Physician feedback: are pharmaceutical sales services just what the doctor ordered?

What do physicians really want from a pharmaceutical sales organization?

By Editor on Nov 6, 2007

What do physicians really want from a pharmaceutical sales organization? What is important to them in their relationship with a sales rep, and how does that relationship affect their prescribing decisions, if at all?

In August 2007, TNS Healthcare conducted a physician survey aimed at getting the answers to those questions. And at a webinar sponsored in conjunction with eyeforpharma in September 2007, TNS Healthcares Andrew Brana shared what his group has learned.

Brana, a consultant in sales performance improvement, led the discussion in the webinar entitled Re-engineering physician relationships: putting the new service model into action. The other panelists were Gregg Ciarelli, Executive Director of Sales Administration at Boehringer Ingelheim; Brad Fackler, Executive VP, Commercial Operations at Sucampo Pharmaceuticals; Simon Roberts, Strategic Partnerships/Market Access at Roche Canada; Tobias Weizel, Senior Sales & Marketing Effectiveness Manager at Amgen CEE; and Dirk Ziegler, Head of Sales Excellence, Oncology with Novartis.

Brana started off by describing the results of his companys survey and what those responses mean for present and future pharma sales strategies.

Pharma sales in transition
The trend in pharma sales has lately been towards a service or customer-focused model that focuses on building stronger relationships with physicians and providing more services and a better experience. The idea behind the service model is to find out what physicians need from the pharmaceutical industry and give it to them.

The goal of the TNS survey was to determine what physicians value most in their relationships with pharma companies; what changes, if any, physicians have noticed being implemented by pharma companies in their sales strategies, and how physicians would rate some of the major pharma companies in terms of their implementation of the desired changes in their approach to sales.

To answer their questions, TNS surveyed 286 physicians about their experiences with pharma sales organizations.

What do physicians want?
TNS first wanted to establish what physicians value in their relationships with pharma sales reps and organizations. The respondents were given a list of ten aspects of the relationship and asked to choose those that were important.

Sales reps personal and professional conduct and sales reps knowledge and expertise topped the list of services physicians value, each chosen by 78% of respondents. Quality and value of sales reps visits was third with 68%, then physician education and information services with 64% and patient management, education and support programs at 55%.

According to Brana, the take away message is that the expertise, knowledge and conduct of the sales rep are still core elements in the relationship between physician and pharma company. However, patient management, education and support and physician education and information services are emerging as elements of value to physicians.

One fact that became very clear in the survey was that the Internet was not at the top of the majority of physicians priority lists. Brana says this raises many questions: Is the technology still too new? Has the Internet not been established as a unique value; has it just become another channel for relaying the standard information? Is the Internet simply not central to the way physicians work? And has the Net not yet been fully leveraged as a powerful brand support tool?

When physicians were asked if they had noticed a shift towards a service model approach, where other services are provided, such as patient/physician education and information and internet-based services, 57% answered no, 43% yes.

What changes are they getting?
Those respondents who had noticed change were asked to give more information on the changes they had seen. On a scale of one to seven, where one is a decrease in service, four is no change and seven is an increase in service, what were the changes and how extensive were they?

The good news, says Brana, is that those services physicians value had noticeably increased. Patient management, education and support programs and physician education and information services saw the biggest changes, rating a 5.2 and a 5.0, respectively; Internet-based information services for physicians and Internet-based information for patients both got ratings of 5.1. Furthermore, sales reps knowledge and expertise saw a 4.6 increase, as did practice and staff support services. Quality and value of sales reps visits was rated at 4.8.

Who is leading the change?
Finally, physicians were asked to rate 12 of the top pharmaceutical companies on their level of delivery on physician experiences. All 12 companies had strong showings on their sales reps conduct, knowledge, expertise and value of visits. Not surprisingly, according to Brana, because sales reps have been the center of sales for a long time. However, when it came to other services such as patient management, education and information services for physicians, or Internet-based information for physicians or patients, there was considerable variation in the ratings, with Merck the clear leader.

From the ratings, said Brana, it becomes obvious that companies are making specific efforts to adopt a service-based sales model, and these efforts are becoming increasingly visible to customers. But, Brana asks, are these efforts and the resources behind them being put in the right places? Are we investing in areas that will build stronger relationships and increase customer brand commitment and market share?

Knowing what drives customer loyalty The key is discovering what drives a customer to choose a brand and then to stick with it. How important, relatively, are each of those drivers? And how can we leverage our knowledge of drivers to inform our sales and sales service?

According to Brana, a crucial starting point to optimize sales strategy choices is to determine what customers value and what drives their brand commitment and prescribing. It has been proven that brand loyalty drives increased market share, so the importance of understanding the bond between customer and product should not be underestimated or undervalued. Says Brana, once these commitment and market share drivers are known and each ones contribution to increased commitment and share are quantified, you can make sales strategy choices based on solid, quantified, customer-based knowledge.

Relationship skills, sales rep knowledge and expertise, patient support services, physician support services, corporate reputation, safety, general efficacy these are some of the drivers that lead to commitment by physicians and higher market share. An increase in commitment results in an increase in brand usage and protects a drug from competitors. Those loyal to a brand are not attracted to competitors, and the relationship can be maintained easily, with little or no additional marketing needed.

Its important to recognize that different drugs establish market share differently according to their therapeutic class, their target audience, the specialties of the physicians and the lifecycle stage of the drug.

For example, TNS research in the lipid market showed that an established market leader gained physician commitment and patient share primarily through sales attributes; for a new entrant to the field, product performance attributes were most important. Says Brana, a new entrant needs to communicate the products performance. The market leader will find success through improving the service features of the brand.

Digging even deeper, Brana suggests analyses of drivers to determine the level of impact each driver has on increasing customer commitment and subsequent market share. In the lipid market survey, TNS looked at physicians perceptions of the performance of sales reps. One of the most important drivers was the ability of sales reps to comprehensively answer questions related to the product. One company in the study performed below standard on this driver, getting a 3.8 performance rating out of a possible 7. Says Brana, the impact of this particular driver is so great that even a one point improvement in performance by the company would increase physician commitment levels by 4.3% and market share by 3.2 points.

Now that you know
Says Brana, if a company conducts this kind of impact analysis on all its sales and marketing attributes, it can determine which strategies are the most effective and best build relationships with physicians. Identifying which attributes should be at the core of sales and marketing leads to an optimized marketing strategy, no matter what the brand or therapeutic area or lifecycle situation of the drug. The service model of sales recognizes that brand loyalty and commitment are built and maintained partly through the on-going services that the pharma company provides. And who knows better what services they need and want than physicians themselves?

Author: Shannon Perry, journalist, eyeforpharma