CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDICAL REPRESENTATIVES WHICH CAN INFLUENCE A DOCTOR TO PRESCRIBE A BRAND: A STUDY

Doctors as such do not have time for medical representatives. They may allow them to meet them at odd hours and many a time may restrict the number of medical representatives meeting them for the day. In order to find out what may help a company to train a medical representative for a doctor's call, I drew up a questionnaire to be filled up by doctors. The questionnaire had six variables which had to be ranked from 1 to 6, with 1 being the most important and 6 being the least important. The variables were patience of a medical representative, time concern when he enters the doctors cabin, knowledge of his products, how well he has organized himself for the visit, honesty and pleasantness of the medical representative. A total of 100 resident doctors were interviewed. A personal interview was conducted wherein the questionnaire was direct and structured. The results were such that knowledge was ranked as number1 followed by patience, organization of the medical representative, time concern at the clinic, pleasantness and honesty.