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Call Centers, or customer services receiving and transmitting multiple requests by telephone, were introduced as offshoots of telecommunications providing streamlined service for consumers of large companies with extensive c

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

ustomer support needs. Normally, a call center is able to handle a considerable volume of calls at the same time, i.e. to screen calls and forward them to skilled support staff, where most issues can be resolved. Organizatio

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

ns starting from mail-order catalog companies and telemarketing companies to computer product help desks use call centers. Typically, there are two types of calls ? inbound and outbound. The latter suggests the agent's cal

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

ling potential customers with intentions to sell or service which is amply used in telemarketing. Apart from it inbound calls are made by the customer to get information or ask for help reporting malfunction of the product.

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

That's where the problem of management performance is acute. Performance measures and benchmarking are indispensable to any well-run call center to eliminate criticism of call centers on common themes such as non-expert ope

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

rators, poor training of agents incapable to process customers' requests effectively, automated queuing systems resulting in long hold times, operators working from a script, etc. Benchmarking, typically associated with stra

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

tegic management, presupposes evaluation of business processes in relation to best practice and helps to develop plans with the aim of increasing performance levels. At large benchmarking reforms all the levels of the compan

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

y ? from the state of mind of the employees to that of top managers, penetrating into the whole hierarchical organization of the organization. The gist of benchmarking is to break the resistance to change by employing method

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

s different from the currently used ones that might be less effective in order to increase certain aspects of performance.

The most conspicuous performance measures include the mean conversation time, or Average Talk Time (

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

ATT), the time of delay a caller may experience waiting while queuing, the mean dealing time, or Average Handling Time (AHT), the number of calls (%) answered within the limited period, or Service Level (SL%), the number of

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

calls per hour the operator handles, the number of calls (%) with the customer's problem completely resolved and others.

A variety of different technologies enables companies to measure and monitor the performance of the wo

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

rkers. The Balanced scorecard, introduced by R.S. Kaplan and D. Norton in 1992, is a concept for measuring a company's activities to make managers focus on the important performance metrics that lead to success. It's not onl

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

y financial outcomes that are in focus, but the human issues that drive those outcomes. Thus, it is said to balance the financial perspective with customer, process and employee perspectives. Since the time of the original c

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

oncept the scorecard metrics have been revisited by Kaplan & Norton with regard to more than a decade's experience.

Typically the following processes are on the move when the scorecard is implemented: translating the vision

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

into operational goals, linking the vision to individual performance, business planning, learning and adjusting the strategy according to the feedback. To improve the performance of call centers one should know what metrics

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

are best qualified. The right metrics should be performed on a call center to fulfill the scorecard.

The hallmark of a good call center is the staff's call management skills and that means interactive training can help ach

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

ieve excellence at different levels ? for the agents, supervisors and managers. It is essential for managers to know how to recruit and train the staff to reach the strategic goals of the company, to manage the key metrics a

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

nd consequently improve performance.

Different programs are designed to deliver training to call center teams. They might include practice, role-play, feedback and coaching. As keeping customers satisfied is a primary conce

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

rn of any call center training courses feature quality programs which enhance the performance with respect to one of the most urgent demands ? training skillful professionals. It means they employ different training methods

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

to evaluate current training processes and measure and improve training effectiveness. Fertile training leads to reinforcing the appropriate skills for performance improvement and achieving higher levels of customer loyalty.

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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