Soft Skills and Hard Drives

An objection, it is said, is merely the customer’s way of saying, "I need you to tell me more." Although when you’re the sales rep on the receiving end, that objection can sound a whole lot more like, "I need you to get out of my office." Still, to succeed, pharmaceutical salespeople must be equipped with the knowledge, people skills, and communication abilities to respond effectively to the objections, whether legitimate or baseless, raised by physicians, pharmacists, and other health care professionals.

Writing recently in Pharmaceutical Representative Magazine, David Werboff of Informa Training Partners (www.informatp.com), notes that e-learning has become an increasingly powerful tool for training pharmaceutical salespeople to handle objections. This despite a conventional wisdom in the training business that says "soft" skills such as objection handling can only be taught face-to-face.

Whether involving simple still photos and text or more graphically intense videotaped scenes featuring accompanying audio conversations, e-learning simulations offer salespeople the opportunity to experience dozens of realistic customer interactions, and then choose the appropriate course of action. Modules can then show learners the likely result of each possible response to a customer objection, providing more in-depth learning and breadth of experience than even most face-to-face training typically involves.

E-learning simulations that replicate conversations with customers are particularly effective at demonstrating and modeling "what good looks like," as well as what "not so good looks like," Werboff says. These simulations also offer reps the opportunity to practice behaviors repeatedly while learning which strategies to apply to the specific customer situations they’re likely to encounter.

By way of example, Werboff posits a scenario taken from an Informa e-learning training program, in which a rep is calling on an experienced pharmacist who takes pride in his ability to stay on top of the latest research. The rep, a former nurse, has built a strong relationship with the pharmacist based on her product knowledge and clinical experience.

After a brief opening in which the pharmacist explains that he is busy, but has a minute for the rep, she brings out a clinical study that compares her brand name product to two generics and finds significant differences in expected potency. The study, she says, suggests that until generics become more uniform, physicians, pharmacists, and legislators should not encourage product switching.

The pharmacist says that while he agrees with the study’s conclusions, state law requires that he substitute the generic. Also, he adds, the physicians he works with are not indicating that they want the prescription filled as written.

So how should the sales rep respond? Werboff offers three options:

1. Explain the study’s findings in more detail, relate it to the pharmacist’s patient population, and suggest an acceptable course of action.
2. Explain that she is sharing this study with her physician customers as well and highlighting situations in which they might want to consider writing, "No Substitution."
3. Avoid addressing the pharmacist’s objection and detail her product in another way.

Let’s assume the rep chooses option one. What will likely happen? She might say something like, "In addition to the potency differences found, the study notes that patients also taking antihypertensive drugs experienced more side effects like nausea and dizziness while taking the generic. This wasn’t the study’s focus, but the authors discuss the findings and suggest that further investigation is warranted to determine clinical significance."

In response, the pharmacist might say, "So what are you suggesting? That I discourage patients from substituting the generic if they ask for it? Or to recommend that prescribers write ‘No substitution’ for your product?"

This question gives the rep the opportunity to say yes, that’s exactly what she’s suggesting, particularly if potency is an issue or if patients are on antihypertensive therapies. She might also note that she’s observed from previous conversations that a number of the pharmacist’s customers have hypertension.

The simulation concludes with the pharmacist agreeing that hypertensive patients might be well served to stick with the brand name product and saying he’ll consider discussing the findings with his physicians. The rep thanks him for his time and consideration and says she’ll stop in again next month.

In light of how this simulation plays out, Werboff says that option one is an effective response. By addressing what the pharmacist can do to best serve patients within the constraints of state regulations, her product will be dispensed in situations supported by the evidence. He also notes that option two could have also made sense as an avenue to pursue, but that option three would not have proven effective.

Werboff’s point is that with the tools available through e-learning, reps can work through all these scenarios for each potential objection they’ll encounter, and explore at their own pace the optimum approaches to apply in the field. As this example (and many others like it) show, the evidence is growing that even the softest of selling skills can now be trained effectively through e-learning.