Four strategies to boost Pharmaceutical Retail sales in the current contextMay 13, 2021Over the last year, we have seen a significant transformation in the customers’ habits and shopping style in pharmaceutical retailing throughout the region. For example, in Mexico, sales of the leading chains in the field increased by 13% in 2020 compared to 2019, mainly due to a higher average ticket, which in some cases increased by 21%. This increase reflects the main change in consumer behavior triggered by the current situation: fewer visits to physical stores but willingness to spend more on each purchase.

Visits to physical stores today are more planned,and customers are looking for products in XL formats, mainly for the hygiene and self-care categories. The time spent in the store has been reduced, seeking the highest possible efficiency, and limiting the time spent in the store.

All of these changes have generated a shift in impulse buying. It moved towards privileging the opportunity to anticipate later purchases, even in categories typically offered in other retail formats. Therefore, managing the profitability of shelf space and checkout counter or point-of-payment space requires recognizing the new customer purchasing decision process.

The new sanitary measures of capacity and distancing between people have resulted in standardizing waiting lines, both outside and inside the stores. In this scenario, new hot zones appear, such as the shelves alongside the waiting line. Hence the increased relevance of promotional activation at the cash register or point of payment, where traditionally featured products,special prices, and loyalty campaigns are displayed

Given the above, here are four key strategies that will help you boost sales in pharmaceutical retailing:

1. Focusing on customer segments by store cluster

Promotional activation should focus on the specific consumption preferences of the customers of each group of stores. It is necessary to have a better understanding of the communities’ compositionaround the stores.

Usually, loyalty programs and sales systems already manage the information and analysis needed to get these insights. For example, by analyzing customers’ buying habits through tickets and their tastes and interests, a greater capacity to generate strategies focused on them is achieved. Suppose psychographic variables, age groups, preferences in sports, whether more families come to shop at the store, etc., are added to the above. In that case, you attain a more robust data set thatwill help recognize the levers that move customers to convertand, consequently, identify the SKUs that each store cluster should be activating for each segment.

The impact of products and promotional activations is maximized by adding technology that providesvisibility into promotional implementation and store execution to ensure that efforts are executed as planned.

2. Generate movement through exhibits

As the customer journey at stores has changed, today’s hot zones are scarce. An excellent way to make them more profitable is to execute rotating displays, that is, to have agile activations that constantly vary. The products displayed change during the days and even on the same day, maximizing the visibility of the SKUs in the store’s hottest areas. These changes are tailored tocustomers’ needs, thinking about the consumer who frequents the store at a specific time or day of the week.

The rotational activation implies a big challenge for in-store execution. To support the stores, it is critical to have a technological platform that simplifies the reception and implementation of these activities, customized for each store. The orchestration of all these tasks is also an issue. There’s a rising need for coordination with centralized support areas, such as distribution centers, marketing, among others.

With a Task Manager in place for this process, it is possible to act and anticipate any potentialout of stock or lack of promotional material and ensure the correct execution of activations. The greater thecomplexity, the greater the risks, and the greater the need for tools to prevent deviations.

3. Excellence in customer service

Once the consumer is in the pharmacy, the touchpoints that fuel the perceived shopping experience are traditionally the in-store associates. The interaction between the customer contact employees and customers plays a critical role in evaluating the shopping experience. Therefore, it is essential that specialist personnel, such as chemist-pharmacists or dermo-cosmetics counselors, spend a significant portion of their time engaging with customers.

Considering this, the automation of routine activities and technologization of complex processes is highly relevant, as theyoften consume a high portion of specialized staff’s hours.

Less obvious but as important as the interaction with the in-store team is to use the same technologyto generate other mechanisms to communicate and establish closeness with the customer while in the store, respecting all existing sanitary protocols. The use of QR codes is now widespread both inside and outside the store, but it’s what you do with them that truly counts.

