Horseshit baby!! As a CURRENT DM with many years of experience, yes we will contact an office to see if a rep made a call. Prior to Covid, if I suspected a rep of not working I would personally make a call on an office. Today, a rep making a virtual call I suspected was false I would call.
As an experienced DM, over 15 years I respectfully disagree. That is walking a tight rope. That's a micromanager, never was that, and I will tell you why. Trust. It can be navigated, yes. But I have seen it misplayed. If you misplay the "checking on the rep" you have damaged relationships, trust, etc. With ALL concerned. So, some DMs do as I did, often check fueling points, travel time feasibility, repeat call patterns, go to favorites and any current accessible data or clues that warrant examining other things. Now, obvious things like calls recorded when the office is confirmed closed or the doctor is at a medical meeting, on vacation, etc. Common sense. That's dead meat. And a lot of self righteous loser reps I knew were (are) that egregious. What I really know, is most reps skate around and do not work as hard as I worked as a rep for over 18 years in the 80's and 90s. Going to work every day in the worst of weather, early and getting home late. The truth. Yes, you could see both hospital and office-based anything then, far easier. As the commercial arms race led by MRK and PFE charged on in the 90s it got harder and harder as our value dropped. So, now as a grateful well to do, recently retired from pharma person, I can tell you the truth. You all work in a somewhat hollow sales model, cloaked in the guise of genuine "professionalism". Really, it is simply a sweet, over paid JOB on the backs of the U.S. public, government, insurance, etc. And I am a registered republican who doesn't cringe at another PhRMA commerical
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Today, even more so than the old days, it's possible to carry a bunch of inefficiencies, relatively poor productivity and absolutely low value by both sales reps and managers and the managers above them for a number of financial reasons. If the value proposition mattered, there'd be 50% less reps by EOW. That's OK "man" is America! Enjoy the summer and your well paid J O B. But, work harder on those "work" days for us stockholders...thanks kids.