Darshan
Hey everyone, welcome to the DarshanTalks podcast. I'm your host Darshan Kulkarni. It's my mission to help you trust the products you depend on. So as you know, I'm an I'm an attorney, I'm a pharmacist, and I advise companies with FDA regulated products. So if you think about drugs, wonder about devices and obsess over pharmacy, this is the podcast for you. This is a live stream for you. I have to specify this is not legal advice. I am a lawyer. I'm also pharmacist and it's not clinical advice. And our expert today is an expert in customer retention and customer experience. And she's not providing that advice either. So I do do these video, live streams because there are a lot of fun, I find myself learning something new every single time. It'd be nice to have someone who's actually listening. And if you like what you hear, please like leave a comment, please subscribe. If you want to find me, you can always find me on Twitter DarshanTalks, we just go to our website DarshanTalks.com. Our guest today is the Vice President of customer experience at the Pharaoh. And I'm not even sure if I'm pronouncing that right, but we're gonna ask for that in about three seconds. So if you are in the MLR space, if you aren't advertising, if you're in promotion, if you are in in an MSL or a medical affairs, and you're trying to figure out our documents sort of being appropriately reviewed, and will someone guide us through that process, you probably want to listen in, because this is going to talk about how that experience is managed, at least at a software company, like the pharaohs, I say it but apparently that could be completely wrong. Her guest today is like I said the Vice President of customer experience at laterra. Her name's Rachel Kane, thank you so much for being here. Rachel, how are you?
Rachel
I'm great. Thanks for having me.
Darshan
Well, so so let's let's start with the basics. So we talk about customer experience, that's your role. Um, when do you actually and you're the vice president. So my first question is, do you report directly to the president? Or? Like, is this always a role that is so connected directly to top leadership? Or do you report through someone else?
Rachel
I report directly to our CEO CEO Nirenberg Our company is litro, to answer your question. And litho Rao is a startup emerged out of Philadelphia, and I do report directly to Niren. Typically, at large organizations, there's a customer experience group or CEO, a center of excellence of customer experience, sometimes there's a chief experience officer, you know, companies are making investments nowadays, and really hiring a C suite executive to lead this initiative and program across their organization. And oftentimes, it's somebody from an industry that they're not in, especially in pharma. So they're taking, you know, somebody that lead customer experience. Nike, right, pulling him over to be, you know, designing a new experience management program at Merck or something like that.
Darshan
Why like that? Why is that?
Rachel
I think there's a lot to learn cross industry at lectro, especially we were trying to look at our customers experience our customers, are the pharma companies that are looking to really speed up their MLR process without sacrificing accuracy, right? And how do you leverage AI to do that our product is an AI platform to do that. And so it's really technological and advanced and innovative for serving the pharma industry, which is really predominantly been slower to change and takes a long time to be innovative and think differently and take risk a little bit and be comfortable with the uncomfortable of change. And that's a challenge, but the pharma industry knows that they need to do it, and they need to do that now. And they need to invest not only in AI or different technologies, but actually measure if it's working, right, are they investing, right? And so for them to do that, they found that, you know, other industries ready did it they've done it for years successfully. They've learned they've have lessons learned on how to improve their customers experience through leveraging AI or different technologies and innovation. They've led big change and transformations, why not pull those people over? Create a chief experience officer position or something like that, or CLA and let's let's take those best practices and learnings from other industries and apply them to life sciences.
Darshan
So it's interesting. The timing of our conversation is really interesting to me, because today's news, I believe, was that Apple is taking a step back, not much. I'm not saying that they are stepping away from a case it wasn't clear from what I read it, they were stepping away from it, but they're taking a step back from health. And the question is, I mean, when you think of the customer experience, Apple is who you think of. So if Apple's taking a step back, what does that mean, for the customer experience or the patient experience in general? Does it mean that health care and and here's the general sort of feedback, when I read about it was basically, healthcare is problematic. Healthcare is reticent to change, they do not want to change health. I'm using pharma as part of healthcare, obviously. But But it seems like the concept seemed to resonate exactly with what you just said. So I guess my question from you for you coming from that customer retention, customer experience perspective. Is, is Apple a harbinger? Is that the right core harbinger of something that might be coming? And and? And how does a lithoco pivot away from what Apple's doing?
