Do you and your sales teams have the best tool and sales metrics available? Or do you have outdated systems, non-native apps, and old data that make your life harder than just using pen and paper?
With better sales tools and software medical device sales teams can accelerate surgeon relationships, improve case management, enable smarter surgery coordination, easily capture usage, take of care of billing, and automate replenishments.
There are so many options being offered today, however, most CRM’s and surgery schedule platforms hinder productivity rather than help. Since these “industry standard” tools are not purpose-built and connected to backend functions, they are far less useful than their fancy marketing videos would have you believe.
When a task or function is easier to perform without the system–rather than within it, the rep will find a way to avoid using the system altogether.
There’s another problem with most CRM’s, even if they are “tailored” for medical device sales teams, the brutal truth is that they are not connected with operations, nor with the tasks sales reps perform daily. This forces sales teams to use multiple systems, which creates extra work and increases miscommunication.
Medical device sales is extremely unique. The work cannot be done in a vacuum, like it can in other industries. There is no room for error. Using multiple systems creates unnecessary burdens on sales reps and sales leaders.
Human Connection Drives Medical Device Sales
The best way to drive efficiency and win trust with the medical provider teams is to create a connected experience. We have seen over and over again that transparency forges trust. By combining case management, ordering, scheduling (and functional calendar), logistics, usage, billing, and communication along with case and doctor specific notes and preferences, you can build an environment that serves everyone.
A collaborative one-stop-shop for sales means more time building relationships and less-time chasing down inventory or missing PO’s. It means more time enabling the operation team and less time worrying. Every surgeon loves a rep who helps them perform better.
True partners are engaged partners. In order to engage surgeons and medical providers, better service and better communication–which is driven by comprehensive and innovative tools–is key. With everything that a rep needs to do, a tool that combines product requesting with easy communication for the medical providers will encourage trust, strengthen relationships, and deepen connections.
A Functional Tool That Works
An integrated platform is the critical foundation, but the tool must also be able to get work done. More than just providing visibility, sales platforms need to drive action. These actions must drive process and be systematized. They must be useful and flexible. The actions must be user and system directed. And above all, the actions must be unified with real work-to-be-done.
Better Data
As a sales leader, you need better data. You need access to all of your data so you can make executive level planning, forecasting, and market based decisions.
Real-time access to current, past, and future cases allows you to be in the know and plan well.
Quota management, cost-to-serve analysis, and opportunity management information all needs to be at your fingertips. Rep-based rankings should be displayed.
When the data comes from a trusted source, the source of truth for the sales rep and ops team, then you know the data can be used and applied.
When the right data is pushed to the right people, behavior changes. If a sales rep has visibility to their case status, to their inventory, to their sales history, to their doctor information, and to their schedule–they will sell more, they will be focused, and they will enthusiastically use the tool that provides them with that visibility.
When Visibility and Functionality Get Married
Most CRM’s and platforms that evolved from CRM’s are great at showing information. Yet they cannot do what is needed for the medical device space. They cannot manage inventory requests, last-minute changes, usage & proper PO capture, billing, HIPAA compliant communication, trunk stock/consignment control, and all the loaner inventory needs.
To put it mildly, they are very weak at driving action. They are weak because they do not have control and cannot direct behavior, they can only report and suggest. A CRM or CRM-built platform does not and cannot manage inventory, provide HIPAA compliant communication, segmented & unified calendar, handle complex billing, usage, audit, cycle count, and replenishment requests.
It is just too much to ask of a system that was not purpose-built.
A single, unified platform that is more than mere dashboards is needed to actually change efficiency and provide any real benefit.
Show your team how to use a better tool, then give your team a better tool, and you will get better results.
Need to talk with someone? We understand. Call anytime.
phone: 858.956.0208
email: mm@movemedical.com
or visit: www.movemedical.com/product
