As clinical trials become more complex, customer success strategies that encompass powerful modern technologies
play an increasingly critical role.
An effective customer success model for clinical trial technologies must connect the technology to real-world application and human interactions. Reliable customer support helps companies embrace and adopt new technologies and take advantage of the resulting benefits more quickly. It can also reduce the amount of time a customer wastes when they have a question or a technical issue. In this manner, it can transform a great technology into a great solution.
Easy-to-use, flexible and efficient technology is critical to the success of a clinical trial. Ideally, the technology is so seamless and easy-to-use that it requires little, if any, assistance. However, highly complex clinical trials are typically time-sensitive and include multiple trial sites and user roles. Users must have access to efficient customer support when they need it.
As clinical trials become more complex, customer success strategies that encompass powerful modern technologies play an increasingly critical role. Mednet applies a multi-dimensional customer success model to meet its customers’ wide range of requirements and needs. The approach combines an investment in a variety of support solutions and expert resources uniquely designed to help customers meet their goals.
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Contents:
- Customer Success in Clinical Trial Technologies
- Mednet Customer Success Model: A Multifaceted Approach
- Integrated Technical Support
- Expert Build Services
- Mentoring and Build Support
- Dialogs for Success
- Opportunities to Engage on the Path to Success
- The Voice of the Customer Speaks Volumes
Customer Success in Clinical Trial Technologies
Customer support is crucial to any technology offering but has specific importance to clinical research solutions. These technologies are generally created to infuse speed, accuracy, and compliance into clinical data collection and handling processes. Missed deadlines, errors, and noncompliance are concerning. Still, they can also represent much more significant risks, including threats to patient safety and delays in moving a promising investigational product through development.
Clinical research teams require different types of support to be successful and to get the most from their technology investment while still maintaining quality and compliance. Each project is unique, each research team is unique, and each have unique requirements to achieve success.
Our customer success approach aligns with our product strategy. It prioritizes flexibility with a variety of support options available to customers and users. The approach is designed to enable research teams to access any level of support, ranging from a turnkey self-service model to full study build support, while also allowing key study roles and users to get the help they need when and where they need it. This is designed to meet the need of high-volume and subscription customers who build studies on their own and use the software when they need it. At the same time, our approach supports smaller research teams with fewer studies or those who may need additional support to get their study up and running.
Mednet’s multifaceted approach is designed to addresses different users, different roles, and diverse learning preferences in the customer journey toward success.
In their B2B Customer Support Blog, “The Future of B2B Customer Support: 8 Breakthroughs to Prepare For,” TeamSupport describes the need for “impactful support conversations.” This concept highlights the need for role-specific and individualized support that defines individual users as customers rather than companies or teams. This approach requires an understanding of the varied roles and tasks that contribute to clinical trials. The Mednet team continues to draw on our collective clinical trial experiences and customer feedback to ensure that our customer success programs meet the needs of different roles and skill levels.
Mednet is committed to continuous quality improvement and optimizing its efforts in customer support and success, and we conduct regular surveys and assessments to measure these efforts After a support case is closed, Mednet issues a one question follow-up survey asking users to rate their satisfaction (on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being ‘very satisfied’) with the level of customer service Mednet provided. This is an important gauge to measure to ensure service and support is meeting the need of users. Over the past year, the average Mednet customer support survey response is 4.8, with some months averaging a perfect 5.0.
Mednet Customer Success Model: A Multifaceted Approach
iMednet customers have global access to industry-leading support and services. We have developed a multifaceted approach that includes a mix of self-serve and ongoing, on-demand access to expertise.
- Technical Support
- Expert Build Services
- Mentoring & Build Support
- Ongoing Communication & Feedback Loop
This comprehensive set of services can be configured to support various customer scenarios where flexible support is critical to clinical trial success. The model also ensures ongoing informal and formal feedback loops that help our team understand the customer’s current and emerging needs.
