Culture and Collaboration: Keys to Customer Engagement Success

Published February 27, 2025

We’re delighted to bring an external expert perspective to the “One Chapter Ahead” blog series and the important topic of culture and collaboration. Amy Saunders is a recognized customer experience global leader across life science verticals including pharma, med devices and consumer packaged goods (CPG) for companies such as J&J Consumer, W.L. Gore and Novartis. Most recently, Amy established and led the Customer Experience function at Novartis International which encompassed customer experience (Cx) strategy, engagement planning and production, patient support programs, field force engagement, marketing technology and data/AI/analytics across 100+ countries.

Why are culture and collaboration so important?

Beyond the obvious benefits of company culture, the impact on customer experience success is proportional to how organizations live a culture of Cx. This is because Cx, Customer Engagement and modern commercialization approaches require multiple teams and partners to collaborate to achieve intended outcomes. Additionally, there is a higher level of change happening in the external market across the many technologies and platforms which adds additional complexity to teams working in the space. Culture and collaboration can accelerate or slow down impact.

What is company culture and why should we care?

What is company culture?

It’s more than just ‘how things are done’… it’s the DNA of companies. Effective company culture goes beyond change management to embed ‘change resilience.’

Why should we care?

Company culture is a “renewable energy source,”¹ boosting the energy of talent/teams and building commitment and motivation. Peter Drucker noted that “like a flywheel, a strong culture will resist most changes, and will strongly defeat a transformation that is not compatible with it unless a concerted effort is put in place to manage the change.” And of course, there is a clear impact on retention, results and organizational fatigue.

In your experience what does it take to be successful?

Customer experience as a team sport

Delivering successful customer experience requires cross-functional collaboration. Thinking of Cx as a team sport means:

So if it’s a “Team Sport,” where does accountability lie?

Given the many dimensions of Customer Engagement and Experience, diverse teams and functions need to work together to achieve the intended outcome while also working around the realities of privacy requirements, best practices and internal guardrails. When teams work well together, great outcomes can be achieved. Unfortunately, teams are often working in silos, so while “everyone” is part of the team in the end, the result for the customer can be disjointed and sub-optimal.

What are best practices to achieve great Customer Engagement and Experience?

Linking to employee performance

Incentivizing breaking down silos, eliminating resistance and stopping dysfunctional workarounds helps to shift the focus from individual outputs to business and patient outcomes.  Here are some examples:

• At one company, an entire lead market came up with a quantifiable, measurable indicator of embedding customer experience within internal teams/culture as a special bonus.
• Another company includes formalized, shared collaboration goals in their people and development planning across functions, teams or markets. These goals can be a factor in bonus calculation.

Making change enablement an ongoing focus rather than a “special project” that ends shortly after getting started

The majority of people in pharma leading change efforts, omnichannel and new ways of working lack adequate support.  Not only is change management a key component to success but notably, there are five drivers of successful change adoption:

1. Proper leadership alignment
2. Strong cross-functional collaboration and continuous improvement
3. Defined operating model and clarity on roles/responsibilities
4. Skill development to upskill teams
5. Motivation and incentives to support change

Only 13% ​of survey participants feel their approach to change management is sufficient for success.²

Even among this 13%, the five drivers of successful change adoption are not universal:

There is proper
leadership alignment​

There is strong
cross-function collaboration​

There is a current organization structure/operating model enabling success​

There are proper skill development​/training
for individuals

There is proper motivation and incentives in place to support change​

Conclusion

Fostering a strong company culture and promoting collaboration are essential for achieving customer engagement success. By embedding change resilience, aligning leadership and prioritizing cross-functional teamwork, organizations can create an environment where employees thrive and deliver exceptional customer experiences.

When everyone works together towards a common goal, the results can be truly transformative. While technology, data and analytics are key accelerators, cross-functional collaboration and culture are the secrets that unlock greatness and drive impact.

Authors: Amy Saunders & Nancy Phelan

1 The Living Organization, by Norman Wolfe

2 TGaS survey “The Current and Future State of Customer Engagement“ fielded September 2024

This blog is part of the One Chapter Ahead blog series, a Customer Engagement-focused thought leadership initiative to bring an informed, inspired point of view.  Our intent is to bring a fresh perspective, driven by data, benchmarks, insights and expertise.

Other blog posts in this series:

• What Does “Good” Look Like in Customer Engagement? 
• Get Ready to Orchestrate a Better Customer Experience
• Integrated Data + Hyper-local + Cross‑channel = Customer Engagement
• Foundational Differentiation: CE Requires Efficient Operationalization of Data
• Key Takeaways and Learnings from HLTH 2024 
• Is Medical Omnichannel Poised for Growth?
• Are Pharma Brands Really Transformational?

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