex, medical history, etc.) are much more efficient at tasks.
Additionally, CRM helps to achieve effective inventory management. When all small data, even such as detailed guidelines for storing medicines, are collected in one database, it is easy to keep them and quickly access specific information. Or you can define customer preferences and save them, making it easier to deliver better service next time.
What are the Top Pharmaceutical CRM Software?
Among hundreds of CRM software available for the pharma industry, some excel in the market. Let’s see what the main features of the top pharmaceutical CRM systems are.
Veeva CRM – it’s multichannel that provides seamless engagement across channels. It provides a personalised and coordinated customer experience, monitors your performance, learns about your results, optimises your promotional spend by extending your reach, and more. Additionally, Veeva CRM offers some tools such as Events Management or Sales Planning. It’s a great CRM solution to simplify even the most time-consuming tasks.
StayinFront – an award-winning CRM. StayinFront is a global provider of mobile, cloud-based field force, analytics, and advanced image and video recognition solutions. It focuses on retail execution and improving in-store selling and will help you improve your company’s efficiency by empowering mobile sales representatives in customer goods and services. StayinFront is deployed on 6 continents in over 50 countries and more than 30 languages. It’s an excellent solution for small and large businesses.
CRMNEXT Pharmaceutical – this CRM software allows you to capture leads generated from any touchpoint, boost conversion rates and increase customer profitability. Companies get to manage effective relationships with physicians, chemists, hospitals, and healthcare societies. CRMNEXT Pharmaceutical has the potential to bring you to the top of customer service requests, increase the relevance of cross-selling and upsell offers, and develop a functional self-service for operational requests.
Creatio – formally known as bpm online CRM Pharma, is the most agile CRM platform for midsize and large enterprises. Companies choose this software to accelerate sales, marketing, service, and operations. It helps orchestrate customer journeys, speed up lead generation, improve the sales process, and streamline customer engagement. Creatio enables better contact with digital native customers and lets them adapt rapidly. The platform offers some additional features such as Studio to empower IT and non-IT staff to build apps and processes. Another tool is Creatio Marketplace, with ready-to-use apps and templates to extend the platform’s productivity.
Conclusion
We can safely claim that a CRM in the pharmaceutical industry is not a luxury but a must-have. Pharma companies of all sizes need to implement at least one CRM-based tool to run their business successfully.
There are many CRM systems on the market, and each one can meet your needs. You can combine many different CRM tools, choose the one that suits most of your demands, or even create your own Customer Management Relationship software. The possibilities are many, but the goal is always the same. A well-chosen CRM minimizes the use of resources, reduces costs, accelerates company processes at numerous levels and in various departments, and saves your time. Thus, you can focus on planning new strategies and development initiatives for your business. Sounds appealing, doesn’t it? If you are looking for the right CRM for your business or don’t use any CRM yet (but want to start), contact us for advice.