Rachel
Well, I think that they probably made that decision based on data, right? They're collecting input from their users from their customers very frequently. And they're learning from it and acting on it quickly in an agile way. And they're probably testing something new. And if they find out that you know that that was a bad decision to back away from healthcare, I bet you and two months from now or the next quarter, they may make an announcement that they're coming out with a brand new app to measure more health metrics or wellness about sleep. So you never know, I think it's very data driven, I think they do a great job of keeping a pulse on what their customers want, how they're using their products, what they're using it for, how helpful it's really being and maybe their needs, the customer needs have shifted a little bit, and they're not using Apple products for healthcare reasons anymore, they're may be using for something else, and there's an opportunity there to invest elsewhere for Apple. But for lithoco. You know, we we are actually in the process and my role is accountable for doing that is to really figure out how are we measuring that data from our customers? How are we collecting input from our customers? How are we turning that into insight to make decisions going forward about enhancements we were allowed to the product or new products altogether that we want to create new AI, you know, solution, so it's very applicable to us, but I think I read something today. Really interesting from Steven Chapman. He's the CEO of the Terra. I don't know if you've heard of them. But Tutera is a genetic testing blood testing company. And they're actually like very close to me. I have three children, and my youngest was born. Last year, I was pregnant all through the pandemic. And it was really nerve wracking because when I found out I was pregnant, we weren't shut down yet. But I was too early to really tell anybody nobody knew. And then all of a sudden March happens, and we were all stuck in our houses. And nobody knew I was pregnant, but I had to get that 12 week test. as mothers may know, at around eight to 12 weeks, you have a test right to understand if there's any genetic disorders that your child is facing. And usually you go into a doctor's office for it or hospital for it. And I couldn't, and I was very nervous, how am I going to get this test done to make sure everything's healthy. When I'm stuck in my house and no one's allowed in hospitals. The pandemic just started, the Tara just started offering mobile blood testing. And they had so with a pandemic accelerated what they were already trying to do for their customers to improve the experience. And mobile brought blood drawing was one of those initiatives they had launched, which was extremely timely for me and the portal. So the portal they created for customers to log in immediately. As soon as their test was done, they can go on and you know, it takes maybe a week but every single day, if you're an exciting expecting mother, you're looking at your portal every day, you're like maybe the results will come in earlier, I just want to make sure everything's healthy. And you know that portal is clear, user friendly, intuitive. It's so up to date, very quick and easy. And if I had a question, there was one on one support with an individual and I actually knew my medterra rep who worked with my doctor at my doctor's office so that I can I had her phone number about billing questions like the whole end to end experience was phenomenal. And I think Steve Chapman said it best for you Suddenly, he said at hytera, we focus on having highly accurate testing, right, which is number one having a product that works. Like at lithrone, we have an AI that works, but also having an amazing customer experience. And he said, we tried to up end that dynamic and make natera experience more like that of a tech company. He said, we now offer the mobile drop blood draw the online sample tracking and give patients the same day access to speak with a genetic counselor one on one. He said this relentless focus on the customer has been one of the keys to our success. And that is something that my boss in Iran feels very strongly about. That's why he hired me and created this role and got, you know, investment for it to it to really focus on it because the products in a great place, but people can go buy another AI solution to help speed up their MLR process and get promotional pieces out the door faster. But they'll maybe keep buying from Withrow if, you know the entire experience is wonderful. And we keep evolving with our customers and we're listening to them and we put ourselves in their shoes.
Darshan
So that's really interesting to me the idea that, um, let me let me ask you a question. I'm visualizing lift arrow as a young organization. How old is lithium?
Rachel
We're about seven years old, seven, eight years old. Right? Very young, very young.
Darshan
Okay, so, so but you've been around for seven years. So you eat I was sort of really in its infancy as still in its infancy. So So my question for you, is they invested in you invested in a person in your role pretty early on the process at this point. So my question for you is, how, how do they measure your success?
