At the start of the pandemic, a global pharmaceutical company pivoted its sales force to adapt to a new world of work — one with less face-to-face time with doctors and medical staff. Along with this transition to virtual calls, sales leadership saw a critical need to shift strategic goals to boost field force effectiveness in a very competitive market.
Lextech collaborated with sales leaders to conduct a quick and effective experience research project. First, Lextech quickly established a north-star goal for field force effectiveness, Next, UX researchers interviewed sales reps at various levels and experiences – both in medical science and sales roles – to fully understand a day in their lives. This research informed the creation of workflow experience maps that highlighted inefficiencies in one key workflow: pre-call planning.
Lextech then designed a concept prototype and video presentation that reimagined the pre-call workflow. This smart redesign re-organized sales data in a way that removed barriers to needed data integrated from more than 20 different sources.
Thanks to a smarter design that unified data, sales reps could better understand their customers and build stronger relationships with them.
Moving Into Agile Development
The success of this human-centered approach helped fuel the next stage of this project. The pharmaceutical company's innovation team funded a proof of concept that Lextech built with feedback and input from sales reps. Keeping them in the loop made sure the software perfectly matched their needs.
Lextech created prototype mockups that sales reps reviewed and iterated upon. Sales reps also field-tested of new versions of the proof of concept with realistic data.
Getting input from sales reps in the field was a major boost to this project. "The sales reps really felt listened to," said Lextech's project lead. "They felt empowered because with our proof of concept, they could visualize the future — they said things like 'I could see this working for me.'"
In addition, Lextech led and managed multiple development and data teams (including those from other companies) to coordinate a solid infrastructure built on Amazon Web Services, and an API built using Apigee. Lextech helped create a more efficient process for project teams to own AWS implementations.
In just months, Lextech helped the company go from proof of concept to launch a fully working MVP of the sales app. The immediate feedback from users was positive.
"People said it was very intuitive and easy to understand," the project lead said. "Thanks to the excitement over the MVP, we quickly built a list of additional features people wanted."
Build On Success By Listening to the Field Force
In true agile fashion, Lextech continued to release updates to the app, including rich push notifications, more personalized data views of key customers, and custom features for different sales roles. In fact, the delivery teams were so efficient, they were able to deliver above and beyond expectations to surprise and delight its users.
"People could ask for an update to the app, and get it in four weeks," the project lead said. "They didn't have to wait a year to get it on some priority list."
Thanks to Lextech, this company has built a strong competitive advantage thanks to a sales force equipped with better tools and data which has revolutionized how they analyze and improve their business. "It has made us significantly more efficient, and simplified and focused our approach with our customers," one key stakeholder said.
