What do surgeons look for in a Dental laboratory?

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Permalink Reply by Keith Goldstein on February 13, 2010 at 12:39pm

Daniel:
You ask some general questions which my partner and I discuss on a daily basis in trying to grow our business.
The most difficult challenges we run into is how do we consistently communicate the experience that we possess and the quality that we can provide and the value that we offer by working with us.
I can only speak for my experiences in the US market.

My company for example is all about zirconia abutments- this is an add on to our other product/service offerings. We have lots of competition in this space so we have focused on working with all of the known implant manufactures to provide their clients with zirconia abutments. This is how we differentiate from all the other dental labs that own Nobel, Straumann, or send to Atlantis. We focus on a high quality product at a price that is significantly lower than any other vendor. rhe differentiation of implant systems and pricing makes people interested in us but that is not enough. We gain business when either myself or my partner speaks with the doctors on the phone. We do not "sell" we educate, we critically talk about what we do, we honestly speak to the doctor on a technical level and a professional level about how we would address their needs. I feel that at the end of the discussion they understand they are working with a company that understands what they are trying to accomplish, have the skills and experience to provide value, and don't beat around the bush. We are an asset to their practice.

In terms of innovation large labs and large companies provide this to their clients because they have deep pockets. We invested into a scanner and created our own milling system to mill out zirconia abutments. This was only possible with having the CAD/CAM knowledge that I gained as a sales engineer for a scanner manufacturer.

This is "innovation" but is that enough - no it is not. We only use tried and tested materials and work with these vendors so we know that our clients are comfortable in utilizing our services/solutions. Quality is critical to our success and not price though. I tell surgeons about our experience, that we are a medium priced lab, and that our implant experience is based on 15 years of working on implant cases. This is what differentiates us from the dental labs that claim they know implants but when you speak with them they have very limited knowledge. This is a very difficult concept to communicate over the phone and even visually. People only understand what quality we provide after they have worked with us. Then they understand the value that we offer.
I would approach your market solving problems to solutions based on offering quality products. Personally we focus on implants since this is a growing market and we have vast amounts of knowledge in this.

Hope this helps
Keith Goldstein
Zirconia Abutment.com