Delivering More Value to CRO Clients

Consistently providing excellent client experiences is one of the hallmarks that separate the most innovative and value-focused contract research organizations (CRO) from the rest of the field. To achieve this, you may want to modernize and simplify the technologies that help you serve clients, empower research study and project managers, and run a productive business operation. Sikich can help you move ahead by integrating Salesforce and Sikich SuiteSuccess for CROs, which is based on NetSuite, into a cloud environment that is optimized for CROs.

In our recent blog posts, we discussed CRO client experience and other challenges and explored what a CRO-optimized cloud might look like. Below, we share some highlights of what might actually change when a CRO deploys and integrates Salesforce and Sikich SuiteSuccess for CROs.

What can clients expect from your CRO technology modernization?

How would deploying and integrating NetSuite, Salesforce, and the Salesforce Experience Cloud help CROs provide a better, more competitive client experience? Based on our experience, here are several initial client experience impacts toward which CROs could plan.

Making life easier

Clients can streamline and personalize their interactions with your CRO and accomplish more on their own, using cloud-based and mobile tools. They can simply log into one cloud resource to review and approve their invoices, get project status updates and reports, make requests, comment on a proposal, or share early news of upcoming research studies for which they need a quote. They can receive all the detailed attention and information they request as you run complex, lengthy studies for them.

Speeding up processes

At the same time, you can simplify the workflows in the execution of simpler, more transactional trials, provide results quickly, and give your clients an edge. A coherent, integrated software environment makes it possible to have timely handoffs between individuals and teams at various process junctures—for instance, when you need to transition from a proposal to getting a project moving—and allow project management and back office activities to keep moving at a healthy clip.

Meeting clients where they are

You can let clients connect with you in their preferred manner—email, chat, video conferencing, phone calls—and meet them with prompt, consistent responses and collaborations. Customer-facing employees have access to all relevant data across the cloud system, so they can help clients without making them wait or giving them incomplete or outdated information. They can also involve colleagues immediately when they need to act on behalf of a client. Some of your team members may gain the ability to accomplish more for clients and be more proactive—an improvement everybody will welcome.

Ensuring the right outcomes from resources and processes

Your cloud environment gives you the visibility and the flexibility to ensure the health of the company and its client relationships. From marketing to sales to project execution and financials, you have an all-around view of the business and its clients. You can see in real time how well your organization does in terms of meeting its goals and serving clients. Against a background of complete, meaningful information, project leads, business managers, and executives can better understand and manage client relationships and business activities to reach the best outcomes. They can take the right, timely steps to improve any roles and processes to make the company operate more productively or strengthen the focus on client value.

Creating more value from people’s time

Many small improvements in the client experience can add up. On an integrated cloud infrastructure designed for CROs, you can minimize the busywork of repeated data entry and lookup in multiple sources. You avoid the errors that can easily sneak in and give employees time back in their day, which they can spend doing more valuable, client-focused work that is a better use of their skills. Similarly, process automations—such as invoicing in NetSuite triggered by a project milestone in OpenAir, with the invoice forwarded according to client preferences recorded in Salesforce—can contribute to a steady boost in experience quality as they help avoid delays and errors.

Taking the next step

If you want to find out more or would like to pursue an integration of NetSuite and Salesforce:

• Contact us to have an exploratory conversation.
• Read the previous and following blog posts in this series
  • CROs have to deliver a superior client experience
  • Moving past specialized portals to a true CRO cloud
  • Transforming CRO sales, finance, and project management
  • Partnering with Sikich as your CRO technology experts
• Download our full ebook, How CROs Can Deliver a Superior Client Experience, for free.
• See how Sikich supports CROs and life sciences companies.
• Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.