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For the past 20 years, Kim Smigiel has helped MMIT’s clients find the data they need to effectively promote their therapies. As a Client Success Manager, she ensures that clients have the necessary resources in place for a strong product launch. She serves as an extension of clients’ internal teams, helping them track and report on key performance metrics.

Tell us a little bit more about your role.  

As a client success manager, I’m the day-to-day contact for our clients. If a client needs help with any of their projects, or if they’re having trouble using our tools, I’m there to support them. I might run reports for them, or help troubleshoot if they’re struggling with a solution. Depending on where they are in their product cycle, I might also be working to guide them through the launch process and ensure that all of their market access needs are met.

At MMIT, the client success managers also act as an intermediary between clients and our sales teams. Sometimes it’s much easier for the client to talk to me about what they’re missing, because I’ve been working with them in a support role for a long time. If we do have an offering in our product catalog that could be a good match for what they need, I’ll refer them over to sales.        

How did you join the company? What brought you to pharma? 

Believe it or not, I’ve been at MMIT more than 20 years now! My background is in pharmacy. I worked as a certified pharmacy technician at retail pharmacies, hospital pharmacies, and long-term care facilities.

Twenty years ago, we had just moved to Langhorne, and MMIT’s Yardley office was a few minutes down the road. My oldest was a baby then, and I was doing shift work at a hospital, which was difficult with the baby’s schedule. I applied for a data operations position doing formulary entry. It was my first foray into the business side of things, taking me from in front of the patient to behind the scenes—quite a different view.

Back then there were maybe six of us in data operations, and nothing was automated. When they first started handing me these printed formularies of about a thousand pages each, I didn’t know if I could do this job. The learning curve was steep. But my husband told me I should stick it out for a few weeks and see what happens—and here I am, 20 years later! I like to tell that story to new hires who are struggling to take it all in. I ended up loving the company and loving what I do, but it took some time. 

What does your day-to-day usually look like?

Every day is different, and it can change in a moment based on client priorities. But usually, I have a lot of meetings with my clients. I manage 19 clients, and I have monthly touch points with all of them, as well as lots of on-the-fly phone calls to walk them through one issue or another. We also handle renewals, so I’ll talk with clients about the solutions they licensed last year and make sure that these products are still aligned with their needs for the next year. 

What are some of the larger projects you’re working on? 

My larger projects tend to be product implementations. If a client licenses a new solution, we step in to make sure that the implementation goes smoothly and is properly configured or customized to meet their needs. We also coordinate with our internal teams in sort of a gatekeeper role, to help keep all the various moving parts of the project running like a well-oiled machine. We’re the voice of the client on the internal side, which helps limit the number of MMIT folks the client is dealing with on a regular basis. 

What are some of the common challenges of your role? 

I would say the ever-changing pharma world is the biggest challenge. Since COVID, smaller pharma companies in particular have gone through quite a few mergers and acquisitions. It’s difficult to lose members on a client team that you’ve developed great working relationships with, but you just have to keep going. And since it’s pharma, those people will pop up again somewhere else down the line – you might work together again!

Also, managing your time can be a challenge. There’s always a lot going on, but it’s important to remember that you can only handle one problem at a time. It’s not possible to help everybody at once. So you have to take a step back, take a deep breath, and keep prioritizing: a client who cannot log into a tool is a mission-critical problem, and that person gets helped first. It’s essential not to neglect any client, but it can be a balancing act when multiple clients are clamoring for your attention!

What’s been your career highlight to date? 

I find a lot of joy in mentoring new employees and watching them grow. My philosophy is that I aim to train new client managers to be better than myself, and it’s very rewarding to watch their career growth over the years. I like to see people succeed and accomplish their goals. Being here as long as I have been means that people value my opinion about how to do this job well. Being able to share that accumulated knowledge with folks just joining the team is really a great feeling. 

What industry trends are you seeing right now that MMIT is in a unique position to help with? 

We used to be focused only on formulary data, which our pharma clients would use to engage the right payer in contracting discussions. And then, clients became focused on the restriction criteria for their drugs—how difficult was it for patients to access these therapies?

And now, our clients are using real-world data to find patients faster, before they’re even diagnosed. Pharma companies want to see claims and lab data now, but it needs to be integrated and usable. Tapping into a network of claims is meaningless to anyone, but with our data science, we can take that data and draw conclusions that are really pivotal for our clients.

Now they can see that this patient’s claim was denied four times, and why, and how they can help that patient get their claim approved. You can really see the evolution of pharma companies trying harder and harder to improve patient access to their therapies. 

Which company principle resonates most with you? 

Definitely kindness, empathy, and grace. I try to emulate these principles on a daily basis, not only at work. I try to treat everyone the way I would like to be treated. I also know that everybody has a backstory, and we’re all dealing with things in our personal lives that others don’t know about, so it’s best to be kind and a good listener. Even when someone is grumpy with me, I try to grant them grace and kill them with kindness. 

What would you tell someone just starting their career with MMIT?

Stick with it! This company is growing by leaps and bounds, and they support you in any of your endeavors. For me, joining MMIT was a complete career change, and at first, I didn’t think I would make it. But I asked for help when I needed it, and my coworkers were supportive. There’s always somebody willing to step in and get you the help you need to be successful. 

What do you like most about working at MMIT? 

It’s become a bit of a cliché to say the people here are like a family, but I genuinely feel that way. When something comes up in my life, I am always comfortable going to my leadership and taking the time I need to handle things. If you need to run out for a doctor’s appointment, or you want to go to your child’s school event, you can do that. Even when we were in an office environment 20 years ago, MMIT always took a family-first approach, which is rare these days and even rarer back then.

What do you like to do outside of work?

My children are grown and out of the house, but my husband and I are raising a pit bull puppy who keeps us busy! We’re outdoors people, so we like to go camping and hiking. Recently, we completed a 10-mile hike at Ricketts Glen State Park. The woods are my happy place.

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