People who grind their enamel whereas sleeping depend on custom-fitted guards for prevention. For sellers of these guards, a complication is the custom-fitting. It requires an actual enamel impression, which presumably requires an in-person go to.
However not if the vendor is Professional Enamel Guard, a San Diego, California-based on-line dental lab that sells made-to-order enamel guards. Its impressions-by-mail course of facilitates {custom} manufacturing — and happy prospects.
I not too long ago spoke with JP Ji, co-founder of Professional Enamel Guard. He addressed manufacturing challenges, customer support, advertising, and extra.
The complete audio of that interview is embedded under. The transcript is edited and condensed.
Eric Bandholz: Inform us about Professional Enamel Guard.
JP Ji: We promote custom-fitted mouth guards for individuals who grind their enamel once they sleep. We ship a equipment to prospects. They take an impression of their enamel and return it again to us. We then {custom} manufacture the mouth guard and ship the finished product to the customer. We provide changes, a one-year guarantee, and a 60-day money-back assure.
We launched the enterprise in 2012 when my mother began a lab serving native dentists. We now have 9 staff and simply over $1 million in annual income. Throughout Covid, lots of dentists shut down. At the moment, on-line gross sales had change into a minor a part of the enterprise, most likely 5% of the general income. So we stated, “Let’s deal with our ecommerce web site.”
Presently, the dental lab solely companies the ecommerce enterprise. My mother is in control of the technical facet of producing the product and ensuring it suits completely. I’m in control of advertising, customer support, and funds.
We use a scorecard for every position inside the firm — impressed by the guide “Who: The A Technique for Hiring” by Geoff Sensible. Each place has core outcomes. We even have what we name “stretch outcomes.” A core consequence for a customer support worker is having the ability to observe processes, reply inquiries, and supply an ideal expertise. A stretch consequence is recognizing alternatives to enhance, similar to higher effectivity.
I ask the workers, “What have you ever instructed this yr or this quarter for enhancements?” They received’t be negatively impacted or disciplined in the event that they don’t accomplish a stretch aim, nevertheless it is part of the position. We seek advice from customer support as “buyer happiness.” Everybody in our firm is a buyer happiness supervisor.
Bandholz: You could have 24/7 assist. How does it work?
Ji: We use a third-party live-chat service known as HelpFlow. It makes use of our inside record of continuously requested questions. We collect all of the questions acquired by means of e mail and cellphone calls, construct the record, and ship it to them. Over time HelpFlow’s workers improves by updating the inner FAQs. We’ve used the service for seven years. Eighty % of customer support questions they will now reply primarily based on earlier assist tickets.
A lot of the chat brokers are abroad. The brokers are assigned to a number of purchasers, not simply us. They report on a metric known as “chatted income.” They may doc, “This buyer chatted with us after which transformed.” Some prospects might have transformed regardless, however the conversion charge for individuals who engaged in chats is round 10 occasions greater than those that didn’t. The service prices a month-to-month retainer price. It scales primarily based on the amount, which works out to a few {dollars} per chat.
Bandholz: You additionally use a conversion optimization agency.
Ji: Sure. The agency, Conversion Crimes, conducts consumer testing to find friction factors on a web site and the place folks get confused. Conversion Crimes sends a client who matches our audience to our web site — somebody needing an evening guard. The agency data the individual navigating the location with particular steps and cues. For instance, the steps could also be, “Land on the web page. Scroll by means of. Don’t click on on something. What is that this web page about?” That assessments whether or not a web page conveys the aim of our model, web site, or product — on cellular and desktop.
We ship these recordings to people at our user-interface company. They may take notes and deal with these limitations. After we go dwell with a brand new design, we are going to repeat the method with one other check.
Right here’s an instance. We discovered that it’s exhausting for folks to know which of our merchandise to purchase. Now we have 4 {custom} evening guards, all comparable however with completely different thicknesses and supplies. Prospects need to know which one they want. So we’ve built-in a quiz to assist. Primarily based on the responses, it would advocate one of the best product. That quiz has a excessive degree of engagement.
Bandholz: What’s your advertising technique?
Ji: We began very sturdy on SEO in 2012. It was simpler again then. In order that was our foremost channel for a very long time, website positioning and Google Adverts. We’ve had our ups and downs with the Google algorithm. We’ve had updates that halved our site visitors over time. Then we recovered. Now prospects from natural search are about 15% to twenty% of whole income.
We nonetheless use Google Adverts. And associates are a big channel — about 25% of income — as a result of many are masters at website positioning. In the event you seek for one of the best mouth guard, evening guard, or greatest guard for enamel grinding, our associates are sometimes the highest one, two, or three outcomes.
The remainder is e mail advertising. We by no means cracked Fb Adverts. For some time, we have been working retargeting adverts on Fb. That was okay. However even then, after the iOS 14.5 updates, retargeting was unprofitable for us. We most likely spent the equal of a Honda Civic on Fb Adverts and by no means actually obtained a return.
We’ve nailed our content material advertising course of fairly nicely. To date, it’s nearly completely for website positioning. However people don’t at all times search on Google for questions on mouthguards and enamel grinding. So we’re wanting into investing in movies, similar to on YouTube and TikTok.
A competitor began a TikTok channel. Certainly one of their movies about enamel grinding on TikTok obtained over 1 million views. We’re seeking to leverage TikTok and the creator market to strive comparable issues.
Bandholz: The place can folks study extra about you?
Ji: Our web site is ProTeethGuard.com. I’m on Twitter and LinkedIn.