“Just in time” sales tools

Dentists love the new time-saving system for ordering Henry Schein Dental products and supplies.

Henry Schein Dental works every day to ensure that dentists and their patients have access to the best tools and technologies. One of the opportunities and challenges: Henry Schein offers tens of thousands of products, so sales consultants must present information on everything from overhead lights to X-ray equipment and sterilization equipment. Traditionally, Henry Schein Dental printed volumes of sales materials that sales consultants had to take with them on calls. Carrying volumes of printed sales materials was sometimes cumbersome.

Now, Henry Schein Dental sales consultants are armed with a custom sales literature solution created in FileMaker Pro 12 and running on FileMaker Go for iPad. The solution lets them search through thumbnails, pull up pertinent literature, order a PDF or print version and hand over personalized, “just-in-time” sales materials on the spot. With a PHP-based solution, Henry Schein Dental delivers the same custom sales literature solution to sales consultants using a web browser on their desktop and laptops for those who do not yet have an iPad. Speed of customer communication and knowledge of the available sales tools have improved significantly.

On the back-end, FileMaker Server tracks quantities of sales materials to reveal exactly what needs to be printed, potentially saving tens of thousands of dollars previously wasted on overstocked, never-used brochures. Baucom and others on the marketing team can use FileMaker Pro 12 on Windows and Mac computers to generate reports automatically and to chart inventory levels and popularity of specific pieces to continually improve and streamline the production process.

The company also has created an event-registration solution that enables customers to sign up for seminars and other events online. This solution, as well as the literature solution, is currently available in the US, and is being considered for rollout in other countries.

Innovating to save money and time

For the dental sales team, the FileMaker platform has helped Henry Schein Dental project an image of innovation and responsiveness at every visit to a dentist.

“With the FileMaker Platform and FileMaker Go for iPad, our sales consultants have the right information, at the right time, for the right customer, every day,” says Baucom. “The time savings from having 24-hour access to all literature, photos and catalogs has allowed our sales team to become more efficient and productive.”