Omnichannel engagement means reaching and engaging with customers on their own terms, leading to a better customer experience by providing the right content to the right people at the right time. This requires integration along the customer journey across all possible channels and touchpoints (traditional and digital channels) and looks at how to create the best experience as customers move between them.
Source: Rewired pharma companies will win in the digital age, McKinsey June 2023
So why are so many organisations struggling to benefit from the investment they’ve made in technology and data?
Really embracing omnichannel customer engagement means putting the customer first – including throughout planning.
We see many organisations, with great intent, trying to knit together functional workstreams (in which people have invested a lot of time and energy) too late. Much as the approach to engagement has evolved from single channel to multichannel to omnichannel – planning needs to evolve too.
Before omnichannel, most organisations took a very linear approach to planning, with functions aligning primarily on the high-level strategy.
As multichannel and now omnichannel have become embedded, alignment has grown to include customer experience – but for many organisations this is still within functional swim lanes (so the marketing and sales customer experience is often designed and delivered separately from the medical customer experience) or brand swim lanes, with brand needs put before customer needs. So, whilst better, this still does not deliver a joined-up, seamless experience for the customer. Trying to join together separate customer journeys during operational planning leads to frustration and wasted resources.
To deliver true omnichannel, organisations need to think about the customer from the start and throughout – with holistic situation analyses, aligned, customer-driven strategies and function-agnostic experiences, delivered by agile, multi-disciplinary teams from the start and throughout.
Establish a team across functions and locations that puts the patient at the heart, overcoming silos and ensuring a common focus and cohesive actions to engage the relevant healthcare professionals who are key in improving the patient experience, quality of life and, where possible, outcomes. Aim for:
‒ aligned strategy that puts the patient at the heart
‒ seamless and shared responsibility for the customer experience
‒ functional accountability for delivery
Clearly not all team members need to be involved at all points.
- A clear RACI helps to guide decision making
- Think about the mindset shifts needed to really change behavior
In true integrated business planning, a seamless customer experience is the end-goal and the ‘unlock’ to effective multi-disciplinary teamwork. Great experience planning is critical in delivering the strategy.