Besides being must-see-television, the Jeremy Lin phenomenon of the last two weeks made me wonder if call centers are the Jeremy Lin of pharma companies today. By that I mean, are pharma companies overlooking the call center as a means to increase sales, lower customer service costs, and dramatically improve the company image?

Just as Jeremy Lin was given his chance to show the world he can perform, here are three winning ways to make sure your call center doesn’t get overlooked, and how it can add to your company’s performance

1. Become the social media hub of your company.  Even though the FDA has limited its social media guidance, pharma companies continue to explore emerging channels as a means of serving customers. Train your agents on communicating effectively through social media channels, and promote your expert service to your internal customers.
2. Update your IVR. Chances are your IVR is out of date. It’s not surprising since changing the IVR used to mean hiring a voice talent, coordinating with your equipment vendor, perfecting the script, and then wondering if the new IVR was even worth all that time, money, and planing. Today’s intelligent IVRs can be updated in minutes, iterated until perfect, and measured for customer experience improvement.
3. Engage in shameless self promotion. No other place in the company knows as much about customer interactions as the call center. Get noticed for the value your center adds with a few of these ideas.

• Make a YouTube video and post it on your internal social media site
• Host an open house during the next corporate board meeting and have board members take calls with agents
• Play a recorded customer call at the next company town hall meeting
• Forward customer emails including the problems you have already solved to senior leaders
• Start a blog and ask your agents to keep it fresh with customer experience stories

While we all watch to see how long this magical run of Jeremy Lin’s lasts, get in touch with me if you have some additional ideas on making sure the pharma call center gets its playing time.

Please post your comments, email me at pete@center-first.com, call me at 317-797-2244, or follow on Twitter @centerfirst.

CenterFirst - CenterFirst provides specialized consulting, coaching and quality monitoring for bio-pharma call centers.

Below is a brief description of the 3 roles as well as a high level schematic of each role’s key tasks from idea to implementation.

1. Leader - The leader’s role is to give life to the future state organization by communicating the vision, pulling together the team, and clearing away obstacles.  This person doesn’t necessarily need to have deep contact center expertise but should have a good understanding of the value a well run contact center can bring to an organization through improved customer experience, reduced costs, and revenue generation.
2. Project Manager - When you have to get implementation right, there really is no substitute for project management skills. Keeping a multi-leveled project running on time across process, people, and technology workstreams means keeping teammates and stakeholders effectively engaged.
3. Operations Manager - Although it seems like you’ve reached the end, it’s really just the beginning. The new organization will likely have new productivity levers brought about by improved technology and process. Knowing how to effectively use the leverage will help realize the value of the organization.

The chart below provides an overview of the 3 roles and key tasks for each role from idea through implementation.

Please comment, call (317-797-2244), email (pete@center-first.com) or tweet (@centerfirst)

CenterFirst - CenterFirst provides specialized consulting, coaching and quality monitoring for bio-pharma call centers.

While I grew up in New Orleans, Indianapolis is the city I call home these days. For those who have spent any significant time in Indy know that it is a nice place to visit and a great place to live.

But hosting a Super Bowl? Were we up for the challenge? And moreover, what could I learn from the SuperBowl that I could use in a call center blog?

So how is hosting a Super Bowl like running a Pharma Contact Call Center? The principles are the same, just the scale is different. A few of the essentials from both are:

1. Forecast and Plan – 2 years of preparation for two weeks of events, plus 60 minutes of football.
2. Hire and train – More than 8,000 volunteers and 5,000 temporary jobs were needed to meet the demand for goods, services, and Hoosier hospitality.
3. Execute – The SuperBowl Host Committee employed 32 fulltime staff and 3 legacy project managers to ensure all NFL and community resources were coordinated for the benefit of the teams, fans, and the community.
4. Measure – Giants – 21, Patriots – 17 with 111.3 million viewers, the most ever.
5. Get Lucky - Temperatures in the final week before the Bowl were near 50 degrees in a climate where temperatures in February usually peak in the mid-20s.

