What does an Associate Sales Consultant do?

What is an Associate Sales Consultant (ASC)? And why are they so invaluable to the healthcare industry?

At IQVIA, our team of ASCs support medical device sales consultants in the areas of Trauma, Spine, or Sports Medicine, and provide clinical and sales support in hospital OR settings.

Essentially, they provide support for the Sales Consultant to ensure the Consultant can assist surgeons in the OR setting. The support they provide is also a training ground for on the job learnings around becoming a Sales Consultant. It is a hierarchy approach to obtaining the experience necessary to work your way up to a sales role.

To perform the role and create the best strategies to promote and sell innovative products within a medical framework, ASCs must have certain skills that support customer and Sales Consultant needs and expectations.

What are customer service skills?

A combination of clinical knowledge and sales acumen set the foundation for the sales of medical devices, treatments, and therapies. However, the role mostly requires a knack for customer service excellence, problem solving and sales logistics.

Understanding customer service skills

Customer service skills are born from patience and understanding, two prerequisites for this role. Once you’ve fine-tuned these abilities, you can cater to customer service excellence.

Other examples of good customer service skills include the following:

● Empathy

● Time management

● Active listening

● Emotional intelligence

● Problem-solving

● Technical skills

What is sales logistics?

Sales logistics facilitates the movement of a service or product through a supply chain. In Medical Sales, this includes planning the sale of a medical device or therapy from the conceptualization of the product to delivery and beyond.

Sales logistics can be challenging, but it is also very rewarding, providing an opportunity to participate in a $83.95 billion global healthcare market. As an Associate Sales Assistant, you would play an invaluable role in these strategies. Here’s how:

Navigating sales goals

You will be a key player in driving sales objectives by:

● Formulating ways to Increase annual sales and profit

● Increasing and retaining customer numbers by providing excellent customer service

● Strategizing to increase conversion rates

● Increasing sales rep productivity

● Enhancing overall sales processes and sales activities

Sales goals or objectives are usually broken into smaller steps or SMART goals, including meeting with sales consultants, and sales management to create a plan to help achieve market share goals within a territory.

Clinical expertise in action

An average of 98% of US medical sales representatives hold a relative 4-year college degree complemented by a strong background in sales. However, knowledge and experience in medical fields are necessary in many medical sales jobs.

This is because ASCs are sometimes tasked to guide clinical teams and assist surgeons with devices and therapies in operating rooms. As part of customer service, they must ensure proper product utilization and help optimize surgical procedures.

Technical proficiency and customer support

Associate Sales Consultants do more than support the sales of devices and therapies. They are imperative in delivering after-sales support, including technical support and customer service.

From troubleshooting technical issues on devices and software to fulfilling administrative customer requests, a consultant of this nature must have vast knowledge of the fields they cater to and the services or products they deliver. Staying current with technology, medical trends, and software updates is thus very important.

Also, some ASCs are asked to manage all hospital billing effectively, including creating and closing purchase orders and accounts. Here, it helps to have a thumb on accounting software often integrated with customer management software.

Collaboration and insights sharing

Lastly, an Associate Sales Consultant must analyze device or therapy performance to gain insights into sales patterns and customer retention. Here, one can apply technical skills to collect accurate data. This data must be used to enhance the performance of products and optimize environments in which our products are utilized.

Technology aside, collaborating with various teams, including doctors and medical care providers, is necessary to improve solutions and service levels. This way, ASCs learn to help refine their company’s service while gaining valuable market insight from the key role players they meet with.

Take the next step in your career with IQVIA

Becoming an Associate Sales Consultant can offer a dynamic career path which can be incredibly rewarding. Tap into the advice here to help you navigate your medical sales journey, and hone your customer service, technical, and medical skills.

If you like the sound of working amongst proactive peers at a leading life sciences company that improves lives, then we invite you to explore our associate sales consultant roles at IQVIA today.