Rachel
Yeah, so that's a good question. And your point they've invested in to right now right now Iran is focusing on our products, keeping that product improved as much as possible, keep improving accuracy, keep learning, refining the AI, the product needs to be there, especially in the area that we're working in, right. Compliance has everything qualities, everything's speed. So number one, focus on the product. Number two, focus on the experience, and customer. Like customer feedback, what's working, what's not Quick, quick to test quick to iterate quick to collect feedback and input not just from us current users or customers, but also potential customers and users, a lot of my time is spent interviewing people that are potential customers and potential users. And I say that as two different things, because some of them are buyers of the product, but they might not necessarily be users of the product. So we're talking to all of them to help inform our product team how to refine the tool and how to prioritize our sprints. And so that was, those were the top two things that Myron wants to focus on. It's proven data has shown that startups fail predominantly, when they sell, they jumped to sales too quickly, they invest in sales too quickly, where their product is not up to par fast enough. It's not where it needs to be. And the experience is not where it needs to be. So you quickly invest in a sales lead, who goes out and gets all these new customers and contracts sold. Great. But then there's so many bugs with the product, or you didn't have any processes in place for good customer service, how to quickly address bugs, how to communicate, report progress, even just have like, a good cadence of report with your customer. So that is something that Niren did not want to happen with Withrow.
Darshan
So that to me is interesting, because you mentioned this important distinction. And I, I don't fully understand this, but explain the difference between customer experience, which is your what's the word for it, your your ambit your your jurisdiction as a lawyer your jurisdiction, but how is that different from sales? And how is that different from customer retention? Are they necessarily the same thing like your VP reporting directly to your CEO? Is there a different salesperson? Is there a different person in customer retention? How does that play itself out?
Rachel
Sure, so retention does fall under me. And you asked me before I didn't quite answer directly about how a measured my success is measured. It is measured on pretension and NPS. So NPS Net Promoter Score, how likely a customer is willing to recommend your product to somebody else. How do you measure that it's a little different with b2b versus b2c? There are many different ways to measure it. It's also not the only metric that's important. And you have to decide who you're measuring that with, like who are you asking that question to? Who's that audience so we have processes designed for All of that there are tools and technologies out there to do that for you as well. But honestly, it's all about customer tension in my jurisdiction, and customer satisfaction and recurring. You know, revenue coming in the door, I have customers that are just so happy, they would just want to keep using our AI, they don't want it to shut off because they're, they're reliant, relying on our product, and they enjoy working with us at every interaction point they have with Withrow. Sales is separately, when we build out our sales team, it will be totally separate, it will be under somebody else. It sales right now is under somebody else. I mean, now Aaron's big focus is on sales and BD I so definitely support him in that, but I'm not accountable for it. I'm not measured on it. Obviously, if the company is successful, then I'm going to be successful. So we're all you know, charging that direction, especially at a younger company where we all have influence there and are expected to help with BD and sales. But I actually think it's incredibly important to keep customer experience separate from sales for one big reason. We, as cx leaders rely on the candid feedback from customers, and how can they be candid, if you're also trying to sell them something, it needs to be separated when I get on the phone with strangers that I've connected with on LinkedIn, or I've gotten warm introductions to that are all potential customers and users, but they never really met me before. They need to understand that I'm not getting on the phone with them to try to sell them something, I'm just getting their feedback. And all of a sudden there, there's this comfort level, they open up, they say whatever they feel and think whether it's, you know, I agree or don't agree, it doesn't really matter, we have a nice conversation. And it's important to hear what they say, and seeing what the actual customers that have interacted with live through, you know, they're interacting with Niren, or our head of AI or something and not with me along the way. But then when, and they didn't even interact with me when they were sold lithrone. But then when I am the person collecting feedback from them, they're able to open up, they give me feedback on individuals, they give me feedback on things that they expected to see and didn't get. And it's incredibly helpful to have that candid communication channel with your customers. And I just feel like if you're a sale, if you're in there, integrating sales and CX, you're not going to get that.
Darshan
So so if you're. So talk to me a little bit about how your function interacts with sales, then because obviously, you have a major impact on what the next release is going to include you and that's going to make their life easier. But but I imagine sales are saying the same thing that they're actually the ones trying to sell it. And they're going they're getting pushed back in on ABC. So how is your your feedback different materially from sales feedback? And how do you sort of merge them together to create that next release?