Next year’s Super Bowl will be in my real home town, New Orleans, a place that knows a thing or two about hosting a party. Please feel free to call me at 317-797-2244, e-mail at Pete@center-first.com, or tweet @centerfirst to chat about the blog, the Super Bowl, or to get my thoughts on New Orleans’ hot spots for next year’s game!

CenterFirst - CenterFirst provides specialized consulting, coaching and quality monitoring for bio-pharma call centers.

The first presentation summarized here was given by John Clark and Mark Miller from J. D. Power and Associates. They offered results from research on the top 5 drivers and trends in customer satisfaction. The 5 drivers and trends from their research in order of significance are:

1. Promptness – becoming increasingly important and because self-service has been so broadly adopted, callers opting for live agents often have more complex issues and are offered having higher expectations for a speedier solution
2. Courtesy – becoming less important
3. Timeliness – also increasing but not exactly sure how this differs from promptness
4. Knowledge of the agent – no trend in importance
5. Concern expressed by the agent – becoming less important to customers

The second presentation highlighted was delivered by Leslie O’Flavahan from E-Write. Leslie’s most memorable line will likely be social media is “just stuff.” She suggested that we can all learn how to use social media channels just like we use other forms of communication. Leslie encouraged contact center leaders to not let the “social media” channel take customer service out of the contact center.

She offered 6 key skills essential for social media agent communication:

1. Brevity
2. Quickness
3. Personality
4. Critical reading
5. Ability to integrate information from multiple sources
6. Online versatility,

and 3 skills that are not important for social media agents

1. Ability to set the right tone
2. Ability to give multi-step instructions
3. Ability to write a well constructed paragraph

In closing, this was the 11th year for the CBI Pharmaceutical Contact Center Conference. This event continues to be an excellent venue to stay up to date on best practices in our industry. Please feel free to call me at (317-797-2244), email at pete@center-first.com, or tweet @centerfirst with any questions or comments

CenterFirst - CenterFirst provides specialized consulting, coaching and quality monitoring for bio-pharma call centers.

Ipad, laptop, sack lunch?  What could it be, he thought…So he asked, and I responded, “My phone!”

I think he was a little surprised as there are members of our family who almost never use the phone for its traditional purpose of person-to-person, live interaction. So I started thinking about our business and asked myself, “Is live voice interaction still the most important service delivery method in today’s pharma contact center?”

A couple of data points here to see if I can come to a conclusion.

1. From the CBI Pharma Contact Center conference held this past week (January 23-24, 2012) in Philadelphia, I learned that 70% of all customer service is still conducted over the phone.
2. A new TNS and Sitel study suggests that only a small minority of customers actually prefer using social media channels for customer service. The study found 15% of customers 16-24, 8% for customers 25-34, and 3% of customers 35-44 prefer using social media channels.

Taking these two points into consideration, I believe it is still critically important for pharma contact centers to “get phone right.” That means continuing to invest now on improving phone skills and call handling technology, as well as investing for the future and the increasingly important social media interaction skills. One skill cannot be abandoned for the other.

So let’s get back to the question. “Is live voice interaction still the most important service delivery method in today’s pharma contact center?”  I would have to say yes, BUT…new service delivery methods will likely overtake live voice, and the pharma contact center will need to be ready to serve its customers.

Please, let me know what you think is the greatest business tool ever invented. Call me at 317-797-2244, email at pete@center-first.com, or tweet me @centerfirst

CenterFirst - CenterFirst provides specialized consulting, coaching and quality monitoring for bio-pharma call centers.

Honestly, I like the simplicity and consistency of this guidance.  However, the guidance does not address industry limitations in responding to off-label inquiries from non-healthcare professionals.  It’s nearly impossible to differentiate healthcare and non-healthcare inquirers on public forums.  Directing non-healthcare inquirers to contact the company when an off-label inquiry is identified in a public forum will lead to greater consumer frustration given that the door to the off-label information vaults at pharma companies must remain closed to consumers.

