MedTech Leader Adopts Qstream to Address Product Knowledge Gaps of Medical Care Sales Team

Chronic kidney failure effects more than 3.4 million patients globally today who need to regularly undergo dialysis treatment.

This leading provider of life-saving dialysis products provides treatment for hundreds of thousands of patients through 1,000s of clinics. It is imperative that they support healthcare professionals (HCPs) deliver the best patient care by keeping them supplied with the latest medical equipment and disposables, educating them on the latest advancements in kidney disease patient care, and ensure they are treating and monitoring diabetes patients consistently and accurately for the best possible health outcomes.

The direct sales team is required to have a deep knowledge of multiple products and be able to effectively engage HCPs in patient-centric, yet technical, discussions that lead to the selection of their dialysis products as the best choice for their patients.

• Supply of dialysis products is highly competitive

• Sales reps need foundational product knowledge and treatment concepts mastered at a minimum

• Competitor intel and how to message against new innovations

• Price points, new market entrants, quality variation, distribution channels, service and support access and product differentiation all come into play when positioning products to HCPs

To be successful, sales reps need continuous training and reinforcement of hard knowledge on the products and competitors, and to be supported in developing the soft sales skills to engage HCPs effectively.

This is not an easy task for sales enablement and training managers. By adopting Qstream to reinforce, assess and surface product knowledge gaps, this MedTech leader has strengthened sales capabilities to compete, retain and grow business.

“Using Qstream to assess and surface product knowledge gaps across regions and individual sales reps we have the intel to know whether training has been effective and where to focus further training resources. This continuous process is core to designing and executing our sales enablement and training program.”

— Clinical Training Manager, Global Biopharmaceutical Customer

This MedTech leader supplies products and services for people with chronic kidney failure.

Key Challenges • A long sales cycle that slows time

to revenue• No transparency on sales rep product

knowledge and messaging mastery• Inability to design and measure sales

meetings efficiently• Lack of objective intel on product

proficiency for sales managers to coach against for each rep

• Inefficient “re-training” or “-re-coaching” based on subjective feedback from managers

• Low knowledge recall after new hire onboarding

Solution• Pre-event “lightening round” to assess

product knowledge gaps to be addressed at sales meeting

• Sales reps now expect to receive a Qstream 30 days after a training event to reinforce the knowledge learned

• Post-event assessment following sale meeting to identify knowledge gaps for remedial action or further training

• Data-driven insights for managers to know what has been trained and retained

• A library of re-usable compliance approved Qstream questions to roll out in new hire onboarding programs

“At first, I thought this program was going tobe just another task we had to do, but I was pleasantly surprised how much fun it was! The good-natured competition was also fun. It was interesting to check your team’s status every week. More importantly, the material presented was remembered. Well done!” — Sales Manager

“This was an outstanding way to reinforce our learning. I really enjoyed the challenge andthe teamwork!” — Sales Rep

Regions• Qstream is deployed across 3 regions

in the United States (Northeast, South and West)

Results• Improved product knowledge proficiency by 13%• Identified knowledge gaps at team level• Provided just-in-time coaching• Reduced the “number” of questions and

calls into product management for commonly repeated questions

• 100% compliance in completing Qstream challenges was motivated by the team leaderboard

Support direct sales teams to better engage and be a trusted advisor to HCPs

Each sales rep has a library of resources available to them, including overwhelming volumes of material with every detail they need to recall. By using Qstream to break this into micro-content in the form of repeated scenario-based Q&A challenges, reps were able to better retain core concepts and develop soft skills that are contextually relevant. This has reduced repetitive questions coming into sales managers and product teams and builds a level of situational awareness.

“Our sales reps need to educate HCPs on why our products are the best choice to meet their patient’s needs. This requires a deep technical knowledge of products to demonstrate how practitioners and patients should use and maintain

equipment. This puts high expectations on sales reps to master very detailed information and Qstream is an effective way to reinforce complex and detailed product information.”

