Detailing Rates Increase 20% for Pharmaceutical Sales Reps

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC--(Marketwire - Jun 22, 2011) - Specialty sales reps currently spend 48% of the day detailing doctors and nurses, according to a new report from Cutting Edge Information. On average, specialty pharma reps spend 20 percent more time directly on office visits and one-to-one doctor interactions compared to previous years' study results.

Hospital reps spend 42% of their day detailing doctors as well as non-physician targets. Benchmarking partners for "Specialty and Hospital Sales Force Management" reported that pharmaceutical companies' efforts to reduce sales force mirroring, lower the ratio of reps to district managers, seek out reps with new skill sets, and arm reps with better technologies are responsible for the increase in individual reps' time spent on sales calls.

Better Relationships, Tighter Connections

"Sales teams have increased the amount of time spent with targets by shifting sales strategies to focus on customer satisfaction and improving efficiency," said Jason Richardson, president of Cutting Edge Information.

The reduction in mirroring, where companies assign the same territory to multiple sales reps, has created more one-to-one relationships between doctors and reps. This change has had significant impact, as doctors can now keep companies and reps straight rather than trying to remember the names of four or five different reps from each organization. "The most powerful change has been the decrease in mirroring and, subsequently, overall visit frequency due to sales force realignments and headcount cuts," said Richardson.

The newer territory alignments also create more accountability for reps, as the results in their territories are attributable solely to their individual efforts. The report, "Specialty and Hospital Sales Force Management," includes detailed sales force sizing data, as well as best practices and strategies for structuring specialty and hospital sales teams.

Planning for Better Results

Cutting Edge Information developed the new study (http://www.cuttingedgeinfo.com/research/sales/specialty-hospital-sales/) to research the changes that pharmaceutical companies are making to adapt to the dynamic sales environment.

The study findings cover more than 500 metrics and include primary research collected from many of the Top 50 biopharmaceutical companies. Study benchmarks and best practices are centered on interviewed executives' key objectives:

* Boost performance with sales call metrics and training benchmarks
* Build or adjust headcounts, territories and rep-to-management staffing ratios