Pharmaceutical Executive Europe - November/December 2007 - (Page 44) 44 The Mix Nov/Dec 2007 Pharmaceutical Executive Europe The Mix 46 PARTNERING Maintaining transparency when working with patient groups. Strategies, tactics, insights and opportunities Moving Towards Service In the sixth instalment of his series, Kevin Dolgin takes a holistic view of the direction in which the pharma sales environment is developing. 50 DIGITAL The concept of being “digitally savvy” has changed: can your employees keep up? I 51 DATA The importance of Internetbased monitoring and communications systems for non-clinical data. 52 PROCUREMENT eProcurement systems can help companies achieve visibility of in-direct spend,and facilitate cost savings. n this series we’ve considered systems and KAMs and muppets and hippopotami; we’ve looked at changes both large and small, imminent and distant. We’ve drawn some conclusions, but probably raised more questions than we’ve answered. One thing that stands out though is that the role of the rep is changing into a role of service provision. In the past I’ve pointed out that there is a fundamental disconnect between the way pharmaceutical companies view their personnel in the field and the way doctors view them. For pharma, they are sales forces. For the doctors, they are providers of information. If a doctor agrees to see a representative, it is primarily to acquire information about medicine, not because the rep is selling something. This has been implicitly recognised by governments. In many European countries, for instance, pharmaceutical representatives are referred to as medical representatives, or information providers, and their ostensible reason for being has always been purely to provide information. In Germany, as of this year, they can’t even be compensated for sales performance: according to German authorities, “…pharmaceutical reps shall only provide professional/ medical information to the doctors.” So we are faced with a situation If a doctor agrees to see a rep, it is to acquire information, not because the rep is selling a drug. Kevin Dolgin where pharma considers the raison d’être of representatives to be the generation of sales, but the people they visit and the people who regulate the industry disagree and see them as service providers. Is this just semantics? If it is something more, if the industry is going to start paying greater attention to the service provision role of the sales force, then some very profound changes must take place, and some lessons must first be learned. The impact of relationship One of the major differences between managing a goodsoriented company as compared to a service-oriented company involves the importance of relationships. In a goods-based environment, customers create relationships with the object they have purchased. In a service environment, the actual object is less significant, and the relationship is created with the service company itself, through its customer service representatives. This sounds simple, but it’s not. It is a fundamental difference between the two types of industries. It means that the relationship between the company and the customer represents a true asset in itself. This is for three reasons: ● A loyal customer is far more likely to purchase (or in the case of the pharma industry, condone or prescribe) the provider’s offering ● A strong relationship allows the company itself to get better information and understand the market better ● In a service setting, word of mouth is absolutely crucial, so a happy customer becomes the company’s most efficient promotional weapon. Customer satisfaction Given the above, there’s an easy-toremember rule whenever you are managing a service: focus on customer satisfaction! Customer satisfaction is the key, the ultimate touchstone for a service company. If customers are satisfied, they’ll be
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