4. Omnichannel experience applied to the point of sale

Our current scenario requires generating more actions and greater diversity per store, increasing the interaction, relationships, and organization needed within the different responsible areas for proper
in-store execution. Retailers can count on dynamic and adaptable solutions such as Frogmi to support integrated management and achieve successful strategies for pharmaceutical retail.

People mainly recognize the omnichannel experience as the ROPO (Research Online Purchase Offline), which looks online and purchases in brick-and-mortar stores or showrooms.We propose connecting other channels from the point of sale to provide a complete face-to-face shopping experience with the brand.

In practice, these actions have had a positive impact on both channels. In the case of a Frogmi’s customer in the pharmaceutical sector, the average sales ticket of the remote channel doubled due to the additional sales generated during the call. There are many cases like this one. It is a clear example of the actions taken, leveraging various channels to improve the purchase experience and build customer loyalty

Advanced in-store customer service managementMar 17, 2021We live in a time where agile Customer Service management can make a big difference in a company’s success.

Customers now know that all companies have different customer service channels and want to use them according to the needs of the subject they are contacting and, at the same time, find solutions tailored to their requirements.

A Gartner report (“Delivering Relevant Content and Knowledge to Customers Is Key to Great Customer Service”) predicts that by 2023, late-stage organizations will find that poor customer experience is their biggest obstacle to greater success. This finding makes customer service takea leading and urgent role.

Customer Service Types

Within companies, we can find two types of customer service, depending on the customer’s needfor contact. We can divide it into proactive and reactive.

Proactive customer service refers to all the calls-to-action in the customer journey generated by the company to anticipate customer needs. This category includes FAQ sections, forums or communities, public bases with terms of use, chatbot, customer service, information, and all kinds of self-service tools available to contact, write, and be informed whenever he wants.

Reactive Customer Service refers to the type of service that is (or should be) available when a customer has a complaint, grievance, or compliments to deliver to the company. Contact forms, phone calls, complaint books, e-mails, etc., count as reactive services. Reactive customer service is one of the most difficult to deal with since it is generally occupied by people who are dissatisfied in some way with the brand, and it is the one to which we should pay more attention.

Advanced in-store customer service management tools

According to a customer service study conducted by Wow Cx, the three aspects that customers value most when contacting a company are:

• 56% the ability to solve problems
• 40% that they do it quickly
• 31% knowledge and skills of employees.

These percentages indicate, above all, the need to manage customer service requirements correctly and effectively to respond to their needs and meet expectations.

Many companies apply CRM software to manage and centralize their customer requirements. However, what seems to be a “modern solution” as a CRM, has limitations because its range of action reaches only the point of digital contact with the customer. It does not allow to integrate or identify the true nature of the claims, often ignoring what happens in stores and delivering unsatisfactory or late responses.

Advanced customer service management begins when we integrate Customer Service with the store and the area or person responsible for the incident, generating effective and immediate solutions.

An effective in-store customer service and experience tool can be seen, for example, in the use of Frogmi QR. The application of a QR code at different spots within the store allows channeling any type of incident happening directly.

Response times are shortened by up to 30% with the implementation of Frogmi QR.

In this way, the complaint arrives directly to the area that resolves it, shortening response times by up to 30%. Frogmi becomes a new channel that takes the responsibilities to the expert areas. This directly impacts consumers’ three most critical variables and completely streamlines the management process. As a result, knowledgeable and skilled employees quickly solve the customer’s problem.

Modules such as StoreWork and Frogmi QR allow automating tasks and requirements to each area in charge of solving them and generate automated flows according to the nature of the requirement. In this way, StoreWork connects the different areas of the business in an automatedway, optimizing response times and productivity in the resolution of problems and requirements.

With Frogmi, the input flow of a requirement is not only worked by customer service but also generates company-wide indicators for all areas involved, allowing for data-driven visualization ofincidents.

According to Bain & Company’s analysis

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Bain & Company forecasts the main objectives of the retail sector.

