Pharmacy sales agents: how AI can simplify order management
15/07/2024
Let’s be honest: the life of a sales agent is anything but easy, caught between business needs, personal targets and tight deadlines.
Optimising the organisation of the day and field activities — ideally while minimising errors (and without going crazy!) — is every salesperson’s secret to success.
In a world moving at unprecedented speed, where process optimisation is the foundation of improved company performance, mistakes are increasingly less tolerated, and manual intervention is becoming more and more complex.
These challenges are even more pronounced for sales agents working on the move or in conditions where it is not always possible to have a computer or workstation available to enter orders.
As we’ve seen in this article, it’s essential to have a tool designed specifically for salespeople — complete with all the necessary functions, yet simple and always within reach.
Sales in the pharmacy channel are no exception to these dynamics. Let’s see how they unfold.
The typical day of a sales agent in the pharmacy channel is much like that of colleagues in other sectors — always on the move, with many clients to visit and never enough time.
What sometimes makes the job more complex is that, depending on time availability and the person they’re dealing with, the agent usually faces two very different scenarios:
Each scenario has pros and cons — faster delivery in the first case or personalised offers in the second — but also clear challenges. Let’s explore them.
Let’s step into the shoes of our sales agent when they are dealing with a client who leads the conversation, simply scrolling through their system to check stock and request reorders for missing items.
What potential pitfalls could arise in this situation?
Firstly, there’s no time to sit at a computer, log into the system and enter an order. The “shopping list” is often scribbled quickly on a notepad or, more commonly, received from the client on paper or by email.
Possible issues with such orders include:
But when the agent is the one leading the conversation, is it all smooth sailing?
Spoiler: no.
Even with thorough preparation — supported by back-office teams providing data and pre-set offers — unexpected situations can arise. The client might have different needs, want to try new products or combinations, or request a review of proposed prices.
Clearly, this is not easy to manage. Accessing the entire product catalogue, building new offer sets and creating an appropriate pricing package — all in real time — is a tall order. So, how can we support salespeople in managing such complex, high-risk activities?
We know that AI is evolving at an incredible pace — so fast that it can be hard to keep up with constant innovations. That’s why, at Aton, we support our clients through this transition, truly believing it’s an opportunity for them to improve and optimise their processes. Let’s take a closer look at order management with AI for pharmacy channel sales agents.
AI can make a real difference in various contexts — for instance, in the supermarket sector, as Andrea described in his article — a scenario very similar to that of a sales agent handling reorder requests in pharmacies.
With AI integrated into our solutions, collecting and entering orders that arrive in different formats (on paper, by email or even via voice message), often incomplete and unstructured, is no longer a problem. AI uses technologies such as optical character recognition (OCR) and text analysis to scan a photo of a handwritten order or analyse the content of an email. This enables it to extract relevant data, structure it, and enter it directly into the order management software, saving time and reducing transcription errors.
AI can also use order history and CRM data to cross-check information, identify customers, recall previous orders and frequently requested products, allowing it to fill in missing data or highlight potential errors.
But what are the advantages of AI when it’s the sales agent making commercial proposals?
In this case, AI becomes a true assistant that combines data analysis and creative capabilities, ready to help directly in front of the client.
Analysing order history and profiling data for each individual pharmacy, AI can create “dynamic” commercial offers tailored to every customer and situation. This makes it possible to anticipate pharmacists’ needs, offering valuable products and promotions and significantly improving sales opportunities.
At the same time, AI can also create and suggest combinations of related products that may not be immediately obvious, even to an expert eye. This means providing more complete, personalised solutions that respond immediately to customers’ needs.
Another key advantage is the reduced workload for the sales back office, which can be partially or entirely freed from having to prepare offers in advance. This allows staff to focus on higher-value activities, improving the organisation’s overall efficiency.
In this way, AI-enabled order management becomes faster and more accurate, increasing customer satisfaction.
Innovation means change, and change brings risks. In our case, what are the risks of using Artificial Intelligence to support sales and order management?
In a reorder scenario, a potential challenge might be AI misreading a piece of data when analysing a photo of a handwritten note or an email.
In a “proactive sale” scenario, the concern could be the occasional overly “creative” commercial offer from our virtual assistant.
But should we really view these as risks — or focus on the opportunities instead?
On closer inspection, sticking to a traditional, manual and often asynchronous workflow would not reduce the risk of error — if anything, it might increase it.
With AI, it’s possible to both speed up mechanical operations, such as entering orders into the system, and uncover opportunities that would be hard to spot in the moment. Then, thanks to the salesperson’s critical and expert eye, a quick final check can definitively neutralise these risks, ensure customer satisfaction and… enjoy a more relaxed life while making client visits!
Applying new technologies in the right context and using them correctly is crucial: citing Artificial Intelligence just to ride a trend or make headlines risks trivialising its potential applications.
AI is a powerful tool for salespeople — a support that helps them be more effective, deliver high-quality service, improve sales processes and increase customer satisfaction.
But just because a technology is accessible doesn’t mean it’s easy to adopt. That’s why Aton believes in training people, enabling them to experiment and take solutions to the next level.
