What Does a Medical Device Representative Do?

Medical device representatives are professionals who promote their companies' healthcare devices to clients. These products range from hospital patient machines to dental office equipment such as teeth-cleaning instruments. Techniques used to accomplish these tasks include making calls and visits as well as giving presentations and demonstrations. Establishing goals and working to retain clients are also important aspects of this professional's job. A person who is interested in becoming a medical device representative typically needs to complete a four-year bachelor’s degree in marketing or in a healthcare or science-related field.

Making calls to potential customers is an important duty of a medical device representative. This type of individual needs to be comfortable with making cold calls, or contacting possible clients via telephone even though they do not expect the calls. The medical device representative’s aim should be to convince representatives of healthcare facilities to set up meetings with him or her to learn more about his or her company’s products. Strong interpersonal skills are invaluable in this job role for developing new business.

People in this industry need to have solid verbal and written communication skills for talking to clients as well. A medical device representative is responsible for explaining his or her organization’s products in detail to customers. He or she must prepare presentations that provide background on the company along with technical information regarding the function of its products. The individual also has to be willing to adjust his or her presentation to keep it up-to-date or to tailor it to different audiences, such as a single person or a large group of people at a medical facility.

The ability to demonstrate how an item works additionally constitutes part of the job in this career area. An individual who seeks to become a medical device representative has to hone his or her skills with accurately and thoroughly showing people how a device works and answering questions related to its operation. A professional in this field needs to be comfortable with assembling and breaking down equipment used in product demonstrations and training sessions as well.

Other valuable tasks in the medical device sales field include establishing short-term or long-term marketing goals and retaining customers. Managers often work with medical device representatives to communicate the company’s objectives for achieving a particular profit margin. A medical device representative typically receives rewards for accomplishing various sales benchmarks. His or her goal also should be to maintain strong customer relationships by making sure that existing clients are satisfied with their purchases and by regularly introducing new products to them.