New suppliers mean new ordering workflows. Perhaps 100% of the orders for your office are now completed via a web portal whereas they were previously completed via email, telephone, or in-person. 

Staff sometimes resist these changes, especially if they’ve been incentivized by the old rep to promote their products without the business owner knowing (oh yes — kickbacks like this are more commonplace than most doctors realize).

The best ways to set yourself up for a successful transition are:

  1. Verify new supplier quality yourself. We’ve seen even the most tenured, trusted staff mislead their doctors to preserve undisclosed supplier kickbacks or simply to keep their existing workflows from changing (more on this later).
  2. After you’ve verified quality, clearly identify which products from your old supplier will be replaced by your new preferred supplier (e.g. Pivotal Group’s Pure™ 4K replacing the Varilux X or Autograph III). Set your staff up for success by creating side-by-side charts (or similar) to reference during the transition.
  3. Familiarize yourself with the new supplier’s ordering process so that you can train your staff and answer any questions or confusions they have about it.
  4. Set clear benchmarks and performance goals based on your level of engagement with your previously preferred vendor.
  5. With 1-4 in order, notify your staff of the change and equip them with everything outlined above. Explain why this change is being made, and share the metrics you’ll be using to evaluate performance/ adoption over the coming weeks.

Once you’ve completed all of the above, you’re ready to go live! Keep a close eye on the numbers and KPIs to see how they move, and don’t hesitate to follow-up with staff members whose numbers show clear resistance to the new supply chain. As long as you’re implementing everything correctly, you should begin to see a lot of the KPIs previously discussed in this guide move BIG-time over the coming weeks and months.

How to identify and troubleshoot non-compliant staff is discussed extensively towards the end of this guide.

 

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