Rachel
Well, some of the candid feedback I was able to receive was about the sales process. So with things that they enjoyed seeing and experiencing during the initial pitch meeting, what worked in the pitch deck, what didn't work, what was too salesy, what was what made them feel light, like all the questions that we were asking them in that meeting the real, like genuine listening, we did in those initial meetings, a lot of the feedback I get informs our sales process, and informs even how our pilot process to be honest, it used to be proof of concept, we change that completely to pilot, you can pile it and use our AI for 60 days and experience it end to end and see if it makes an impact. See if you're enjoying it, see for yourself if it's as easy as we say it is. And then once you experience it, and you can measure the impact that have for your business, you can make a decision. You know, it's a lot better to do it that way than to have somebody do a conference room pilot or a PLC we found and that was all from feedback. We heard from customers.
Darshan
So So when you're when you're planning this out, how do you it's obviously the customer experience is sort of like what the industry is dealing with right now, which is patient engagement and patient centricity. It's sort of that that behemoth that permeates every single thing you do, how do you choose which part of the elephant you start biting on?
Rachel
I think you have to start you have to start at what matters most for your customers. So I had to also and you Have to do that in parallel with jumping in. So you have to kind of work with the, on the strategy and the tactics at the same time in parallel. So it's very easy. And probably most people's habits to jump right into tactics and just start doing and want to be productive. And you can certainly do that, and tackle the customer service approach or tackle, you know, the the, the design the UI, or the experience of the actual product and not look at the end to end journey. But that's fine if you prioritize those tactics according to what's most important to your customer, and most important to your business. And once you start, once you're starting to really ask you those taxes, you can, at the same time in parallel, start talking about strategy. So you ensure that those tactics aligned back to, you know, those key strategic value props that you don't want to lose sight of that or your North Stars. And for us, we did that work early on. And we've defined five key strategic pillars for our customers experience, it's all the things that matter most to them, it's all the things that we heard matters most to them, um, stuff like quality, impact speed, avoidance of FTA letters, you know, so we had those pillars defined, we defined KPIs around those and how to measure them. And we defined how to constantly keep a pulse of them, going forward with our customers. And then from there, we're able to incorporate, you know, how we prioritize enhancements in our sprints for the product, and how we prioritize tactics in our plan to improve cx. And I think that's how you make your decision on where to start first.
Darshan
So let's say I'm a, I'm a new person in, in your role, right, and I've come in and I'm going, Okay, they pay me a nice chunk of change, I need to show impact immediately, my gut, if I was that person would be, I need to start with the tactics because I need to show a difference, I need to justify my salary. Um, what I'm hearing you saying is, that's great. And you could go down that path, but you'll see more value going down some of the other sort of having a larger, broader perspective, as you dig in deep. Is that is that accurate? Did I hear you correctly? Or was i
Rachel
that is 100% accurate? And one of the reasons why you do that is because if there's too much guesswork in jumping right into the tactics, and next thing, you know, you lost two months time focusing on one of those tactics, and you realize, Oh, I should have been investing in changing our sales process instead of changing the UI of the product, because that's actually going to drive more business in our early stage, right, that's what matters most of the revenue and getting more customers. And so, you know, you don't want to get too far down the path before you may have those realizations. And that's why it's important to, you know, speak with your leadership team understand the vision of a company where the company is at in its growth stage to what are its objectives, what are some of your upcoming milestones, and also long term milestones that you want to hit and then come up with, like an initial plan, have you tactics, like you said, to make impact early on. But then also have your plan for the longer term strategic work, because that is actually really important. And it's critical to be able to kind of validate your tactical plan against your strategy and assure that you're aligned as the, you know, head of the CX jurisdiction, you want to make sure you're aligned with your peers and your, you know, this your C suite.
Darshan
So so here's, here's the question. I mean, I have so many questions I'm afraid of running out of time, but I'm gonna ask the first question I have, which is, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna change the question. I'm gonna ask you one of the comments you said, and no one likes to mention this, but we all kind of know what's there, which is, you said one of the pillars is you don't get FDA letters. That's one of the goals that these that your clients potentially have. Is that
Rachel
under? That's not one of the pillars, but it's, it's a subset
Darshan
of a pillar. Okay. It's a subset of the pillar. The reason I asked the quality pillar? Sure. The reason I raised that is because we all know clients who are at agencies who say that if I don't get a letter, I'm not doing my job. I'm not pushing that envelope as much as I should. How does How do you do you first of all address your are your clients, mostly ad agencies, are they more the pharma companies or
Rachel
are there more the pharma companies are buyers are costly sumers but an agency people will be users for sure. Because the earlier on in the MLR process that you use, large screen caught your content of promotional material, the more value you'll see downstream.
