Attendees from left to Right, Anna Sebastian (DENTSPLY Professional), Deirdre Landers (Centrix), Terez King (DENTSPLY Professional), Delta Lane (Centrix), Jeff Delnickas (Monoject), Lucy McVay (DentalEZ), Tiger Beaudoin (Supply Rewards), Jamie Gillick (DentalEZ), Greg Brechlin (Supply Rewards), Maureen Horn (Gingi-Pak), Bill Pope (Hu-Friedy), and Bonnie Maravich (Gingi-Pak).
Dental manufacturers meet in cooperative effort
Representatives from seven different dental manufacturers met in Minneapolis in early May in a united effort to show their appreciation for their end-customers. Each of them is a Sponsor of Supply Rewards®, a frequent-buyer program in which dental practitioners earn points for their purchases of Sponsor products that are labeled with a yellow Reward Code. They redeem these points for popular, name-brand reward items online at www.supplyrewards.com.
“Hu-Friedy® dental products are made to the most exacting clinical standards and our valued customers expect nothing less,” said Bill Pope, a marketing operations team leader at the company and a meeting attendee. “ Supply Rewards gives us a great way to repay their loyalty.”
The two-day meeting, held twice a year, brought together manufacturers with competitive products who nevertheless appreciate the benefits of working as a coalition to thank their customers. “With points earned from many manufacturers, [the program] enables each customer greater reward options,” explained Jeff Delnickas, a market manager for Monoject®, a dental brand from Tyco Healthcare/Kendall, who also participated in the meeting.
In the course of the meeting, dental manufacturers shared ideas on how to thank customers and build enrollment and participation. “It is exciting to bring together these dental manufacturers in the common cause of customer appreciation,” remarked Charles Parla, a marketing manager in BI’s Coalition Marketing Group that hosted the event. “And as membership in the coalition grows, so will the benefits to the customers.”
In addition to Hu-Friedy® and Monoject®, Sponsors represented at the meeting included Centrix, Corning®, DentalEZ®, DENTSPLY Professional and Gingi-Pak®. The coalition also includes Heraeus Kulzer, Medicom®, and Essential Dental Systems (EDS).
Supply Rewards was developed by BI®, a leading international business improvement company headquartered in Minneapolis and winner of the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1999. To learn more about the Supply Rewards coalition, call Charles Parla at 952-841-2895 or e-mail him at charles.parla@biworldwide.com. For more information on BI, visit the company’s Web site at www.biworldwide.com.