Sales Representatives find it increasingly difficult to see doctors. Industry studies suggests that a sales representative gets an opportunity to speak with a physician in only one out of five office visits and even then for an average of about two minutes. Moreover, reps are often poorly informed. Most are less experienced than reps were even five or six years ago, and many complain about a lack of training. Industry surveys state that some 80 percent of sales executives agree that attention to the coaching and development of their sales representatives has suffered as sales forces have expanded. In addition to that physicians would reduce access to less than 10% of these reps if it weren’t for samples.
Most physicians feel that they aren't getting the kind of information they need from the majority of reps. An extreme example of this problem, comes from a physician who saw eight reps who had given him samples of an medication they were trying to sell but could he could not recall any clinical details from their details. Doctors also want to know what patients think about a drug, how much they pay for it, whether they comply with its treatment regime, what HMOs will pay for, and how HMO formularies) are structured. Yet the reps' knowledge is usually limited to the sales pitches devised by marketers at corporate headquarters.
High-prescribing doctors say that they now receive three to five times as many calls from sales representatives as they did ten years ago-on top of other practice issues, such as the demands of managed care and reductions in reimbursements, that have made office practice more hectic over the past decade. Physicians complain that the situation is "becoming unbearable" and that sales representatives "are less knowledgeable, more aggressive. According to several surveys, almost 50 percent of doctors' offices now limit the number of reps they will see each day. Even reps who had clear relationships with doctors in the past say that many of these ties have been disrupted in recent years.
As pharma companies redraw their territories to accommodate the expansion they often disrupt existing relationships that fall outside the newly assigned sales representative territory.
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“It is with a great deal of passion and gratitude that I write to you a personal note of thanks. The session ‘Selling PEGASYS’ which you very energetically conducted at our launch was the single most effective and significant presentation I have ever attended. I learned more in one hour on how to differentiate PEGASYS and how to approach difficult customers than I did during my entire training. Thank you for making a difference.”
Jon Bouer Roche Laboratories, Inc.
Hepatology Specialist,
Virology
July 10, 2003
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