In responses to the FDA’s request for input on the draft guidance, let’s ask them to specifically address this gap in guidance. Either allow pharma and medical device companies to respond to consumers with all available information or specifically state otherwise.  Certainly more discussion is warranted in this area and this topic will be followed closely on this blog.

Please call me at 317-797-2244, write at pete@center-first.com, or follow @centerfirst

CenterFirst - CenterFirst provides specialized consulting, coaching and quality monitoring for bio-pharma call centers.

1. Consolidation of cross-functional operations – Functional area call centers have taken on efficiency programs which have resulted in reducing individual functional area cost.  However, total call center spend for the corporation continues to stand out as a cost optimization opportunity. In 2012, we believe senior leaders at large pharma companies will sponsor cross- functional initiatives to optimize total call center costs for the corporation.
2. Utilization of intelligent IVR – A few pharma companies have successfully implemented intelligent IVR, and the savings have been impressive. AstraZeneca reports saving almost $1 million per brand (http://www.angel.com/customers/ivr-success-stories.php).  In 2012, we believe pharma will more broadly recognize the power of today’s intelligent IVRs for integrating databases, facilitating customer self-service, and demolishing handle time.
3. Re-evaluation of agent qualifications - We’ve made this prediction in the past and there’s really only been slight movement on changing agent qualifications as a means of reducing cost.  There continues to be the perception that higher cost agents are better agents for the pharma contact center. It’s simply not the case. Nurses can be effectively substituted for pharmacists/pharmDs and properly trained non-healthcare professionals can be substituted for healthcare professional agents, in select situations. Now that wages have stabilized as the economy slowly recovers, we look for agent qualifications to be a cost optimization opportunity in 2012.

We will make a note to look back at the end of 2012 to see how we did with our predictions. Happy New Year everyone!

Please call (317-797-2244), email (pete@center-first.com) or tweet (@centerfirst, @peteguillot) anytime.

CenterFirst - CenterFirst provides specialized consulting, coaching and quality monitoring for bio-pharma call centers.

1. Communicate 3 benefits - Even if the primary reason for the call center initiative is cost savings, there are likely at least two other good reasons for the project. Communicate three benefits (e.g. saves money, prepares for the future, improves customer engagement) of the project when securing executive sponsorship and promoting the project.
2. Assign a dedicated leader - I read a tweet today that simply said – “Focus accelerates.” There needs to be someone who thinks about the project everyday. The person leading the effort should have a two minute speech prepared with relevant and timely information about the three benefits of the project.  
3. Showcase early results – Pilot something that will produce results and gain momentum quickly. Even if the results are poor and unexpected, act quickly to iterate and re-pilot.
4. Solicit cross-functional support (including vendor partners) - All pharma functional groups (i.e., Medical, Commercial, Regulatory, Finance) need not agree on the approach, but representation of affected groups throughout the planning phase will make implementation faster in the long run.
5. Improve process before looking for a technology solution. This is likely the most overused lesson learned but also the most abused. Parallel development is a big win today.

CenterFirst - CenterFirst provides specialized consulting, coaching and quality monitoring for bio-pharma call centers.

The story is really only important because it’s bigger than football. A quick recap goes like this: drafted in the first round last year, his coach got fired, no one believed Tebow was right for the NFL, no one except Tim Tebow himself. Eight weeks ago, as the third stringer, Tebow got his chance to start and has lead the NFL’s Denver Broncos to 6 wins in 7 games.

