Making Pharma In-Person Sales More Meaningful
Does the move to digital mean we need less human interaction?
By Aage Granaas, Innovation Manager at A Piece of Pie
Offer Me What I Want, Computationally
In August, Tokyo is like a furnace. Even in the shade, the heat is unbearable. Hot, humid air distorts my view of skyscrapers in the distance and I’m craving a nice cold drink to cool off. As it happens, Tokyo has mini kiosks manned by friendly sellers on most railway station platforms. So off I went in search of one.
Unfortunately, this was 2010 and JR (Japan Rail) had decided to pilot a new way of selling drinks on train platforms. Instead of a friendly mini-kiosk, I found myself approaching an unusually large “smart” vending machine. It’s equipped with a large LCD screen, simulating a sizeable line-up of drinks on offer and a camera.
Its purpose is to observe you through its camera and suggest drinks that may meet your needs (for me, I was hot and tired). This was the first time I came into contact intimately with a machine-learning, cloud computing, face recognizing, and attribute determining piece of kit for my immediate personal need. It was the first of its kind.
As I neared the vending machine, it correctly assessed that I was indeed feeling hot (probably from temperature sensor data), tired (internal clock), male, and middle-aged (facial-recognition and attribute-analysis). The display adjusted to offer me: a vitalizing vitamin tonic, an isotonic drink, some in-season fruit juices, refreshing chilled teas and coffees, along with messaging targeted to my profile. Although novel, I wasn’t impressed. I felt a disconnect.
I overheard a couple of men in suits nearby and one of them said how “technology can’t sell” after they too tried out this newfangled device. His partner added that technology can’t sell “well”. This short snippet of a conversation got me thinking — as the world rushes to make everything digital, are we losing the human touch? Can machines and algorithms have a meaningful relationship with people?
Apparently not, as we’ve discovered in the field. Not if you want to grow your sales.
Taming the Disconnect
There’s a cautionary tale in this initial attempt at implementing digital solutions where human-to-human interaction (which worked rather well) is replaced. Sound familiar? Ten years on and we’re accelerating digital adoption. In the name of digital progress, we’re led to believe that digital solutions can add value through efficiency, cheaper cost and most importantly, the collection of a vast amount of data and the analysis thereof.
What JR found out quickly is what we’re seeing more of as the digital transformation of the economy takes hold — digital, while it brings many benefits to certain areas, it can also have a hollowing effect on the perceived value of brands, products and services. A one size fits all digital solution, however well segmented, feels impersonal somehow. Humans have evolved a strong sense of trust that digital systems have a hard time to replicate.
Perhaps trust was what the men were alluding to — invariably, the machine was chipper almost to the point of annoyance and recommended higher priced drinks as if it’s doing you a favor. This disconnection, resulting from a lack of human interaction leaves digital — when done poorly — to be a threat to a company, rather than a panacea. The lack of inherent trust is palpable and any sort of meaning derived from the interaction is largely ignored, or worse, negative.
Within a year, the smart vending machines were disposed of and the mini kiosks returned. They remain today. A lesson learned perhaps. As we progress along the inevitable march of digital adoption, I think we need to step back and make sense of what human interactions are and what digital is for.
In certain industries, especially pharma, humanity is the core defining attribute. It’s time to be certain that your digital solutions aren’t leaving doctors feeling disconnected, unsatisfied and ignored.
Augmentation is the Next Step
There’s a lot to be said about human interactions and no where is it more evident than in-person sales visits to physicians. Sales reps bring with them a wealth of experience, fresh perspectives, and knowledge. They listen and talk with their customers at an empathic, human level. They build relationships over time, which translates into trust. And this trust isn’t taken for granted by doctors.
In fact, we found that physicians value their relationships with sales reps to the point that they ask for their opinions on worrying treatment issues. A hand to shake (or an elbow to bump in the “new normal”) and a shared smile is an added benefit.
We talk to a lot of doctors and pharma sales reps. In the midst of the 2020 pandemic, we found that while some doctors enjoyed the efficiency of telemedicine, this didn’t mean that they didn’t want company. Quite the opposite. They told us that they value the human contact of sales reps, the human element they bring to the conversation, the value of being heard by a human, and ultimately the connection and trust they bring.
The crux of this interaction is the meaning derived from shared experiences, of having a conversation at a high level, and obtaining clarity through supporting documents that are highly relevant to the doctor. So, we have three major elements that establishes the value of human contact: high relevance, shared experience, and the satisfying feeling of being heard. This amounts to what humans crave most of all — a meaningful experience. And it’s not static. Relationships build over time, giving deeper meaning.
So do we throw away digital solutions? Not at all. In fact, once you’ve uncovered the underlying need of doctors, we can clearly see that the human contact through in-person sales representation can be augmented with digital solutions to make the relationship between sales rep and the physician even more meaningful.
Here are four things to keep in mind to improve sales performance:
· Invest in people and augment them with digital solutions
The human element is the deal maker. Augment the sales force with digital solutions to empower them to deliver results.
· Put doctor needs at the center of the conversation
The inertia in pharma is to focus the conversation on the product’s attributes or on fresh data or evidence. Instead, it’s critical to keep the conversation focused on the doctor.
· Encourage sales reps to strive for a better understanding of their customers
Gather info and ask questions to increase the knowledge of unmet needs.
· Give them the means to bring more value to their relationships
Bring targeted solutions, initiatives, content, and services to the table.
Putting in place a streamlined digital process that augments fieldwork is an effective way of getting your message across and deliver results. Your sales reps will feel empowered and doctors will appreciate the increased relevance. And as the relationship between the sales rep and the doctor grows over time, digital will help refine the data and help the sales force become more effective.
We’re still learning how to use digital effectively. There’s a tendency to think of it as a choice — digital or human. In fact, the best way forward is a smart combination of the two. Now imagine a Tokyo train platform mini-kiosk with an augmented digital solution — not only will you feel as though you’re dealing with a person, that person will have the knowledge and tools to make their sales more effective. The drinks company will obtain realtime data to further refine the sales process. Drinks and other products that match the time of day, temperature, season and other important pieces of data can disrupt how these ubiquitous mini kiosks sell.
Going forward, we see how investing in people and empowering them through digital solutions can bring higher sales and a sustainable relationship that is meaningful to the doctor. As a colleague of mine said, “you can disconnect from a network, but not from a community.” The human/digital question isn’t a black and white choice — it’s a synergistic relationship with an emphasis placed on the human side.
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A Piece of Pie
Meaningful Impact
Contact us at info@piecepie.com
