As marketers, we know that it's vital to listen to our customers, but you can't stop there, you have to take action on your findings. Welcome to "3"ā€¦three insights in about three minutes. I'm Drew Dinkelacker. For a great example of listening and taking action, I'm turning to Claire Concowich, the Director of Marketing for Letco Medical. It's an independent and compounding pharmacy wholesale supplier. Claire, when the pandemic hit, what did you discover by listening to your customers?
Claire: Through both customer surveys, as well as feedback that we're hearing from our customer success team and our account managers, we identified that they have no time. The CDC had thrust upon them that they're now part of the frontline workers; they were delivering booster shots, they were doing the vaccines, they also now had the capability to do the formulation for hand sanitizer when that was in shortage. And then layered on top of that, in their daily to-do tasks, they're also experiencing the same pressure that a lot of the industry is experiencing, where they're losing staff, they're unable to retain their talent. So where they were doing their day-to-day prior to this change - was seven to eight technicians and staff -, they've gone down two - of the owner as well as another technician - and they're still expected to deliver at that level.
Drew: You've told me that your response was an intentional pivot to a little-used product, how did that come about?
Claire: So really, they're listening to the customers and bringing this up to the leadership team, as well as our leadership team, had the foresight to really identify that this wave was coming. It was being able to listen and pivot to rather than just selling product, which we have really primarily focused on in the past - pivoting over to services, recognizing that we were now their partner, we're rolling up our sleeves and helping them. So dipping into it, like you've mentioned, a area that we were low on really pushing prior to and really raising that up to the surface. So it became a higher value because these pharmacies were down to one, to two, and they needed the services to be successful; the products just came organically.
Drew: Alright, so now it's two years on from the start of the pandemic and your pivot. What have you learned through that experience?
Claire: So within, these are small B2B pharmacists, and one thing we've really learned is they appreciate and they've responded to the individualized service, not only from a... We're partners with them, and we've demonstrated that we're partners with them, and they appreciate and value and have shown us loyalty as a result of us becoming more of a partner rather than an actual product retailer. In addition, contrary to what us marketers have pivoted over to, this channel specifically, they've responded to print, because of the time that they have, they're not traditionally on their phones or on their iPads or on their computers; they're in the labs doing the work. So even though we continue with the digital channels on social media and email, giving them a letter, giving them a postcard, that's what they're responding to because that's really where they're paying attention.
Drew: Well, as I've always said, just because it's an old tactic doesn't mean it's ineffective; just because it's a new one, doesn't mean it's effective either. "3" is a production of MarketingAccelerator.com and just one of the resources we provide for marketing and business leaders. I'm Drew Dinkelacker.