Tebow again took his team to a fourth quarter comeback victory on Sunday. After witnessing the unbelievable, I started to ask myself, “Are there Tim Tebow’s all around us who have been overlooked?” Some of Mr. Tebow’s attributes include:

• Believes in something much bigger than the game
• Believes in himself
• Makes others around him better
• Takes coaching and feedback well
• Works hard
• Has a history of beating the odds

The list of positive attributes can go on-and-on, but I think you get the picture. I don’t want to make Tebow bigger than the story has already become—which just might be impossible—but I do think it is worth taking a look around to see if we have overlooked the Tebow’s in our call center. I know I have.

Our Tebow doesn’t need to be the center director, or even a supervisor, just someone who may have been overlooked but has the qualities of greatness. Tebow would give the credit to others, so perhaps now is a good time for you to take the credit for finding the next Tebow in your pharma call center.

Please call me at 317-797-2244 or write at pete_guillot@centerfirst.net if you would like to talk more about football, Tebow, or your call center. Thanks!

CenterFirst - CenterFirst provides specialized consulting, coaching and quality monitoring for bio-pharma call centers.

Lowering your pharma call center costs by up to 25% is not unrealistic…it’s not easy either.  Two important questions to ask before you commit to cost savings are:

1. How much cost optimization work has been performed in your call center to date?
2. How willing is executive management to making significant changes to your historical pharma approach to call center operations?

If you answered “None” and “Very,” then you’re well on your way to big savings! This blog shares a few lessons we’ve learned in our 12+ years of helping pharma call centers to lower the cost they pay for call center services. Before we get started, let’s first acknowledge that pharma companies have a number of different types of call centers sourced both internally and externally. The good news is that the two questions asked above, and the cost saving lesson learned apply to all pharma call centers, with minor modifications. Here are a few keys to big savings and an idea of what you can expect from each activity.

Start with an Assessment – A pharma company’s entire call center operation can be thoroughly assessed in one person-month. An assessment looks at the three fundamental components in the call center – People, Process, and Technology. The assessment steps are as simple as gathering data, analyzing results, and reporting outcomes. The final report should provide an estimate of the savings opportunities and resources required to obtain the opportunities identified. For more details on conducting an assessment on your own, please check out our recent blog post on Conducting Your Own Contact Center Assessment.

Report on Cost Savings in Three Fundamental Components

People – We have seen pharma companies exchange higher cost professionals for lower cost professionals with no diminishment in service quality or service quantity. Two personnel exchanges worthy of consideration are (1) having non-healthcare professionals instead of healthcare professionals handle consumer or patient contacts, and/or (2) having nurses handle selected customer contacts instead of pharmacists.

We are not recommending one type of healthcare professional over another, simply that pharmacists cost more than nurses, and both are qualified healthcare professionals. If you have not already considered some of these modifications to your staffing plan, you can expect the change in professional agent staffing to generate as much as 20-25% savings in your personnel costs.

Process – Call centers are really no different than other operating environments – input, process, output. In fact, some of the same cost saving tactics used on the manufacturing floor apply to the pharma call center. Savings from process improvements come from a simple cost savings principle of “consolidate similar activities across facilities into a single lower cost facility and lower the overall cost per unit (contact).”

Having a broad view of all call center operations within the pharma company creates the greatest opportunity for cost savings. If you have not already consolidated similar call center activities across centers, you can expect to save 20-25% on the cost per contact through process and facilities consolidation.

Technology – The single greatest area for cost savings in the pharma call center today is an upgrade to a smart IVR. Millions were spent on CRM systems in the early 2000s. Just a small fraction of that can open up tremendous customer experience and cost savings opportunities. AstraZeneca saved almost $1 million/year per brand after they upgraded their IVR (http://www.angel.com/customers/ivr-success-stories.php).

Smart IVRs give customers self-service options, deliver better information to agents, and send calls to the best available agent.  If you are still using the same IVR message and hardware you were using just 5 years ago, you could save 30% on the cost per contact with an IVR upgrade.

Please call at 317-797-2244 or email me at pete_guillot@centetfirst.net with any comments or questions.

CenterFirst - CenterFirst provides specialized consulting, coaching and quality monitoring for bio-pharma call centers.