If you expect to build trust and loyalty among patient and physician audiences, ensuring they choose you over competitors, then reputation management is everything. Your company\u2019s reputation is a primary consideration to physicians deciding what medications to prescribe and technologies to implement and to patients asking about specific treatments for their conditions.<\/p>\n
Reputational risk is the potential for events, both within and beyond your control, as well as negative perception or publicity, to harm your reputation and \u2013 by extension \u2013 your performance compared to competitors.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s explore the factors that can affect your life sciences company\u2019s reputation, the difference between risk management and crisis management, and how you can assess and manage your reputational risk.<\/p>\n
As life sciences marketers, you\u2019re already dealing with some industry-specific reputation challenges stemming from perceptions that drug and technology prices are too high, transparency issues leading to public \u2013 and even governmental \u2013 skepticism, and questionable promotional practices, to name a few.<\/p>\n
Many factors can damage a pharma or biotech company\u2019s reputation beyond skepticism, including data breaches; product recalls due to manufacturing or safety issues; failure to report adverse events; reports of fraud, corruption, or other unethical behavior by company representatives; and publicized lawsuits.<\/p>\n
Misinformation intended to deceive and incorrect interpretations of health information \u2013 which are prevalent across social media \u2013 can also negatively impact public perception of the industry or your company, and they may dissuade people from requesting or prescribing your products. This misguided distrust could directly damage your organization, especially if negative comments and misinformation are shared in response to social posts created by your company.<\/p>\n
Even a few negative online reviews can have a big impact on your reputation \u2013 especially if they are not counterbalanced by positive reviews, patient success stories, or patient or physician testimonials. An absence of positive press can also have a negative effect.<\/p>\n
Risk management means identifying, assessing, and responding proactively to an issue or event that could negatively impact your reputation and performance. Crisis management is responding to, managing the fallout of, and recovering from an unexpected event that could harm your organization.<\/p>\n
For example, risk management may be noticing an uptick in social media posts sharing the same negative perceptions of your company, possibly based on misinformation. To mitigate potential effects on prospective physician partners and patients and possibly prevent your stock from taking an undeserved hit, you push out some positive patient testimonials, press releases, and social media posts highlighting your high ethical standards and transparency. Crisis management would be trying to recover from a significant medication or device recall.<\/p>\n
To manage your life sciences company\u2019s reputational risk, you must understand what those risks are. To do that, you need to know what\u2019s being said about your brand. Social media listening and monitoring will give you insight into what people are saying \u2013 both the negatives and the positives, what people are looking for to improve their engagement with your organization, and how people feel about your competitors. Subtle changes in social media perception can indicate a bigger problem on the horizon, so it\u2019s important to pay attention. You should also keep track of reviews of your individual products on sites like WebMD and RxList.<\/p>\n
Once you determine the reasons for negative reviews, comments, or publicity, you can respond directly to patient or physician concerns, develop strategies to address issues that are adversely impacting patient experiences and public perception, and find ways to expand upon the content you\u2019re sharing that shows all the positive impacts your company and its products are making.<\/p>\n
Next, assign risk scores to the factors potentially affecting your reputation and weigh them against your organization\u2019s risk tolerance and appetite. If a factor\u2019s score falls outside your risk tolerance, develop a prevention, reduction, and damage-control plan to address it. Finally, tie key risk indicators (KRIs) to specific key performance indicators (KPIs) within your organization so it\u2019s easier to see how risks affect your ability to achieve specific goals.<\/p>\n
Your company\u2019s reputation is intertwined with its potential for success, so reputation management needs to be part of your overall management strategy. Here are five tips for maintaining and encouraging positive patient, physician, and public perceptions.<\/p>\n