Integrated Technical Support
In a perfect world, your study will go exactly as planned, your research teams and sites will not have any questions about how to use the software and there will never be any changes requiring assistance. While the Mednet platform is designed to be highly intuitive, we know that there will always be situations requiring technical support. The ability to easily access a technical support team that is efficient, knowledgeable and understands unique study requirements is critical to keep a study on track. The Mednet Customer Success Model incorporates a holistic approach to technical support. The team is purposely comprised of experienced team members who lead and are involved in customer projects. This approach gives iMednet customers access to someone who understands the unique requirements of the study and is proficient in the software, because they use iMednet daily. Populating our technical support team with proven expertise is part of our first-call resolution strategy to address the issue promptly. The technical support team is empowered to pull in the appropriate internal resources, including product development, as needed. Because of their unique understanding of iMednet and the nuances of clinical trials, they are well-positioned to triage issues and guide customers toward quick issue resolution. At the same time, this approach presents a natural information sharing loop with our product development team to inform and optimize future product releases.
This approach provides customers around the world with practice-based guidance. To ensure our experienced team is available for more less complex challenges, we employ automated responses to simple and more common requests such as password resets. This approach for simple needs also ensures efficiency for users, by walking them through the process so they can get back to work quickly. Other issues that require more in-depth discussion or troubleshooting are redirected to the appropriate resource.
Expert Build Services
There are instances where customers choose to have Mednet build their study for them. Mednet’s blog, To Build or Not to Build, exams the considerations research organizations should consider when determining whether to build their own studies. Though the requirements shift, the level of support and the degree of care and attention does not change. Mednet’s Expert Build Services is also an interactive process driven by the customer’s unique needs.
Once a customer contracts with Mednet to build their study, the Mednet team arranges an initial requirements discussion. This is a very collaborative engagement. The team leverages worksheets and best practices to guide the conversation and define the specifications for the study.
Our team uses the output from this meeting as the foundation to build the first study wireframe. When possible, Mednet takes advantage of CDASH compliant templates and forms in this agile process to increase productivity and offer greater efficiencies to customers.
Customers typically participate in two iterative review cycles. This approach helps customers transition their thinking from paper CRF models to true electronic data capture. As this organic transition happens, the advanced study build emerges for review. Once the review is complete, the study build is validated and goes live.
Mednet designed the entire study build as an agile process that infuses flexibility. This methodology enables the Expert Build Services team to work swiftly and efficiently. In fact, the Mednet team frequently delivers its portions of the build ahead of schedule, allowing customers to have additional time for their review processes.
With Expert Build Services, the Mednet team leverages their understanding of clinical requirements, therapeutic category expertise and their extensive experience using iMednet to build a study quickly, while addressing unique study and customer requirements. This experience also helps them effectively guide customers in using the tool while providing a broader, more strategic view of the project and how best to accomplish the customer’s goals. Mednet regularly measures the effectiveness of its Expert Build Services to ensure the needs of the customers are met. After a study build, a survey issued to Mednet customers measures various factors. It assesses the knowledge and responsiveness of their Mednet representative, timeliness of study build, confidence in navigating iMednet, and overall satisfaction. When asked, “How responsive was your primary contact?” ALL customers indicated that Mednet was highly responsive with an average response of 10 on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 was defined as ‘extremely responsive.’ When asked, “Did Mednet deliver its portions of the study build on time?” the average response was 9.875, with ten defined as ‘exceeded expectations.’ As a means of assessing overall satisfaction, the survey also asks respondents to rate how likely they would be to use iMednet for future studies. Most customers said they would use Mednet for future studies, providing an average response of 9.375, with 10 defined as ‘always’.
Mentoring and Build Support
iMednet customers who decide to build their studies may require different levels of support. Those teams who are well-versed in electronic data capture tools and processes may only need occasional guidance. As part of Mednet’s Mentor and Build Support services, these teams have 24X7 access to the Mednet Learning Management System (LMS). Within the system, users will find a library of courses that include hands-on videos, documented best practices, and comprehensive designer guides for each class.
