Now is the time to review, assess, and take action with your clients and their lab business.
By Jim Poggi
In most of the country, the warm weather and longer days are signs that spring is about to transition into summer. What, you ask, does this have to do with physician office lab and distribution sales in general? Fair question. The short answer is that if you have not done so already, now is the time to shake off the “work from home” doldrums of the COVID pandemic and get back to running your territory full blast, with in-person customer meetings scheduled and a commitment to holding meaningful dialogue with your current and prospective customers.
It sounds easy, but the changes wrought by COVID have impacted us and our customers in profound ways. Getting back to a normal routine of personal calls, interspersed with virtual calls as needed, may take a commitment to use the best of the new tools we learned during the COVID pandemic and weaving them into our former customer call routine.
In this column, I intend to take a page out of my grandmother’s book and discuss “spring cleaning”: getting ourselves mentally ready to drive the business as well as possible and improve customer satisfaction and revenue results at the same time. Follow along with me as I propose some time honored (and some new) ways to get back in the swing of things and feel fully in control and prepared for whatever comes our way!
Review
First, no one is prepared without a thorough review of their customer data. Have you analyzed the spend patterns of your top customers? Do you know their spend gaps by product category? Are you seeing trends in lab spend (either positive or negative) that you need to understand more fully? Are there any red flags concerning spend, satisfaction or supply chain issues that you need to acknowledge and address? Are you ready to present a quarterly business review discussing their situation and needs as well as their current spend patterns with you and your company?
For lab customers in particular, there are a number of issues you always need to stay in front of. For instance, do any of your top customers have leases expiring soon? In my world, “soon” is within the next 12 months. Be sure to discuss lease renewal or acquisition of upgraded equipment early so it can be budgeted for and any technical questions get a fair and complete hearing. Is preventive maintenance of key equipment up to date? Be sure to check on maintenance intervals with your key lab suppliers. In addition, be sure to hold discussions on QC and proficiency testing results with your large lab instrument customers. It’s a best practice to schedule specific meetings with the involved supplier partners, the lab staff and lab manager to review the data and discuss any actions needed. At the same time, I strongly recommend reviewing training needs with the lab manager and your key lab suppliers, particularly if there has been staff turnover.
With the whirlwind of new lab tests, have you kept your key customers informed? If you have not, the danger is that someone else has! Be sure to check the lab benches and refrigerator to make sure you know which important tests your customer is using and who they are getting them from. The first key to achieve business growth is to avoid lost business. A sharp eye and appropriate questions with the lab staff and lab manager will prevent surprises. Be sure to also review your customers’ rapid order guides and standing orders to make sure they are up to date and that you are retaining the business you have worked so hard to get.
Assess needs
If discussions of new tests has fallen behind for any reason, be sure to fully assess your customer’s testing needs, any questions they may have about new tests and schedule time with the appropriate lab suppliers to discuss and even demonstrate the latest technology.
Product demonstrations provide an exciting opportunity to create engagement with the staff and management of the physician office lab. These can be a great way to add a little excitement to your routine visits and cause the customer to think of their lab business in new ways with your guidance and that of your key lab manufacturers.
I would particularly focus on new products and technologies that fit well in their practice and patient population. Molecular tests and systems are constantly changing and represent a clear opportunity to discuss testing needs, especially before the onset of seasonal respiratory season. Your ongoing customer business reviews should take on these issues and set the stage for future success for your customer. Their satisfaction is your assurance of future business.
One key to renewing your customer relationships as we return to a more normal pattern of personal visits is to treat each of your current customers as if they were new again. If you approach your customers with this mindset, you will be surprised at the new information you gain and you will also be able to perceive a very positive response from your customer based on how much care and thought you put into approaching them as if they were new once again. Spring is a time of renewal, and the certainly applies to our customer relationships.
Finally, good preparation allows you to be prepared for the unexpected as well as major market changes you need to respond to. As an example, there are likely to be changes coming with EUA products in the near future. EUA clearance for EUA devices including lab tests is not parallel to the duration of Public Health Emergency that ended in mid-May, and the U.S. FDA has issued guidelines for transition of IVD tests from EUA to clearance under prevailing non-EUA standards. The defining FDA document was published on March 27, 2023 under the title: “Transition Plan for Medical Devices That Fall Within Enforcement Policies Issued During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Public Health Emergency Guidance for Industry.”
Your key manufacturers are in the best position to inform you about their specific plans to transition their test kits under this guidance document. It is my expectation that the FDA’s guidance is intended to assure continued availability of needed respiratory tests as the EUA policies transition to the more typical oversight processes and procedures of the FDA for lab tests. Their guidance document makes it clear that they are sensitive to the needs of the public, as well as lab manufacturers, distributors and laboratories using these products.
Now is the time to get your basic business planning in place so you have time to deal with these changes and the emergence of this year’s respiratory season. “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity” as the Roman philosopher Seneca observed. Lab has changed since Seneca’s days, but the need for thoughtful preparation has only become more important. An effective commitment to spring cleaning will reap rewards all year long. Are you ready?