Vendor and provider interactions are forever changed

Have you found yourself wondering how you need to adjust your sales strategy to meet evolving customer expectations? 

Recent KPMG research indicates that providers do not expect to see vendors on site, at similar levels to pre-COVID-19, any time soon; consequently, vendors need to adjust their methods of communicating to meet the new desires of providers:1

• As of Q3 2022, < 50% of providers expect vendor access to return to normal (e.g., at pre-COVID levels)
• Providers report receiving more than 50% of vendor contact than desired, across all communication channels (email, direct mail, phone calls)

The COVID-19 pandemic had an unprecedented effect on patients and healthcare providers; to understand the impact and aftereffects on healthcare organizations and how the front office (particularly the sales organization) must retool itself for this “new normal”, KPMG surveyed nearly 100 providers, including surgeons, primary care physicians, and hospital C-suite leaders in mid-2022. The survey set out to gauge provider perspectives in three key areas:

• When a return to normal is expected, and how budgets have been impacted
• How technology will shape future operations in light of COVID impacts 
• How vendor relationships will shift to accommodate new ways of working

In a series of blogs exploring the survey findings, I continue here by concentrating on the third point above, specifically:

• How providers believe on-site vendor access will look very different in a COVID world
• How methods of provider / vendor interactions are changing during and post-pandemic
• How vendors need to change to meet provider expectations 
• How vendors can help providers attract more patients – and become high value partners in the process

The ways that vendors and providers interact have changed forever. Providers’ time is more precious than ever, and competition for their attention is fierce. But there are leading practices, and understanding these new practices will be critical to developing the right front-office strategies for effective sales, marketing, and service model changes.

For sales leaders in particular, you should consider the following to help mitigate the impacts of recent years:

• Revisit your customer segments – some providers (e.g. “leaders”) have fared well during COVID, while others have not. Identify your leading or growth customers through voice of the customer (VOC) research, procedure volume trends, and revenue growth data. These customers are likely to provide vendors access earlier and more often – and are growing sustainably above market. Align your best sales resources to these higher growth customers. Create lower cost sales models and marketing-driven-demand models, supported by technology for lower growth segments.
• Retool value props, messaging, and marketing approaches – competition will be fierce to see high growth customers. Refresh your marketing messaging, selling messages and collateral. Invest in technology that unifies sales, marketing, and customer insights to ensure your sellers are more nimble that the competition. Refresh key account programs to focus on economic value, contracting, and data insights.
• Conduct VOC research – while procedure and revenue data are helpful, they do not fully outline specific sites of care, surgeon or provider types, rural vs. urban, patient types, and other factors that affect how a customer’s journey has changed. Conduct fresh research to fully understand how different customers’ preferences, process, and values have changed; use the findings to determine your marketing approach and sales engagement model upgrades, such as new jobs, updated quotas, refreshed compensation, and upgraded commercial operations.
• Embrace remote / hybrid selling – customers have changed forever, especially for high performing provider organizations; hybrid selling (remote and in person) is here to stay – but be careful: avoid one-size-fits-all models. Not all customers want or need hybrid sales – consider marketing-led or inside sales models that were once improbable but now preferred. Experiment and consider new teams and talent, paired inside/outside models, and tech-enabled ecommerce and digital marketing approaches.

Footnotes:

¹Source: KPMG Pulse Survey, Summer 2022