Germany: study on representatives

An interesting online monitoring of a panel of opticians by the Tns Emnid Institute carried out in May 2003, involved 150 optician's stores. Questions were put to the owners/managers about visits by sales reps (monitoring included the reps from 21 companies, 15 of which were analyzed in depth).

Some aspects in brief: opticians stated that 2 reps in 3 are highly motivated. Only in a few cases company reps have a pushy attitude. However, one rep in three provided information that was of little use to an optician. And on average, one optician in four hoped that reps would concentrate more on the important subjects.

One more point: punctuality and reliability in keeping appointments. Some company reps were considerably lacking in this respect. Overall, however, opticians acknowledged the competence and credibility of the reps.