As we work to help biopharmaceutical and healthcare companies integrate the voice of the patient and transform their organizations by embracing patient engagement, we often hear a familiar question: “What is the ROI?” We know evaluating programs by their return on investment is customary and comfortable, but as we focus on patient centricity and people’s health, we suggest it’s time to ask a different question: What is the Impact Of Relationships, or IOR?
You may think that measuring the impact of relationships is “soft science” and not quantitative. However, if we look to the consumer and retail industry realms as they take the lead in navigating consumer expectations for 24/7 information, social media and evolving service and information access, we have found a number of key quantitative measures that can be applied in healthcare as well.
As we have evaluated measurable metrics, we found they fall into two categories as they apply to strong customer relationships: the building blocks that lead to strong relationships, and benefits that result from strong relationships. Let’s explore the measurable impact of one key building block and one benefit of maintaining strong, positive relationships with consumers.
Key Building Block: TRANSPARENCY
It’s hard to pinpoint the exact reason that people have begun to push for transparency from businesses, but there are a multitude of factors that have likely contributed to this trend:
- Consumers have more choice than ever before, so it makes sense that they would be more comfortable buying products from a company they feel is open and forthcoming.
- As other industries become more transparent, consumers will expect similar levels of transparency from healthcare companies.
- The rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI)-created and AI-altered content raises the bar and demand for authenticity and transparency in all fields.
As a result, consumers are asking for more from companies with which they choose to do business. Transparency goes beyond simply being honest or free of deceit. Transparency has been defined as a “lack of hidden agendas or conditions, accompanied by the availability of full information required for collaboration, cooperation, and collective decision making.”[i] The focus is on action.
The increased integration of artificial intelligence into more business applications and types of communications has led consumers to consider whether they are encountering AI in more circumstances. This increases their skepticism and demand for authenticity and places a higher premium on transparency in their interactions with companies. A survey of 1,000 consumers conducted by TELUS Digital revealed that 71% of respondents expect brands to be transparent about how they are utilizing generative AI in their products and services.[ii]
An earlier Sprout Social survey revealed that when brands are honest and develop a history of transparency, nearly nine in 10 people will be willing to give them second chances after bad experiences, and 85% are more likely to stick with them during crises.[iii]
In a time where companies are working hard to differentiate from their competition, real financial impact can benefit those companies and products that operate transparently with their consumers.
Key Benefit: TRUST
When companies have embraced transparency and other key elements and built strong relationships with their customers, the resulting benefits also have an impact on the bottom line. One measurable benefit is trust.
Our instant-access news cycle puts every brand stumble and company mistake in the spotlight, and we can see the real-time impact of eroded trust in company share prices and negative media coverage. But how is established trust impacting the bottom line for companies doing things right?
Reputation management consulting firm Reputation Institute assembles an annual list of the world’s most reputable companies using its RepTrak® Pulse score, determined by evaluating the trust, esteem, admiration and feelings the general public has for the world’s best-known companies. The RepTrak Pulse score of 1-100 is based on online polls of more than 240,000 people in multiple countries, and it can be correlated to predict the effects of the score on stakeholder support.[iv]
According to Reputation Institute, companies with higher RepTrak Pulse scores are more likely to have their goods or services recommended by their customers. Improving a RepTrak Pulse score by five points can increase the likelihood of customer recommendations by 8.5%. For example, a score of 60-69 translates to 35% of potential customers willing to buy, but a score of 70-79 translates to 55% of potential customers willing to choose that brand.[v]
On the other side of the trust coin, A Deloitte LLP* analysis found that three large global companies, each with a market cap of more than $10 billion, lost from 20% to 56% of their value, or a total of $70 billion, when they breached their stakeholders’ trust.[vi]
IOR is Crucial for Biopharma and Healthcare Companies
These statistics show that IOR – the impact of relationships – has the potential to have significant business impact for biopharmaceutical and healthcare companies. But we face many challenges in embracing this new norm.
Building strong relationships with patients, your consumers, will have a direct and measurable impact. When the biopharmaceutical industry is taking action to ensure that patient relationships are influencing all of their decisions, across all business functions, this is the embodiment of patient engagement. Patients get the care they seek and deserve, and companies can benefit as well.
At Reverba, we have identified a number of these measurable building blocks that lead to strong relationships with patients and other stakeholders, and we’ve developed a wide range of proprietary tools to make them accessible to biopharmaceutical companies. Learn more at Reverba.com.
REFERENCES:
[i] https://www.monash.edu/business/marketing/marketing-dictionary/t/transparency
[ii] https://www.telusdigital.com/insights/ai-data/article/generative-ai-transparency
[iii] https://sproutsocial.com/insights/data/social-media-transparency/
[iv] https://www.reptrak.com/globalreptrak/
[v] https://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2016/03/22/the-worlds-most-reputable-companies-2016/#401f13e02338
[vi] https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/finance/articles/cfo-insights-why-trust-may-be-the-new-driver-of-enterprise-value.html