Case Study:
Life Science Praxis
What would you say to someone who has never used online production?
“You need an online producer to make your customer’s experience professional and pleasant“
Laurence Mickalonis, Managing Partner Life Science Praxis
Life Science Praxis uses SyncSkills to:
Virtual Production with Multi-lingual support
Is there anything you couldn’t do online that you did face-to-face?
“No, in fact I think that we can do more online than we did face-to-face“
Laurence Mickalonis, Managing partner
Life Science Praxis
Life Science Praxis is a medical communications agency delivering full-service marketing support into the pharmaceutical industry. Providing services such as marketing strategy, medical advisory boards, symposiums and medical writing specifically to support the pharma companies in their communication with Health Care Practitioners (HCPs).
Working globally, Life Science Praxis would normally support their clients with face-to-face meetings with medical experts, for example before or after a medical congress.
When Life Science Praxis initially contacted SyncSkills for support, they had arranged an Advisory Board for their pharma client in Barcelona, where oncologists from around the world were meant to meet in March 2020…
“2-3 weeks beforehand, lockdown happened, and so, we had to turn the meeting into an online meeting. And at that time everybody, including myself were worried, how could we run a meeting like this online?”
How do you change to run an online meeting?
Two main problems were identified;
- the technology where there was a lack of knowledge and mistrust of the reliability of the platforms.
- and secondly, how do you moderate or facilitate an online meeting, what kind of similarities and the changes needed for moving from in-person meeting.
Since implementing online meetings, LS Praxis has become much more aware of the digital and interactive possibilities rather than the limitations they expected from live online sessions.
“We were concerned, how do you run a meeting online. We were coming from a history of a lack of trust, what if the internet crashed? How do you facilitate an online meeting, what differences are there to face-to-face meetings”
Laurence Mickalonis, Managing Partner Life science Praxis
Working with SyncSkills
Looking for help to bring their meeting online, LS Praxis turned to LinkedIn looking for virtual producers. Following a recommendation, they contacted SyncSkills.
In the beginning, there was a need for a lot of support to overcome anxiety from both LS Praxis and their clients who were equally apprehensive. SyncSkills delivered an individual tech check up with each participant in advance of the advisory to help reduce these fears.
Now there is more acceptance of zoom and other online platforms. SyncSkills adds value with facilitation and maximizing the use of the tools within the platforms to deliver better and more meaningful interactions online.
“I fell in love with Gaëlle because our customer fell in love with her services.” says Laurence.
It’s about a human experience…
It’s been important to LS Praxis to deliver a positive experience and the people skills of the producer are as important as the experience and understanding of the technology. It’s a human experience, not a technology experience.
If producers are visible from the beginning, then it’s not a signal that something has gone wrong when they appear. If you have a pleasant environment online then when there are any issues, it is much less of a concern as the overall experience is still possible – it’s about how you handle these things.
“You are great at delivering confidence from everyone, setting them at ease as they start the sessions, not everyone has this gift, and it brings a pleasant customer experience for everyone.”
Technology Challenges
Working with doctors who are connecting to online advisory boards brings its own challenges. Not only are they usually connecting from hospitals with limited technology but there are differing technology set ups.
As part of the SyncSkills delivery, tech checks were made with each participant, checking the sound, bandwidth, and technology setups, devices before the advisory board took place, de-risking any issues in advance.
Rehearsals are always recommended as part of the process.
What does the future look like?
LS Praxis will still deliver some sessions online and some face-to-face, doctors are persons with busy schedules and so it makes sense to keep some online.
They also see the move to more hybrid scenarios, where there are people in a room as well as others dialing in from elsewhere which is again something which LS Praxis recognizes needs a lot of planning and thinking about.
Face-to-face is resuming but online will remain as well, as doctors have busy schedules and in-person meetings consume a lot of time once you include travels.
“Definitely, we will keep on doing online meetings, because it is a time saver and we are able to overcome communication barriers
Flying in and meeting at a hotel near the airport, then flying back is time consuming and tiring.”
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