Five Strategies to Overcome Barriers to Physical Access

Veeva hosted a panel discussion with several pharmaceutical companies to understand how they’ve adapted to the new post-COVID reality. They provided five recommendations to help companies create a successful digital sales strategy.

1. Personalize interactions for higher quality engagement
   Consider shifting from a product-focused sales approach to a customer-centric approach. Russ Larson, an associate director of sales solutions from Merck, explained that his organization experiences a significant difference in the quality of provider conversations using virtual meetings. “Any company that’s using virtual sales meetings has probably seen an immediate shift towards a customer-centric engagement approach, as opposed to product and brand-driven conversations. I think we’re seeing that shift occurring immediately. It is less about producing new information on ‘product X’ that might benefit your patients because that will come naturally.”
2. New channels require new skills
   A critical component of a virtual sales strategy is ensuring your sales team can access the proper training materials and understands digital selling nuances. Rob Kauffman, AstraZeneca’s senior global business relationship manager, suggests incorporating role-playing into virtual sales tool training. “The most important step out of all the digital sales tool training is role-playing. Each sales rep needs to take turns role-playing the provider and the presenter personas. Role-playing is very important, especially when it comes to any kind of technology troubleshooting with the customer. As the final step, we have the sales manager participate in role-playing, taking on the provider persona. This acts as a certification step to ensure sales rep competency with the technology as well as the digital sales process.”
3. Virtual sales tools are not “just” a replacement for in-person meetings
   Larson believes that companies that embrace virtual meetings as a new form of communication, not just replacements for on-site meetings, will begin to see provider conversations with up to 5x longer meeting durations. “The other aspect of virtual meetings is you’re going to have more purposeful and deeper discussions. We shouldn’t think of Veeva CRM Engage Meeting as just providing the alternative to the in-person visit now that the COVID-19 situation is here. I truly believe that sales reps can have deeper, more meaningful conversations when providers are at their computers. With the move to more digital engagement, we’ve seen the average meeting duration increase beyond 20 minutes.”
4. Don’t let tech support distract from your meetings
   Because providers and office staff have varying degrees of technical understanding and experience, there is a likelihood of someone in the office needing help preparing for a virtual session. Darran White, Upsher-Smith’s manager of sales operations, cautions that it is okay to provide some basic troubleshooting help and advises sales reps to resist “playing IT technician” for providers and their staff. “Our reps shouldn’t be IT. Not every office has an IT professional that’s willing to troubleshoot if we run into an issue. One critical thing that we’ve always had is a backup in place. If something’s going on, the rep will go through some basic troubleshooting and send a prepared email that can direct the provider to additional troubleshooting resources. You do not want to lose valuable time towards troubleshooting a technical issue but also want to create a pleasant overall experience.”
5. Track meeting engagement metrics over time
   Life science organizations agree that adopting a digital engagement strategy requires new performance metrics to be analyzed. Top performance metrics to consider include sales team adoption of technology, provider engagement and re-engagement, and changes in meeting duration over time. Once you’ve measured how frequently digital channels are used, the next step is to understand what is happening during these digital interactions. For example, Veeva Pulse Data Trends show that 33% of Engage Meetings include remote sampling¹. This type of insight can help you learn and improve over time. If you need help getting started, subscribe to Veeva industry trends and compare your metrics to industry benchmarks.

Looking ahead
Companies are evaluating their post-pandemic sales meeting strategy. Most are already planning to use digital engagement solutions to enable a future hybrid sales strategy. “I think there’s going to be a continuation of in-person visits. I do believe that this hybrid approach of mixing digital capabilities with in-person visits is here to stay, and there’s no going back from that,” said Larson.

Combining digital tactics with in-person visits provide commercial operations leaders a significant opportunity to double the impact of their salesforce and provide a superior experience for HCPs. With the widespread adoption of virtual meetings, geographic borders disappear, giving reps an expandable call deck to go deeper and further in their region.

Take time to build a strong foundation for a virtual selling culture and ensure your business can maintain a competitive advantage within the market.

^{1. Veeva Pulse Data Trends, Engage Meetings in the US, September 2020}