There is a lot of noise around using chatbots to get things done. Are chatbots a fit for #bigpharma?
What are chatbots?
Advantages of using chatbots?
- It is like chatting with a live person
- Available 24/7
- Can simultaneously have many conversations with many people, whereas humans can only communicate with a human at a time
- Replaces calling, some people prefer to text rather than calling
Why should pharma care about chatbots?
According to Business Insider :
*the combined user base of the top four chat apps is larger than the combined user base of the top four social networks. Chat apps also have a higher retention and usage rates than most mobile apps. Finally, the majority of their users are young, an extremely important demographic for brands, advertisers and publishers.*
There’s the elephant in the room, what about adverse events? Some suggested solutions could be the following:
- A chatbot can be set up to identify keywords or mentions, which can then be forwarded and handled by a live person and sent onward to the pharmacovigilance group
- #Bigpharma will need to step their game and monitor their own social media and online communities so as to capture adverse events
Some potential use of chatbots for pharma?
- Making appointments between sales reps and physicians
- Corporate news bulletins
- Clinical trials update
- Clinical trials recruitment information
- Customer service
- One pharma company launching their chatbot
MSD Italy launches #MSDSaluteBot, the first Pharma #Chatbot dedicated to the Italian Physicians. #AI #digitaldisruption pic.twitter.com/owBwdnvWBM
— MSD Salute (@msdsalute) December 21, 2016