Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Those three promising words. We know we need it, but what do those words really mean? I’ll answer like a lawyer – it depends on the business you’re in. In the world of healthcare B2B, it means a highly complex and dynamic environment that is heavily regulated and increasingly fickle about product value.
For smaller MedTechs, the decision to invest in a CRM may seem an obvious yes – or must. Especially if your work (and increasingly home) life is about managing information in a dense multi-tabbed spreadsheet that goes back and forth between reps, managers and business analysts. How many episodes of Homeland or bed time stories with your kids have you missed because you’re up on a Sunday night wrestling with a 40 column 20-tabbed spreadsheet in time for a Monday meeting about the week’s sales calls ahead?
At this point your team may be small, but they are seasoned MedTech professionals that need to sell value across a variety of stakeholders. They’re charged with aggressive goals and you want to give them everything possible to succeed. Before you take well intentioned steps to enhance your sales organization with a CRM system, ask yourself – or better yet – ask your reps, the following questions:
- Has your experience with using a CRM been a positive one?
- Be honest, did you use it just to record opportunities for finance?
- Did you get a truly rounded idea of where you stood with a customer?
- Did it help you and your manager streamline communications with each other on customer and account trends?
- Did it truly mirror your medical device sales world or did consultants over engineer it so managers could keep tabs on you?
At TikaMobile, we’ve heard it over and over again from MedTech reps – “we are not, nor do we want to be, pharma reps!” And as a forward thinking leader, you know it’s not a great option to try and mandate or force talented reps to do anything. You run the risk of losing great talent.
The “we are not pharma reps” comment truly inspired us to build and keep improving TikaDevice. We designed the powerful mobile application for reps by reps with the understanding that high rep adoption would lead to more successful product launches and an increase in the market share of existing products.
If you’re leading the sales organization of a young company ready to launch a product then this is the most opportune time to get your reps armed with the best information on their customers in an app they will love to use. They won’t have to go digging for that information – TikaDevice publishes it to them when and how they need it. Naturally, this will have a positive impact on sales, but it will also have a positive impact on your company’s valuation. With a powerful self service analytics platform you will be able to tie revenues to cases done by physicians as well as demonstrate specific markets you’ve penetrated. For example, TikaDevice segments customers in a way that drives your strategy. Be it early adopters or physicians who were more prone to prescribe medication rather than surgery – your team will be focused on the most high value customers based on the latest information.
In conclusion, standard CRM is a data collection tool – and your reps know it. It needs many expensive and time consuming adornments to become a true analytics partner in your product launch. TikaDevice collects data automatically from any source - anywhere - anytime. It can scale as you grow and is flexible to your specific business needs. The burden on reps is minimal, but the insights it yields are immense - and that drives adoption, which in turn drives performance.
For more information about how a MedTech CRM like TikaDevice is different from a generic CRM, or can extend the value of your existing CRM - contact Customer Success Team.