Empowering Every Touchpoint

What You’ll Learn:

The pharmaceutical industry must embrace omnichannel strategies as essential and move beyond viewing them as mere buzzwords to enhance engagement with healthcare professionals and patients.

By applying a holistic, customer-centric mindset, pharma can create seamless, integrated experiences across all touchpoints.

Organizations should conduct thorough benchmarks to improve omnichannel effectiveness, focus on change management, and prioritize meaningful partnerships that enhance outcomes for healthcare professionals and patients.

Within pharmaceutical marketing, the concept of omnichannel strategy has become a necessity; yet, many life sciences companies still consider “omnichannel” a buzzword and struggle to implement these strategies effectively. Enter Stacy Stone, a veteran of the luxury hospitality industry who has successfully translated her expertise in creating seamless, personalized customer experiences to the complex pharma world.

With a unique perspective that bridges the gap between five-star hotel service and healthcare professional engagement, Stacy offers invaluable insights into how the pharmaceutical industry can accelerate its omnichannel success by learning from the hospitality sector.

Ryan Slipakoff, Chief Transformation Officer, Klick Health, sat down with Stacy to discuss her journey and the lessons she’s brought from the world of luxury accommodations to life sciences.

Ryan Slipakoff [RS]: Stacy, I’m so excited to talk to you today. Can you tell me about your transition from hospitality to pharma?

Stacy Stone [SS]: I’ve been in pharma for about 10 years—so I’ve spent equal time in both hospitality and pharma. What surprised me when I first came to this industry was that, unlike hospitality, which was always about the end user, this industry was just starting to think that way. It was more product-focused than customer-focused.

RS: If you were going to give pharmaceutical marketers one key lesson you’ve brought to the hospitality industry, what would that be?

SS: I’ve learned that we must treat everybody as humans, not just as entities—that means understanding how a person engages with your brand and company across multiple touchpoints. They should have the same experience with you as a pharma brand or company as they would at a five-star hotel—they know who you are, what channels you prefer, what kind of content you want to engage with, and how often you’re engaging with the brand.

RS: You’ve worked in several different roles across many organizations. How do you balance the needs of individual brands with a centralized enterprise approach?

SS: My approach is what I like to call a “center of enablement.” I don’t love the term “center of excellence” because I don't think we’re excellent at this yet.

But whether you’re working across brands or regions, I always like to start with a benchmark. What are the current capabilities? What is the brand’s maturity? What regional nuances do we have to take into account? What is the infrastructure? What does the technology look like?

Benchmarking establishes your starting point; from there, you can decide how to accelerate or transform that environment. It ensures that you consider the maturity and nuance of the brands and any upcoming launches while having an infrastructure and strategy that can scale globally and across brands.

RS: What are the biggest barriers to delivering a great omnichannel strategy in the pharmaceutical industry?

SS: In pharma, people often try to put up roadblocks. Because this is a regulated industry, there are important considerations when engaging with HCPs or patients. That being said, we should take a slightly different perspective on how we engage with HCPs and patients in terms of asking the right questions rather than falling back on more traditional ways.

RS: You’ve had the opportunity to work for a pretty diverse set of companies—be that therapeutic area, maturity, and size. From your wealth of experience, what would be your advice for a company looking to improve and elevate their omnichannel strategy to deliver better results?

SS: After 10 years in this industry, I’ve seen everything from pre-commercial-sized companies to larger mid-sized pharma, and for me, it boils down to a few things. First, you need to evaluate the company’s appetite for change. Secondly, determine where the support is coming from for this type of change—and if it’s not coming from the top, you’ll continue to hit roadblocks.

Make sure all of your vendor partners understand the nuances of how we ingest the data and make data-informed decisions. Your omnichannel approach will be wildly successful if you have these elements and relationships.

As the life sciences industry evolves in an increasingly digital world, leaders like Stacy Stone demonstrate how cross-industry expertise can drive meaningful change. By applying the customer-centric principles of luxury hospitality to pharma marketing, companies can craft more engaging and effective omnichannel experiences that exceed the expectations of today’s healthcare professionals and patients. Viewing these stakeholders as valued guests deserving of a five-star experience rather than merely HCPs or consumers is vital. Pharma companies that successfully adapt these hospitality-inspired strategies may position themselves at the forefront of the industry, offering experiences as personalized and seamless as a stay at a luxury hotel.