Uniting Sales and Quality in Life Sciences: A Recipe for Success

As I prepare to present at this year’s Masters Summit in October, I recently have been reflecting on my first job out of college. With my bachelor’s degree in chemistry, I was eager to start as a research chemist for a medium-size company. I was placed in charge of not only testing regular samples for our inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) instrument, but before long I was developing a better method to test samples, evaluating the purchase of a new instrument, and validating a new system and analytical method for the new equipment. Initially, our sales team members sought me out in the lab to ask me to explain the data I was sending them. Shortly after that, I became more involved with working alongside the sales and technical support teams to develop additional tests and generate data for our clients’ satisfaction.

Our clients were looking to us in the lab to provide a summary of what the data implied, and they trusted that the data generated by our work was accurate and precise. In the competitive landscape we face today, exceptional customer experience demands more than just basic quality standards or good salesmanship. It requires cooperation and support between both sales and quality teams. This collaborative approach ensures that every customer’s experience with the company is met with excellence.

I was able to witness firsthand how my role impacted the entire company. It gave me a sense of purpose and pride in the work I did. It’s what eventually inspired my drive to develop an entire career dedicated to bridging this gap between quality and sales teams.

Now I have an opportunity to share what I’ve learned at Masters Summit in just a couple weeks, and I want to briefly share some key insights as to why this relationship, which is often overlooked in my opinion, is not only crucial, but can transform your company’s success.

The Power of Quality in Customer Experience

Sales and quality aren’t simply departments that operate on opposite ends of a company. Like every department, each has its unique role to make the company overall successful. Sales are the ones on the “frontlines,” battling it out with sometimes difficult prospects and stubborn customers, balancing between “the customer is always right” and “corporate protocol” and at times even losing a sale by no fault of their own. Meanwhile, quality teams make up the backbone of customer satisfaction. Without quality, the company would soon fall apart due to poor product performance and failure to uphold current good laboratory practices (cGLP) and/or current good manufacturing practices (cGMP), inability to meet the expectations of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), or other regulatory noncompliance issues. These two teams are vital if the company is to be successful.

In my career, I have often seen the gap of communication and misunderstandings between these two teams that is sometimes difficult to bridge, but closing it is critical to a positive customer experience and the long-term, sustainable success of the company.

Understanding the Gap

Understanding how sales efforts and quality metrics support each other is the first step to closing this gap. The quality team ensures that the company is compliant with cGLP, cGMP, FDA regulations, and other industry standards and that products/services meet or exceed performance expectations, oftentimes managed through the implementation of an electronic quality management system (eQMS). The sales team, on the other hand, is perfectly positioned to receive and understand customer insights. When the two teams can collaborate and are aligned in their goals, they are able to provide higher customer satisfaction and improve the organization’s success.

Bridging the Gap: Strategies for Excellence

Bridging the gap between sales and quality is critical for fostering collaboration and reaching shared goals. And a foundation can only be built for these teams to cooperate effectively once the gaps are understood. Quality excellence is about going above and beyond issue responses and implementing proactive measures to stay ahead of issues before they happen. When feedback received by the sales team is integrated into a quality process, a customer’s needs can be anticipated and issues have the potential to be prevented altogether. This will not only enhance a client’s experience but can also empower the sales team with more effective solutions. This in turn leads to stronger customer relationships. The outcome: more positive customer experiences equals company growth!

If you’d like to explore this topic further, join me and other life sciences professionals at Masters Summit on Tuesday, October 15 for my breakout session called “Uniting Sales and Quality for Customer Satisfaction and Organizational Success.” During this session I will be addressing common challenges and offering strategies to bridge the gap between quality and sales to create a better opportunity for overall client success!