Maximize the Value of your Pharma Contact Center

"CenterFirst started working with us when we needed help with improving our contact center operations. They stayed with us to help develop a new global approach for contact centers across all of Shire. CenterFirst consistently brought the right level of expertise in both strategy and operations that helped us advance in this increasingly critical area of our business."— Bob Harrell, Director of Integrated Marketing – Shire

by Ann McDonnell

Pharmaceutical companies continue to grow across the globe by offering expanded portfolios to new markets and customers. Together with this global growth, companies become faced with the challenge of providing a consistent customer service experience throughout the world. For many of our clients, providing a consistent experience means developing an approach for globalizing their contact centers. Developing a global contact center approach requires more than just crossing geographic boundaries with technology, it means addressing the complexities of language, culture, and regulation. This article presents four proven organizational design principles that can help break down the potential barriers of language and nationality and build-up the benefits of localized medicine and customer service.

Key Principles for Developing a Global Contact Center Approach

  1. Establish a shared vision for customer experience: Solicit input at the regional and local levels by establishing a global task force whose members consist of managers critical to the implementation process. Although this can be challenging, it is imperative that these managers understand the global business case, have the opportunity to raise questions, and contribute to the design. Members of this taskforce will then serve as the change agents during the global contact center implementation and become part of the ongoing governance (see Principle #4)

  2. Decide on what will be standardized and what will be flexible: The global contact center approach will function more effectively when people use measures that have meaning regardless of geography and have a common understanding of what defines success. The global approach is not likely to be a single global center, but having common metrics across the globe is essential to providing a consistent customer experience.

  3. Develop common metrics and reporting: The global contact center approach will function more effectively when people use measures that have meaning regardless of geography and have a common understanding of what defines success. The global approach is not likely to be a single global center, but having common metrics across the globe is essential to providing a consistent customer experience.

  4. Establish governance: This team plays a critical role in synthesizing and analyzing the data obtained from global customer interactions and appropriately shares this information across the organization. The governance team monitors interactions and the metrics to ensure that established customer service levels are being achieved and intervenes when necessary. This team also serves as a liaison to communicate upcoming product launches and new customer programs.

Adding these design principles to strong senior management sponsorship and effective, frontline project management will help develop a global contact center approach that can be the foundation of a consistent, positive customer experience.