Pharma and Device Blog Watch
Doctor Satisfaction Playing a Growing Role for Sales Compensation (PharmaEdge)
Some drug companies, such as Eli Lilly, are beginning to tie pharma sales reps’ incentives in with rep-doctor relationship building by basing reps’ bonuses, in part, on customer service ratings measured through surveys distributed to doctors, David Richardson writes.
“Pharma leaders like Lilly are starting to realize that, with doctors’ offices still overcrowded by sales reps, those companies that stand out from the crowd in their sales approaches and tactics will be the most successful in the coming years,” he says. Companies show their dedication to relationship-focused sales by using incentives to further rep-doctor relationship building.
More vendors are picking up on the trend and polling doctors on relationship/customer service-oriented measures to sell the data back to the industry. “The large number of vendors moving into physician-satisfaction measuring services shows that the market for such information is increasing rapidly,” he writes.
Online CME Growth Is Bad News for Pharma Marketers (Pharma Marketing Blog)
The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education’s annual report data show that while the growth in industry-supported continuing medical education (CME) has decreased since 2003, the number of physicians participating in online CME events has increased dramatically, John Mack writes.
Roughly 25 percent of physician CME participation occurs online, but only 5 percent of the total hours of instruction are delivered via the internet, according to the blog.
“Online CME is delivered mostly via physician websites like Medscape,” he says. “As far as pharmaceutical marketers are concerned, the more physicians that get CME credits online, the less likely they are to attend live events where collateral marketing can easily occur.”
In addition, pharma’s return on online CME investment could be less than for live events, but on the other hand, it costs much less to deliver online CME than live CME, Mack writes.