- Senior Training and Education Manager

Qstream Stimulates Healthy Engagement from Sales Management and Teams Sales reps have really enjoyed participating in Qstream challenges, with a healthy level of competition and comradery between reps andregions. Built-in game mechanics, point scoring, leaderboard and socialization of content all help to engage reps, even those who are seasoned and not typically as responsive to training.

A key factor to success was to gain executive buy-in. This was not seen as optional by the training and education manager who leads this. Key to this is linking training outcomes to sales goals such as shortening sales cycles through improved sales proficiency and knowledge. Sales management are key to sending a message top down to directly encourage reps to engage with the Qstream challenges and get their teams to the top of the leaderboard. They also benefit from the objectivity of proficiency insights which pinpoint any knowledge gaps that need remedial action or further coaching by sales managers.

Streamlined Sales Meeting Content by using Qstream to Identify Product Knowledge GapsBy rolling out a Qstream lightening round before the annual sales meeting, the training and education team were able to inform sales management and the product teams on the areas that needed most attention.

Active4%

Veryactive96%

Independent Conductivityand pH Self-Test

100%[10]

100%[8]

SouthTopic West Northeast Average

Key Benefits

PD Question

Upgrade Parts

Auto Prime

New Treatment

Disinfection Log

Average

Reduced PreventativeMaintenance

100%[10]

95%[40]

88%[40]

92%[50]

90%[50]

95%[40]

98%[50]

100%[10]

88%[8]

100%[10]

90%[10]

100%[8]

100%[10]

100%[10]

100%[8]

100%[10]

100%[9]

100%[8]

100%[10] 74%

71%

89%

92%

94%

96%

96%

100%

100%

89% 92% 97%

75%[8]

40%[10]

70%[10]

The South region is below average in their knowledge on this topic area which calls for immediate remediation and possibly even retraining.

While the topic has the lowest average proficiency, it was mastered by the Northeast region. There is no need to put this group through further training which should instead focus on the West and South sales teams.

Compares the % of participants by activity levelso sales training and line managers can monitor engagement and directly encourage participation of those who are less engaged to improve overall program effectiveness across all sales reps.

Very Active - responded within 2 business daysActive - responded within 3-7 business daysInactive - have not responded in over 7 business daysNot Started - have not responded to any questions

“Very enjoyable. Always sparks discussions re: content.” — Sales Rep

While still a high proficiency rate overall, all regions have some knowledge gaps on this topic. Teams may benefit from some light touch refresher training so they can master this topic area completely.

What’s next?The sales training and education team will expand its usage of Qstream to:

Reinforce new product features and messaging pre- and post-trainingUse the video component of Qstream to allow sales reps to practice their messaging through repetition in a safe environmentFocus on providing just-in-time coaching from sales manager to sales repDevelop new Qstream challenges that focus on their sales process and value-add messaging

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Example Question Chronic Kidney Disease

Answer True / False:The two main causes of CKD - Chronic Kidney Disease are: Diabetes and High Blood Pressure.

a. True b. False

Explanation: The two main causes of chronic kidney disease are diabetes and high blood pressure, which are responsible for up to two-thirds of the cases. Diabetes happens when your blood sugar is too high, causing damage to many organs in your body, including the kidneys and heart, as well as blood vessels, nerves and eyes. High blood pressure, or hypertension, occurs when the pressure of your blood against the walls of your blood vessels increases. If uncontrolled, or poorly controlled, high blood pressure can be a leading cause of heart attacks, strokes and chronic kidney disease. Also, chronic kidney disease can cause high blood pressure.

“Reps would answer a question and watch the leaderboard. They are naturally competitive and it really stimulated so much conversation on the Qstream course content that it added further to the reinforcement.”

- Senior Training and Education Manager

“Everyone is talking about Qstream, and it was the competitiveness of it. One sales manager even said…’Wow! I can’t believe this result’. Some naysayers among our tenured sales population are now completely engaged and asking when the next Qstream will roll out .”

- Senior Training and Education Manager

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