The strategic consulting firm Bain & Company analyses the results of Christmas sales in the retail sector in 2020 in its report “Ten Resolutions to Ring in the Future of Retail.” They point outthe main objectives that this sector should include in its goals for 2021. Although the data is focused on the U.S., it is a reference to consider given the preponderance of the country in the global retail market and its ability to set trends in the sector.

The report’s main conclusions include:

• During the past holiday season, retail sales far exceeded expectations, growing 8.4% year-over-year, as consumers shifted their spending from travel, entertainment, and dining out to groceries, home entertainment, and home improvements due to the pandemic environment.
• Despite the Covid-19 crisis, sales in physical stores increased 3.6% in November and December compared to the same months last year. E-commerce, meanwhile, reached an all-time high, with a growth of 26%. Purchases varied significantly by category.
• Retailers also successfully encouraged early shopping to avoid stock-outs, shipping delays, and carrier rate increases for last-minute deliveries. Consumers rushed to get “guaranteed Christmas” shipping deals. According to Mastercard, Dec. 12th and Dec.11th were the third and fourth biggest shopping days of the holiday season, respectively, after Black Friday and the following Saturday, but ahead of Cyber Monday. It seems clear that 2021 will present similar challenges to 2020. With retail firms facing a future marked by uncertainty, the Bain & Company team highlights ten objectives that can help these companies transform their business models

Demonstrate that you know your customer

Retail firms that personalize their communications with customers or potential customers score 20 points higher on the Net Promoter Score, which measures a customer’s likelihood of recommending a store or brand over their competitors. They also record sales increases of between 5% and 10%.

Better assortment

Successful retailers rely on a mix that includes exclusive offers with national brands, private labelproducts, limited distribution offers, and bundled value-added products or services.

Redesigning the distribution network

Rethinking stores rather than closing them has many advantages. There is a need to invest in the digital experience in the physical store through the shopping experience, contactless payments, and fast returns, which makes shopping seamless, easy, and enjoyable for customers. In another year of uncertainty, those who use stores to become genuinely “omnichannel” retailers will be better equipped to adapt to changing consumer preferences.

Develop a winning ecosystem

Amazon is the most widely used retail app because it offers an extraordinary selection, as well asan ecosystem of services such as music, video, and fast shipping. Amazon has gained grander scale, cost efficiencies, and access to customer data across its ecosystem by partnering with others, including competitors. Retail companies can build their own complete ecosystem, a hybrid ecosystem, by collaborating with third parties or strategic partnerships.

Make your own list of potential deals

In disruptive periods, strong companies that reshape their organizations and invest in growth, often through mergers and acquisitions, usually emerge even stronger. Successful companies know how to choose well the M&A deals in which they participate; how to integrate acquisitions successfully and divest when necessary to keep their portfolio strong

Accelerate their sustainability actions

According to a Fast Company survey, more than 70% of employees indicate they are more likely to stay with a company with a robust environmental agenda, and 90% of consumers say they arelikely to move their regular purchases to sustainable firms of equal price and quality.

Develop the principles of diversity, equality, and inclusion.

A diverse workforce can better understand and quickly connect with customers. In addition, 64% of consumers say they are more likely to consider or purchase a product after seeing an advertisement they consider diverse or inclusive.

Manage your human potential more effectively.

Managers who empower and listen to their most talented employees will increase their team’s personal fulfillment and gain greater growth and profitability.

Retail firms can improve and increase the profitability of their omnichannel offering by increasing the speed of deliveries and reducing costs. To do so, retailers should leverage factors such as automation, reducing the number and cost of returns, helping customers choose the most appropriate products, sharing costs with suppliers, and adjusting their revenue models.

Spending every euro as the customer would

Successful retailers take a customer-centric approach to adjust the variety of their assortment, increasing the space for the products most in demand by their customers and tying these decisions into their negotiations with suppliers.