While sales aid usage has been increasing at the rate of one-two percentage points a year over
the last five years, they are still only used on one out of every three sales calls.
Considering the significant investment made by pharmaceutical companies to develop and supply their
field forces with sales aids, it is somewhat surprising that usage remains low. While ACNielsen HCI
has continually stressed the need to use the sales aid to increase campaign awareness and to drive up
message retention (and in fact has been instrumental in convincing clients to increase sales aid usage),
they are still used on only one out of every three details (33%).
Unfortunately, many reps don't like to use aids because of the misperception that:
- physicians don't like them
- other visuals, clinical papers, etc. are more important
- too time consuming
- not in the reps' language (Madison Avenue-ish)
- only for new reps that don't know how to sell
Not one of these issues is legitimate and the sales force needs to be neutralized on these objections
before they will accept that use increases sales.
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