Foks 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 by way of ecommerce. Its impressions-by-mail course of facilitates {custom} manufacturing — and glad clients.

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

Our total 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 workers and simply over $1 million in annual income. Throughout Covid, a whole lot 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 stated, “Let’s concentrate on our ecommerce web site.”

Presently, the dental lab solely companies the ecommerce enterprise. My mother is answerable for the technical aspect of producing the product and ensuring it matches completely. I’m answerable for advertising, customer support, and funds.

We use a scorecard for every function inside the firm — impressed by the e book “Who: The A Methodology 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 with the ability to comply with processes, reply inquiries, and supply an important expertise. A stretch end result is recognizing alternatives to enhance, equivalent to higher effectivity.

I ask the workers, “What have you ever steered 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 function. We confer 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 inner listing of regularly requested questions. We collect all of the questions obtained via e-mail and cellphone calls, construct the listing, and ship it to them. Over time HelpFlow’s employees improves by updating the interior FAQs. We’ve used the service for seven years. Eighty p.c 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 referred to as “chatted income.” They could doc, “This buyer chatted with us after which transformed.” Some clients could have transformed regardless, however the conversion fee for individuals who engaged in chats is round 10 instances greater than those that didn’t. The service prices a month-to-month retainer price. 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 consumer testing to find friction factors on a web site and the place folks get confused. Conversion Crimes sends a consumer who matches our audience to our web site — somebody needing an evening guard. The agency data the particular person navigating the location with particular steps and cues. For instance, the steps could also be, “Land on the web page. Scroll via. 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 cell and desktop.

We ship these recordings to people at our user-interface company. They’ll take notes and deal with these limitations. After we go stay with a brand new design, we’ll 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 totally 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 is going to advocate the very 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 important channel for a very long time, search engine marketing 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 marketing. For those who seek for the very best mouth guard, evening guard, or finest guard for tooth grinding, our associates are usually the highest one, two, or three outcomes.

The remainder is e-mail advertising. We by no means cracked Fb Adverts. For some time, we had been working retargeting adverts 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 obtained a return.

We’ve nailed our content material advertising course of fairly properly. To date, it’s virtually completely for search engine marketing. However people don’t all the time search on Google for questions on mouthguards and tooth grinding. So we’re wanting into investing in movies, equivalent to on YouTube and TikTok.

A competitor began a TikTok channel. One in every of their movies about tooth 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 be taught extra about you?

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