從感激、信任到推薦：探討藥廠業務代表與醫師之間的 關係行銷影響力

Abstract

製藥公司在行銷技巧及預算的投入上，不僅必須專注於確保藥品的安全性和效果以贏得醫師的信任，也高度重視與醫師接觸的藥廠業務代表。這是因為製藥公司需要透過業務代表與醫師建立持久的夥伴關係。這種與醫師的互信關係，不僅讓醫師安心使用其藥品，更可以透過醫師的專業及熟悉產品的相關屬性，鼓勵醫師口碑傳播給其他醫師同儕，這樣的正向循環能夠更迅速且有效地提升產品的市場佔有率。這就是醫療服務產業多年來實行的關係行銷方法之一。 在面對目前日益競爭的醫療產業環境，各製藥公司都耗費相當多的行銷成本投資在目前日漸飽和的市場，行銷方式的成功則是非常重要。關係行銷從過往的信任、承諾、滿意度及關係品質等研究構面角度切入，但對於績效產出經常難有更好的解釋。直到了2009年，學者Palmatier等人，提出了感激之情這個重要的關鍵因子，主要從互惠理論的角度更妥善地詮釋關係行銷投資如何強化績效的產出。而感激之情在其他服務產業業已有相關研究，在醫療產業卻相對匱乏。因而，研究者認為如果可以透過感激之情去進一步確認醫師是否認同關係行銷投資，這對於製藥公司與醫師建立長期關係將可能有正面幫助。也因此，本研究主要在現行關係行銷理論中，試圖納入客戶感激之意這個因子來探詢醫師對於不同的關係行銷投資方法是否會有不同的偏好，以致於影響到信任以及最終的口碑傳播意圖。 本研究限縮在與三高藥品及抗生素等高競爭產品之藥廠業務代表的醫院醫師為主要研究對象。在問卷設計完畢之後，使用SurveyCake問卷平台建置網路連結，並以滾雪球方式進行發放。正式問卷回收之有效樣本共計103份，並接續進行後續的描述統計分析、結構方程式模型分析等實證。而研究結果顯示，藥廠業務代表的社會關係行銷投資能夠成功引發醫師的感激之情，而醫師的感激之情對於建立信任感有正面影響，進而增強醫師對於藥廠業務代表所屬產品的口碑傳播意圖。對於藥廠業務代表來說，除了著重專業性外，如何讓醫師把你當成重要朋友、並且由衷感激，則是需要努力經營的重點，除了在短、中期上可能對於所屬產品的選用有幫助，而人脈的累積對於未來發展也是至關重要。

Regarding marketing techniques and budget allocation, pharmaceutical companies must focus not only on ensuring the safety and efficacy of their medications to gain doctors’ trust but also on the pharmaceutical sales representatives who interact with doctors. These representatives play a crucial role in the industry, as they are the ones who establish lasting partnerships with doctors on behalf of the company. This mutual trust relationship not only reassures doctors about using their medications but also leverages doctors’ professional expertise and familiarity with the product’s attributes to encourage word-of-mouth promotion among their peers. Such a positive cycle can more swiftly and effectively increase the product’s market share. This is one of the relationship marketing methods practiced in the healthcare industry for many years, acknowledging the significant role of pharmaceutical sales representatives in building trust. In the face of the increasingly competitive healthcare industry environment, pharmaceutical companies invest substantial marketing costs in the currently saturated market, making the success of marketing strategies crucial. Relationship marketing has historically been analyzed through the lenses of trust, commitment, satisfaction, and relationship quality. However, these aspects often fail to explain performance outcomes adequately. It wasn’t until 2009, when scholars Palmatier and others introduced gratitude as a critical factor, that a better explanation was provided. This key factor, rooted in the theory of reciprocity, more appropriately explains how relationship marketing investments enhance performance outcomes. While gratitude has been studied in other service industries, research is relatively scarce in healthcare. Therefore, researchers believe that confirming doctors’ recognition of relationship marketing investments through gratitude could positively assist pharmaceutical companies in building long-term relationships with doctors. Consequently, this study attempts to incorporate the factor of customer gratitude into existing relationship marketing theories to explore whether doctors have different preferences for various relationship marketing investment methods and how these preferences might influence trust and, ultimately, word-of-mouth promotion intentions. This study focuses on doctors interacting with pharmaceutical sales representatives for highly competitive products such as medications for hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and antibiotics. After designing the questionnaire, it was created on the SurveyCake platform and distributed using the snowball sampling method. A total of 103 valid samples were collected and subsequently analyzed through descriptive statistical analysis and structural equation modeling. The research results indicate that pharmaceutical sales representatives’ social relationship marketing investments can successfully elicit doctors’ gratitude, which positively impacts the establishment of trust and further enhances doctors’ word-of-mouth promotion intentions for the products represented by these sales representatives. For pharmaceutical sales representatives, aside from emphasizing professionalism, making doctors see you as an important friend and genuinely appreciating you is crucial. This not only helps with selecting the represented products in the short and medium term but also accumulates a network that is vital for future development.