Darshan
If that's true, how do you deal with users? And quite honestly, also, sales with sales and marketing within the pharma company are going, we need to stand out. If that means a letter every so often, it means we're doing our job. It's not a good thing. It's just what it is. What What is your take on that? And how do you respond to that?
Rachel
Yeah, well, number one, from experience, I spent some time as a management consultant, but also time in industry, both at Shire, and at Merck, in this exact space. So I've been the customer. And that's really important. I was the user I managed these tight timelines, I was trying to get promotional material out the door through the MLR process to meet a critical Dybbuk deadline, like inviting hcps, to a live webcast that was going to happen on that date and time, no matter what they were broadcasting that surgery, you know, so it's really important to hit those timelines. And, you know, if, if it means if it means you need to sacrifice or make some decisions on taking different levels of risk, that's something you have to make a decision on. And so Laura will screen content of those pieces, and make recommendations to you, it will tell you, that's a misleading claim. This is not, you know, something that really this message wasn't really used in prior approved materials, it will call that out. But at the end of the day, it's up to the business to decide if they're going to take that risk or not. So it's really just to speed up. It's to get those common issues out of the way caught and fixed with your agency, the editorial stuff, some safety stuff, some claims, references, incorrect references, a lot of those quality, common issues, get those fixed out of the way so that you can spend more time in MLR, in those meetings, discussing exactly that, is it worth it to take this message and take that level of risk to get an FDA letter, and we're going to be okay with that, and you should spend your entire meeting having that conversation versus the back and forth of rework of common issues, let that be automated, let an AI catch that and have you fixed that. So that's, that's the purpose. That's how to use our tool olara. But also, you know, how we have conversations with agencies, sales, marketing, people that see maybe getting a letter as like a good thing, like they're taking risk and being different being innovative. But the other side of it is when I spent time at Shire, you know, they got a letter, this was back in the early 2000s. And it was extremely disruptive. It was extremely, it took about three months to get pieces out of the field, and impacted their sales. And it was very disruptive, and they never wanted to get another letter, you know, and so you just have to measure the benefits versus the rest.
Darshan
We I have a series of other questions to ask, but we're well above time already. So I'd love to have you back. But before we go, we have a few questions to ask. Um, the first question, based on what we've discussed, where can people find you?
Rachel
You can find me on LinkedIn, Rachel Kane, you can find me email me directly, Rachel Kane at lithrone. Calm and check out our website. Let's throw it out calm. You can see the ROI of our tool, how it works, FAQs, any all the information about our team as well.
Darshan
Perfect. My next question for you based on what we've discussed, what would you like to ask the audience?
Rachel
I would like to ask the audience. What, what do you think's working in that working with customer experience teams out there? Like what are you seeing that you think you know what that's really working? Or, you know, I get asked that NPS question when I'm using teams, and I'm using gussto. And I never even answer it. How could that be a good metric to use? Like, just the tactics and things that you're seeing customer experience teams do out there in the field in the market? What What do you enjoy and what do you think's working really well, and what do you think's not really working? Well,
Darshan
so I'll speak to the customer in general. I'm not a lifter, obviously. But as a customer, I feel like I don't know if what's working what's not because no one ever contacts me. So my, my response would be well, that's not completely true. Maybe no one contacts me in the pharma space. But I think what really good experiences like had a really great experience with audible recently, and they went out of their way to make it right which I thought which I appreciate it. A lot. And then you've we've all had our bad experiences and, and consider that as well. But But I thought that the the idea the concept that stuck in my head was that if if customer experiences done right, you don't notice it.
Rachel
Yeah. Or I would actually challenge that if customer experience is done right, you're going to have a memorable moment. So you're gonna, you're going to notice that because you're going to think wow, that they went above and beyond like chewy, calm somebody I know their dog passed away. And they had a package delivered to their house though but their dog was passed away, you know what you we delivered flowers to her house, I mean, how you're always gonna order your stuff through chewy, you know what I mean? Like, anything like that even the notaire experience like I it was such a personal time in my life. And I felt so nervous and stressed out and anxious. And I loved the nurse that came and I love checking my stuff, like it just was I'm gonna think about it, you know, when that company name pops up, and whatever, I'm gonna be like, Oh, they were so great.
