Of us who grind their tooth whereas sleeping depend on custom-fitted guards for prevention. For sellers of these guards, the complication is the custom-fitting. It requires a precise tooth 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 tooth guards through ecommerce. Its impressions-by-mail course of facilitates {custom} manufacturing — and glad clients.

I lately spoke with JP Ji, Professional Enamel Guard’s president, on manufacturing challenges, customer support methods, advertising and marketing, and extra.

Our whole audio interview is embedded beneath. 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 tooth once they sleep. We ship a equipment to clients. They take an impression of their tooth 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, plenty of dentists shut down. At the moment, on-line gross sales had turn out to be a minor a part of the enterprise, in all probability 5% of the general income. So we mentioned, “Let’s deal with our ecommerce website.”

At the moment, the dental lab solely companies the ecommerce enterprise. My mother is in control of the technical facet of producing the product and ensuring it matches completely. I’m in control of advertising and marketing, customer support, and funds.

We use a scorecard for every position throughout the firm — impressed by the e-book “Who: The A Technique for Hiring” by Geoff Good. Each place has core outcomes. We even have what we name “stretch outcomes.” A core end result for a customer support worker is having the ability to observe processes, reply inquiries, and supply a fantastic expertise. A stretch end result is recognizing alternatives to enhance, similar to higher effectivity.

I ask the workers, “What have you ever recommended 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 objective, but it surely is part of the position. We consult with customer support as “buyer happiness.” Everybody in our firm is a buyer happiness supervisor.

Bandholz: You’ve got 24/7 assist. How does it work?

Ji: We use a third-party live-chat service referred to as HelpFlow. It makes use of our inside listing of steadily requested questions. We collect all of the questions obtained by way of e mail and cellphone calls, construct the listing, and ship it to them. Over time HelpFlow’s workers improves by updating the interior FAQs. We’ve used the service for seven years. Eighty % of customer support questions they’ll 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 referred to as “chatted income.” They may doc, “This buyer chatted with us after which transformed.” Some clients could have transformed regardless, however the conversion fee for many who engaged in chats is round 10 occasions greater than those that didn’t. The service costs a month-to-month retainer charge. It scales primarily based on the quantity, which works out to a few {dollars} per chat.

Bandholz: You additionally use a conversion optimization agency.

Ji: Sure. The agency, Conversion Crimes, conducts person testing to find friction factors on a web site and the place individuals get confused. Conversion Crimes sends a client who matches our audience to our website — somebody needing an evening guard. The agency information the particular person navigating the location with particular steps and cues. For instance, the steps could also be, “Land on the web page. Scroll by way of. Don’t click on on something. What is that this web page about?” That exams 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’ll take notes and tackle these limitations. After we go stay with a brand new design, we’ll repeat the method with one other take a look at.

Right here’s an instance. We realized that it’s laborious for individuals to know which of our merchandise to purchase. We’ve 4 {custom} night time guards, all comparable however with completely different thicknesses and supplies. Prospects wish to know which one they want. So we’ve built-in a quiz to assist. Primarily based on the responses, it can suggest the very best product. That quiz has a excessive stage of engagement.

Bandholz: What’s your advertising and marketing technique?

Ji: We began very robust on search engine marketing in 2012. It was simpler again then. In order that was our foremost channel for a very long time, search engine optimisation 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 clients from natural search are about 15% to twenty% of complete income.

We nonetheless use Google Adverts. And associates are a big channel — about 25% of income — as a result of many are masters at search engine optimisation. When you seek for the very best mouth guard, night time guard, or finest guard for tooth grinding, our associates are usually the highest one, two, or three outcomes.

The remaining is e mail advertising and marketing. We by no means cracked Fb Adverts. For some time, we have been operating retargeting advertisements on Fb. That was okay. However even then, after the iOS 14.5 updates, retargeting was unprofitable for us. We in all probability spent the equal of a Honda Civic on Fb Adverts and by no means actually received a return.

We’ve nailed our content material advertising and marketing course of fairly nicely. Up to now, it’s nearly solely for search engine optimisation. However people don’t at all times search on Google for questions on mouthguards and tooth grinding. So we’re trying into investing in movies, similar to on YouTube and TikTok.

A competitor began a TikTok channel. One in all their movies about tooth grinding on TikTok received over 1 million views. We’re seeking to leverage TikTok and the creator market to attempt comparable issues.

Bandholz: The place can individuals be taught extra about you?

Ji: Our web site is ProTeethGuard.com. I’m on Twitter and LinkedIn.