What Are the Best Pharmaceutical Sales Coaching Tools?

Why Using Pharmaceutical Sales Coaching Tools Motivates Reps

It may be no secret to you at this point that your sales reps face more challenges than ever before. Virtual customer calls imposed a whole new set of hurdles that you and your team can only overcome with the right pharmaceutical sales coaching tools. 

A recent report stated that, overall, sales reps were able to schedule fewer in-person meetings. These are some other relevant facts: 

• As of 2020, only 34% of COVID-19 frontline health care professionals (HCPs) said they would attend a pharmaceutical detailing meeting face to face.
• As long as COVID variants continue to surface, this trend is likely to continue. 
• The number of HCP access points is also decreasing. In recent years, doctors have been working for hospital groups, thereby restricting direct reach to them. 
• Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical industry delivers highly regulated and complex solutions that need in-depth explanations. So much so that over a quarter of HCPs aren’t always aware of all the benefits a reps’ pharmaceutical detailing meeting can deliver.

These issues only intensified the most common existing access problems; however, virtual meetings came to save the day with their many advantages. Use this guide to find practical, easy-to-implement techniques to enhance pharmaceutical sales coaching sessions.

Related: Get the Most Out of a Conversation Intelligence Platform for Sales

Pharmaceutical Sales Coaching Tools You Can Apply Today

As briefly reviewed in the previous section, the engagement strategy for HCP reps is moving to a hybrid model, which mixes fewer in-person meetings with more virtual encounters with physicians. 

Even after the pandemic ends, 90% of doctors will prefer virtual or a mix of virtual and in-person detailed meetings. In addition, 67% think pharmaceutical companies are responsible for finding better ways to communicate with HCPs and supporting their clinical judgment.

Moreover, data from McKinsey showed: “With the massive shift to digital resulting from COVID-19, video and live chat have emerged as the predominant channels for interacting and closing sales with B2B customers, while in-person meetings and related sales activities have dropped precipitously.”

• Most B2B companies have shifted their go-to-market strategy from in-person to digital. 
• Only 29% of B2B organizations prefer traditional sales interactions.
• 53% B2B digital interactions with sales reps take place via videoconference, and 49% via chat.

These data points illustrate the need to include a series of specific skills in your pharmaceutical sales coaching toolbox. These techniques will not only help you keep your reps engaged and motivated but also be more effective with improved KPIs.

Know Them Before You Meet Them

Prepare your reps by teaching them the importance of knowing their prospects before a sales call. Prior to engaging potential clients in a virtual meeting, the sales team should conduct extensive research to better understand how external factors may impede their goals. They should remain focused on the physician and their patients throughout the call, paying close attention to every communication detail. 

Developing On-Camera Communication and Connection Skills

To help reps with virtual presentation skills, have them create and rehearse a pitch before each pharmaceutical detailing presentation. By cultivating this habit, sales professionals can remain confident and on top of their game while sharing product information.

Unleash the Power of Non-Verbal Communication

When your reps use dynamic and positive body language, they will convey they are devoted to the prospect and ready to engage them, even through a screen. Just by nodding and showing facial emotions at the correct times and using effective body language, they can demonstrate their commitment to the physician’s interests, their understanding of the physician’s pain points, and their dedication to solving them.

The camera needs to be on constantly. Your reps should not look at the doctor’s image but at the camera to simulate in-person eye contact. Consider asking them to place a smiley face sticker next to the camera to get them to look at it continuously. 

Related: Leveraging Interactive Sales Training Tools 

Enhancing Interpersonal Skills

Good people skills require training in active listening. Getting the customer’s attention doesn’t just mean talking at them. Reps should listen carefully to what clients have to say as this might give them essential insights into closing the sale. 

Adapting to the prospect’s needs on the fly is paramount, even if the call unfolded in a more scripted way. They should listen to the customer and apply the knowledge from the research. Then, they can move on to adjust the pitch and find a solution that meets their customers’ goals.

Expanding Product Expertise

Keeping up to date on the products, guidelines and industry is imperative for pharma detailing reps. Pharmaceutical sales coaching tools should include methods for maintaining product expertise. It is crucial to show how the product works, answer questions accurately and portray the product in the most appropriate way.

These tools can give you an excellent curriculum to implement a comprehensive pharmaceutical sales coaching program today. If you’re wondering if there’s a tech solution to help you personalize these processes, even more, read the following section.

Pharmaceutical Sales Coaching Made Easy with Artificial Intelligence

How can you assess your reps individually without investing hours and hours in virtual ride longs or listening to sales calls? How can you create customized pharmaceutical sales coaching programs to mentor each one of them based on their unique strengths and weaknesses? What’s more important, how can you automatically correlate productivity data and team performance with prescriptions, revenue, and customer happiness?

As it turns out, pharma sales professionals can also benefit from some of the innovative breakthroughs that have transformed several other industries. Artificial intelligence (AI) and data-driven science can achieve these goals efficiently and quickly compared to traditional, more manual methods. 

Imagine being able to get accurate, objective insight and analysis reports directly within the coaching and sales process. Your organization can accomplish this with the help of a leading technology partner, and you’ll even save yourself a significant amount of evaluation and analysis time. 

These are the top six tasks you can perform with the most efficient, AI-powered platform:

1. Understand the specific behaviors, abilities, and strategies necessary for top performers to succeed, via pharmaceutical sales coaching tools
2. Assess how effectively each representative communicates with customers and how they have an impact on their practice and their patients
3. Evaluate your team members’ strengths as well as critical areas for growth, whether in individual or group settings
4. Connect prescription data to effective communication and connection abilities
5. Implement proven selling models and analyze adherence
6. Assign resources to lower performers so they can enhance their metrics

What determines how well you do with your audience is how well you connect with them. With Quantified, you’ll be able to communicate, relate, and perform better with the world’s most advanced conversational intelligence and coaching platform. 

This tool provides you with science-based and data-driven insights into sales team members’ performance. As a result, you can empower individual reps and the entire sales team to offer world-class in-person and virtual detailing, boost customer engagement, improve trust, and enhance the patient experience. With Quantified, you can create better sales interactions based on behavioral science, big data, and AI to deliver a more significant business impact. Better conversations. Better outcomes. Request a demo now.