The Mednet LMS provides comprehensive training on key topics such as role-based security, business logic, and reporting with additional programs for the premium modules available in the platform. Each customer is also assigned a Mednet team member as a mentor to guide them through the LMS, answer questions, and share best practices. The mentor provides feedback and practical assignments to reinforce user learning.
The mentoring component takes the training programs one step further and provides designers with additional support. After designers successfully complete the assigned courses, they are again paired with a dedicated mentor to guide them through building their first studies.
In this service, the customer team regularly meets with their Mednet mentor. Through this interactive learning process, the customer designer builds their first study with support and guidance from their mentor. This collaborative process combines digital and human interactions to accommodate different learning styles.
Once the team has successfully built their first study, they can continue to access the LMS and supporting materials. They can also reach out to the Mednet Customer Success team for additional guidance. In each customer build scenarios, the customer success model shifts to accommodate the unique customer situation and their clinical trial goals.
Timing of a trial, internal resources, and available skill sets impact how a customer approaches a study build in iMednet. In many cases, customers want additional support for their first study. In this scenario, the iMednet team can build the first study and allow customers to participate and learn while ‘looking over the shoulder’ of an experienced Mednet team member. This approach enables the customer team to develop confidence and comfort with a new system and processes. It permits a phased approach for user adoption and empowers users to learn while minimizing risk.
The Mednet team continues to expand the iMednet LMS with new and updated content. The customer success team members regularly solicit customer feedback to identify important topics and create user-friendly, multi-channel resources. The expanding knowledge base includes quick tips and in-depth courses on a wide array of topics.
Dialogs for Success
The customer success team is instrumental in connecting customers to internal resources and best practices. Implementation consultants ensure a smooth transition once the sales team has completed a new customer contract. Project managers are then assigned to the project based on the therapeutic area, study phase, study design complexity, and scope. The lead project manager is responsible for overseeing the study, including other team members assigned to support the project’s technical build and quality assurance aspects of the project. At least one other team member is always involved to ensure backup/emergency coverage and for succession planning. Regardless of whether Mednet builds or the customer builds, the lead account manager is responsible for all aspects of a project, including study design and builds, mentor training, LMS, etc. These teams bring a wealth of hands-on experience working with Sponsors and CROS to each project.
Opportunities to Engage and the Pathway to Success
Regardless of the ‘Path to Success’ that customers choose, the Mednet Customer Success Model provides a constant feedback loop between customers and the iMednet product development team. Customer success team members facilitate interactions with the broader Mednet team. These discussions occur in various formats, including one-on-one meetings, annual user group meetings and training sessions. They help us understand critical issues, prioritize integrations and clarify our product strategy through multiple channels. The interactions also help customers understand the rationale behind the product development roadmap. This ongoing dialog also enables us to respond quickly to changing requirements across the industry.
The Voice of the Customer Speaks Volumes
Mednet also conducts an annual survey of clinical trial site users. In the latest survey, nearly half (40%) of respondents indicated they have never needed to contact Mednet customer support. This is also an important metric to monitor regularly, along with the volume of inbound support requests, to assess ease of use, particularly as new features and functionality is added to the system. A sudden uptick in volume or usage could indicate a problem. Together with the customer support survey, these metrics are critical to evaluate both the service provided and the ease of use of the iMednet platform. Our team is committed to monitoring these metrics and adjusting our approach based on customer needs.
Mednet uses customer feedback to monitor processes and recalibrate as needed. As clinical trials evolve, the Mednet customer success team is committed to developing new and innovative ways to support study designers, everyday users and site staff. We continue to leverage our deep understanding of clinical trial tasks, processes, and roles, along with feedback from customers and partners. These inputs shape our approach to the iMednet technology platform and the broad support structure that surrounds it.
The Mednet Customer Success Model leverages the collective technical and clinical trial experience and expertise of our team, applying it to both iMednet product enhancements and each customer project. The model is designed to provide customers with expert counsel and individualized support to enable them to leverage Mednet’s technology most effectively to address their unique project requirements and achieve success.