Context Overview
As business priorities changed, new customer-facing roles were needed to serve specific accounts, implement solutions and develop customer relationships beyond existing team responsibilities. I partnered with business leaders and HR to translate each role’s purpose into expected execution, required capabilities and a structured transition pathway.
For Clinical Liaisons moving from remote, inbound support to proactive field work, this meant adapting the methodology from selling to customer solution implementation, then building account planning, territory management and customer engagement into the pathway. Role-specific playbooks gave employees and managers the same guidance for practice, coaching and early execution.
Stakeholders
HR; Sales and Commercial Leaders; Marketing, Clinical and Product Leaders according to the role; direct managers responsible for field coaching; employees moving into new customer-facing positions.
Deployment
- Define the business need. Work with functional leaders and HR to clarify why a dedicated customer-facing role is needed, which customers or initiatives it serves and what business outcomes and day-to-day execution are expected.
- Map the role and its capability requirements. Adapt competency frameworks to the role’s tasks, tools, customer interactions and success milestones; identify product, solution, process and methodology knowledge gaps before designing the transition pathway.
- Adapt the methodology to the work. For Product and Clinical Specialists, translate relevant sales-methodology principles into customer engagement and solution-implementation behaviours rather than treating these roles as conventional sellers.
- Build role-transition pathways. Develop reskilling for employees moving into field or account-facing work, combining customer interaction, proactive outreach, account and territory planning, product knowledge and use of the required systems with opportunities to practise on the job.
- Co-create the playbook with managers. Document expected activities, decision points and examples with direct managers, then use the same playbook in learning activities, field practice and manager coaching as the role takes shape.
Metrics & Results
- Role-specific capability pathways and playbooks supported transitions into Key Account Manager, specialised business-line sales, customer peer-to-peer account management, field Marketing and Clinical Liaison roles.
- For Clinical Liaisons moving from remote, inbound work into proactive field engagement, the pathway brought customer-facing practice, account and territory planning, methodology application and manager coaching into a shared role playbook.
- Related regional role-transition and reskilling pathways supported around 150 people moving into new roles, as recorded in Competency Framework Design.
- Learning initiatives for these populations received an NPS above 90.
Competencies, Frameworks and Tools
Business-needs analysis and customer-facing role enablement; role-based capability and execution mapping; adaptation of commercial methodology to clinical and product contexts; internal reskilling and field-readiness design; account and territory planning enablement; manager playbook co-design; coaching and on-the-job application support; partnership with HR and functional leaders.
6Ds model for L&D effectiveness; role-based competency frameworks; adapted sales and customer-implementation methodology; reskilling pathways; account and territory planning; manager and employee playbooks; field coaching and role-readiness checkpoints.