Detailing is the Advertising Message to be uttered during the Doctor Call. Therefore, a Medical Representative is effective, only if, he can deliver the Complete Advertising Message, as decided by the Product Manager or Marketing Team for a particular Brand. The doctor generally allows, 1-2 minutes or sometimes 3 minutes to each & every Medical Representative of various Pharma Companies, who visit the doctor’s clinic or hospital. There is no time for the Medical Representative to think and decide which points to be discussed. In this situation, a given script or detailing story comes handy which MR needs to mug up and deliver, verbatim, or word-by-word.
In Pharma Selling, the Detailing is equivalent to the Message we hear on the TV screen about any FMCG brand, which we keep on hearing repeatedly. Collectively, all doctors are required to deliver the same message, so across the country, all the doctors start, using the Brand, as per expectations of the Pharma Corporate, which in turn is decided by strong clinical evidence for the usage of the molecule. Monitoring, each & every MR is strictly not possible, but, on & off, checking the detailing abilities of the MRs by their managers and reporting upward can ensure, the MR team is equipped to deliver the same message across India. Pharma Corporate, expects all their Medical Representatives to keep uttering the same message, to all the doctors across the country during the same Promotional Cycle.
The impact of the Detailing is seen in the prescriptions of the doctor segment, which can be monitored by Prescriptions Auditing Organizations like CMARG. There are agencies like ACNielsen, CMARC, or AWAC which monitors Pharma Brands for their units, value sales, their prescription generation reports such as Total Prescribers, Total Prescriptions, P/D or Prescriptions per Doctor, etc parameters, which gives a direct reflection of the Brand being promoted in doctor’s chamber across the country. The impact of verbatim detailing is seen, as uniform changes or patterns in prescription in specific indications as promoted by the Pharma Corporate in a given Promotional Cycle.
Therefore, most of the Reputed Pharma Organizations insist on Verbatim that means Word-by-Word Detailing Stories to be uttered during the doctor call. Many times, Medical Representatives find it difficult to mug up the detailing stories. This is mainly due to the presence of difficult technical words, their meaning, their pronunciations, and difficulty in remembering them. It is the skill of the Product Manager, to devise the simplest Detailing Story, which an average MR can mug up and deliver word-by-word in the doctor’s chamber. Line managers, need to ensure, all their team members are up-to-date on the verbatim detailing. Many reputed Pharma corporates, insist the second line manager, themselves to be verbatim, in the visual aid detailing stories. This ensures, they further get their teams to be adept at detailing as expected by the Head Office.
Or, if the doctor does not allow the entire detailing story to be used during the call, the Medical Representative at least need to know the Verbatim Detailing Story so that he can make a situational detailing from the same. MRs generally, gives the reason for not preparing verbatim detailing, as the doctor does not allow them to utter, more than the brand name. However, this should not allow them to escape from their duty to know the verbatim detailing for major brands.