Advice You - Business

Service-based businesses are fundamentally different to product-based businesses. Service providers experience different sales and marketing problems (or challenges), and often have more complex relationships with clients.

However, if you want

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

to boost your service business revenues consider these ways to improve customer loyalty and generate more sales - without investing in expensive advertising campaigns.

1. Focus on improving customer retention. You've probably heard statistic

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

about how much extra it costs to attract new customers rather than keeping existing ones. Are they true? You bet they are! At a minimum, studies have shown that it costs 5 to 6 times more to attract new customers than it does to implement stra

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

egies to retain existing customers.

The key here is to "implement strategies" to keep your existing customers. These strategies can be in the form of either switching barriers or relationship marketing. Switching barriers can create a sense of

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

familiarity with your business and discourage customers from trying competitors. Relationship marketing tactics increase the degree of loyalty customers have towards your business.

With many customers now being well educated in sales and marke

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

ing gimmicks, they are usually loyal to the value they receive, so look at your 'value offer' and make sure it meets the grade.

2. Understand your customers value equation. These days customers are loyal to the concept of value, not necessari

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

y to one brand (or business). So it's important to understand your customers value equation in order to present your services in the best possible way.

What's a value equation? It's simply the difference between the costs a customer incurs in

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

using your service and the benefits they derive from it.

For example, costs include such things as inconvenience, time, risk, even sometimes personal pain, and of course the monetary price they pay.

Benefits include not only the obvious outco

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

e of the service, but also personally-oriented aspects like confidence, social benefits and a feeling of special treatment.

It's important to recognise this equation may vary depending upon the type of service provided and the unique mix of cl

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

ent/service provider that is an essential element of service encounters.

3. Create opportunities to cross-sell. Have you ever gone into your bank to use a teller and upon completion of the transaction had the teller suddenly ask "Can I help y

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

u with insurance today?" Like most people you probably say "No" and simply walk away.

The teller is trying to cross-sell the banks insurance services to you. But it fails. You know the teller has no understanding of your situation and is simpl

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

trying to sell you insurance.

Don't just promote your other services to every client you have. Your customers want you to understand their needs so you can recommend what will suit them. First build the relationship…then offer suggestions on

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

ow they can improve their situation by using your other services. To be successful you must develop an effective selling process.

In some cases you may find it helpful to develop alliances with complementary service providers so you can recomm

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

nd their services when it is in the best interest of your client.

4. Don't concentrate on your price. "All customers buy on price!" Work to this philosophy and you'll miss many opportunities to build your business. Price is important, as it i

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

s often a major factor in the value equation (see point 2 above). But don't assume you must always offer the lowest price. Various studies have shown the top criteria by which clients choose service providers is often competence, courtesy and u

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

derstanding of the clients needs.

Also, price has been shown to be only third important in reasons for clients leaving a firm. Core service failures and service encounter failures are the main reasons for customers to defect from service firms

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

5. Don't have a USP! For many years the mantra has been to develop a single Unique Selling Proposition (USP) that will position your business in its own niche. For many service businesses this approach can be very limiting. Often the same se

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

vice can be offered to numerous segments of the market, with each segment having its own reasons for using the service.

But don't abandon the USP concept. Use it to develop a meaningful position focused on the needs of each of the segments you

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

wish to target. This may mean having a slightly different emphasis on your sales and marketing message for each of the different target audiences.

For example, I have a client in the employment services market. Her firms services can be used e

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

ther in 'recruitment', 'staff development' or 'career transition' situations. Whilst the underlying benefits may be very similar, from the clients perspective they are looking for different types of results. Tailor your message to the recipient

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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EDM machines While there are many brands and models of Wire EDM machines available today, the three most prominent manufacturers are Elox, Japax, and Mitsubishi.

You know exactly how you're going to set up your desk, you've got an excellent outfit all picked out for your first day, and you even found a gorgeous leather shoulder bag to tote all of your important businesswoman necessities. You're all ready for your new job. There's just one problem - You don't actually have a job yet.

I'm simply going to list these fifteen principles for complete customer service and let you draw your own conclusions regarding the following questions (these need to be answered in sequence): • Is this principle really important for my organization? • If it is important, are we actually implementing this principle consistently and thoroughly throughout the organization? • If we are implementing it, is it proving to be effective? In other words, is this principle actually working to consistently deliver complete customer service to every customer every time? • If it is not effective, what is the first thing that needs to be done to improve its effectiveness? What resources do we need to get this done? Who needs to be involved in developing and implementing this first step? When you answer these questions in the order listed, you'll quickly discover where the weak points are in your internal process chain of customer service AND what you can do quickly to strengthen or change them for immediate improvement. Here are the 15 principles . . .

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Advice You - 8 Ways to Boost Service Business Revenues Part 1 of 2

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