Darshan
See, I, I'm gonna reach out to you. And I'm and I think this is a great conversation to have. Because Because here's, here's my reach out, I think, bad experiences, you're absolutely going to blame the company and say that's a bad customer experience, good experiences. For the most part, this is how life should be, you didn't make my life difficult. I appreciate it. But that's how life should be. Now you are pointing out a couple of interesting experiences with the flowers, for example, which is really above and beyond what what you could expect from a company. And, and maybe I guess those experiences stick out. But I'd say that that's less than 5% of good customer experiences stick out like that. For me. I think if if someone's Wait, like, I'll give you a really good example of a customer Express. But that was terrible. I had a terrible experience with Airbnb. It took me forever to get them to see things that were reasonable. And to me that back and forth was was problematic. that stuck out to me more than say a VR Bo, which has which, which sort of works with you. And so favorite view? Yeah. So yeah, so I'm not sure I'm this, I guess I'm not disagreeing with you. I guess I'm, I'm partially agreeing with you in terms of the impact. But
Rachel
I think if you're not realizing anything, then it's meeting your expectations. And it's great. That's great. Yeah, especially when it's a competitive market, I'm meeting expectations may not be
Darshan
100%. Fair. And also you have to, you have to recognize sometimes that you, you are a diva, so I do recognize that sometimes I have unexpected, unfair expectations and there and therefore when, when a client meets them or patient, a patient when a company meets them, I appreciate it. Because I know I'm I'm expecting more than I should. So it's expecting that as well. Um, so the next question, um, if you are, what is something that you learned in the last month that you think people would be fascinated to learn about?
Rachel
I've learned a lot about AI. I know it sounds like nerdy and cheesy like you're out today. I'm funny. But the truth is, I've been doing a lot of technology consulting in my career and different, you know, projects around technology, but I've never been this close to an AI technology. So I wasn't as familiar with the benchmarks. And it was very surprising to me to understand how even IBM Watson, you know, was underwhelming customers like they, they do such a great job saying AI can do everything. But the reality is like having an AI tool, read and comprehend text to know, like when a sentence ends, and to accurately understand the text. benchmarks about 60%. Okay, I'm back years of doing like you're doing that about 60% of time, if you get that over 80%. That's phenomenal to get an AI to learn that amount, you know, and in that way, statistics like that surprised me all the time in this role. And it just makes me excited. It makes me excited for what we're doing and how we can help. No,
Darshan
have you heard of Ray Kurzweil. Okay, talk, talk to your tech people and ask them about Ray Kurzweil. So Ray Kurzweil is the guy who predicted that in like 1996, a computer would would beat a grandmaster chess and then he predicted that by 2010 or so. You'd have personal assistants that can help you digitally. So your, your series of the world, if you will, yep, he predicts that you'd have the first general AI, I believe, sorry, the first specific AI and I could get my timings wrong, but approximately, like 2021 2022. So a specific task, an AI could perform. And then they're saying that 26 or so you'll have a general AI, and then around 2030, a computer will be as smart as a human being. And then it's like, sometimes 2050 a computer will be as smart as all human beings. So that that's sort of when you think about AI, you think about where it's taking us. That's gonna be really, really interesting. Yep, piece to consider so so when you talk about how smart AI is right now, thinking about that, that curve, that exponential curve that we're walking into, is going to be fascinating as we continue so we'll see where that takes us. Um, my last question to you. Um, what is something that made you happy in the last week?
Rachel
Well, I went on vacation last week, so I was really happy to be at the beach with my family.
Darshan
Very, very cool. Did that baby did the baby enjoy the beach? She loves. Oh, wonderful.
Rachel
loves the ocean. Anything that has to do with water. She loves.
Darshan
That was awesome. Well, Rachel, it was wonderful having you on. Again, people can reach you at Rachel Kane at lithrone calm and you can always go to the website at lithrone calm and thank you so much for being on.
Rachel
Thank you. This is the DarshanTalks podcast, regulatory guy, irregular podcast with hosts Dr. Shaun Kulkarni. You can find the show on twitter at DarshanTalks or the show's website at DarshanTalks.com