Maximizing Sales Rep Effectiveness For The Life Sciences Market

As the Web increasingly takes over so many aspects of the sales process, this report shows there still remains an important place for life science sales rep personnel when it comes to supplier interactions with current and prospective customers.

Overview

In Maximizing Sales Rep Effectiveness for the Life Sciences, we explore the role of life science supplier sales reps and identify ways that sales teams can have a positive impact on scientists’ relationships with supplier companies. We surveyed over 950 scientists around the world to find out how much (or little) they rely on their sales reps when purchasing specific instruments and consumables. With the ubiquitousness of product information present online, are scientists depending on their sales reps for product information more or less than they did five years ago? How can a sales rep be most useful when a lab is considering buying (or switching to) a new product? What purchasing channels are laboratories using, and which ones do they prefer? The answers to these questions and more are detailed in this study so that suppliers can adjust their practices to align with the way labs prefer to do business.

Going beyond strategy, this report also serves as a tactical guide for individual sales reps. Extensive product lines and evolving technologies demand that sales reps invest significant amounts of time staying abreast of what’s new. By finding out how labs want (and don’t want) to be served, reps can allocate their most valuable resource - time - more efficiently and provide optimal service as defined by the scientists themselves.

The major objectives of this report are as follows:

• Find out the importance of sales reps when purchasing products
• Understand the products and service where sales reps are most helpful
• Measure customers’ usage and preferences of the method that they interact with sales reps
• Measure customers’ satisfaction level towards sales reps for each company

Methodologies

In this report, more than 950 scientists weigh in on acceptable response times for questions and concerns, preferences for types of outreach (i.e., email, text, video chat, telephone or face-to-face) and services that are considered value-added (e.g., forwarding lab requests to R&D, apprising labs of green options, inviting scientists to participate in focus groups). Additionally, scientists indicate whether or not they would be willing to follow supplier reps on social media, and if so, what type of content would entice them to do so.

This study also identifies ways that sales reps can alienate their customers by contacting the lab too much (or too little), not understanding the products well and lacking familiarity with the lab’s area of research, to name a few of the issues.

We also benchmark satisfaction with lab suppliers on multiple attributes to highlight the companies that are getting it right and the ones that could stand to improve.

Designed for CEOs, presidents, general managers, vice presidents of sales, sales directors, sales managers and sales reps alike, Maximizing Sales Rep Effectiveness for the Life Sciences can be used by any stakeholder to inform sales strategies and tactical plans that will help to achieve - and exceed - sales goals.