The Cure for Provider and Payor Pains
PointClear Helps Leading Health Information Company Convert Sales Leads Into Ready Buyers

Introduction

Based in Eden Prairie, Minn., Ingenix helps transform organizations and advance the state of health care through information and technology. It works with more than 250,000 physicians, health care providers and others that rely on its innovative products, services and consulting to improve the delivery and operations of their business. Ingenix is a wholly owned subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH).

Like many businesses selling complex solutions, Ingenix was looking for a way to impact the quality of sales lead generation practices in order to influence sales outcomes and increase revenue. Following an evaluation of several outsourced sales lead management firms, the company signed with PointClear in late 2006.

A Specialized Business

Sales prospecting within the B2B health care sector requires specialized knowledge and the ability to develop dialog with potential clients, in order to understand their challenges and offer the right solutions to their needs. According to Angela Bailey, vice president, Marketing Operations for Ingenix, PointClear immediately stood out from the pack due to strong references and the quality of its business development associates. PointClear associates are highly trained sales and marketing professionals who work as a seamless extension of the Ingenix field sales team.

"We were vehemently opposed to the typical dial for dollars telemarketing groups with high turnover rates and barely trained personnel," said Bailey. "We operate in a complex business and market, and we needed a niche player and partner that would be able to manage real business conversations and represent Ingenix appropriately."

Specifically, Ingenix required a sales lead opportunity management team that could:

• Identify decision-makers within the prospective customer organization, navigating internal channels as necessary.

• Establish communication that builds rapport while effectively educating and "warming" potential buyers to Ingenix solutions.

By offloading sales lead qualification and nurturing practices to experts, Ingenix sales representatives could be handed leads comprised of bona fide buyers ready to be engaged in the sales process.

PointClear began with database-cleansing activities designed to help Ingenix refine its contact lists and pinpoint and prioritize prospects. It also initiated a successful pilot program that validated its lead management practices. In the spring of 2007, PointClear and Ingenix kicked off an extended campaign in support of Ingenix's new MedPoint™ for Hospitals technology.

Multiple Touches

With more than 35 million hospital admissions, 110 million ER visits, and roughly 920 million ambulatory visits in the United States every year, manual medication reconciliation methods are fraught with errors. Ingenix MedPoint for Hospitals is a powerful web-based tool that provides an individual's detailed prescription history in real-time. Hospitals can use MedPoint to improve communication between administrative staff, providers, and patients to mitigate drug interaction events at all transition points within the facility. In this way, it also supports accreditation and compliance efforts.

PointClear associates were tasked with reaching appropriate decisionmakers, initiating discussion and communicating the MedPoint value proposition. Most often, associates were speaking to titles such as chief medical officers and directors of pharmacy and nursing in hospitals of varying sizes.

Like senior-level executives in any organization, hospital administrators tend to be very busy and are typically hard to reach. PointClear associates employed an integrated multi-touch strategy that coordinated a mix of media – phone calls, voice messages, emails, direct mailers and even handwritten notes – to build familiarity with key messaging and keep proffered solutions top of mind until live contact occurred.

"When PointClear gets someone to agree to the next step in our process, it's a big win for us – whether it occurs through a multi-touch approach or on the very first call," said Bailey. "Hospital executives are busy people and getting them to commit to a meeting with our sales rep indicates a level of interest and time investment."

Through incremental steps, PointClear established a dialog with prospects, educating them on the solution and appealing directly to their business needs. As part of this, it was necessary to compare MedPoint against both manual processes and competing, less comprehensive technologies.

Collecting Knowledge

Conversations between PointClear associates and prospects were ultimately centered on setting the next appropriate course of action – namely, a conference call or face-to-face meeting with an Ingenix sales representative.

During this phase, associates also uncovered information invaluable to the sales process. Deliverables included a lead report summarizing conversations with decision-makers. Sales reps were able to use this acquired intelligence to prepare for presentations, enabling them to walk into meetings with a clear understanding of the prospect's situation, challenges, buying timeline and possible objections beforehand.

"PointClear associates are not only knowledgeable about our product – they're also comfortable in whatever direction the conversation with a prospect may go," said Bailey. "They're able to bring them back to the crux of the issue and engage their thought process down the right path. At this same time, they're collecting vital information."

She adds that PointClear's thorough qualification of prospects ensures Ingenix sales reps are spending time on the best candidates. "PointClear associates have already done the screening, so we know when we hand off a lead that it's a viable prospect in need of our solution. The lead quality has been exceptional."

Program Results

Over an approximate seven-month timeframe, PointClear associates delivered 422 qualified sales leads for the MedPoint for Hospitals solution. "Of the 422 leads delivered to us by PointClear to date, only nine have been determined invalid which is very impressive," said Bailey. "The rest of the leads have become customers, or they are still open opportunities so we are looking forward to even greater results from this campaign."

Ingenix is continuing its PointClear-driven sales lead management campaign for the MedPoint solution. Additionally, Ingenix is partnering with PointClear for several additional campaigns in 2008.

"PointClear grasps the concept that there's a lot more to these programs than just picking up the phone and dialing – there's a lot of pre-planning, training and direction that go into it," concluded Bailey. "They work with you as a partner throughout the process, as opposed to being just a vendor.

We've been very satisfied with the results."