When you need to see both sides of a customer journey – cooperation with other service providers

When you’re working in the service industry, collaborating with third-party service providers is an essential trait and doing so with efficiency is at an unmatched trajectory. Dental practices, especially orthodontics need to foster a sufficient relationship and cooperation with a laboratory whether it is the practice’s own lab or an external laboratory. Coordinating the timing of the laboratory to that of the orthodontic practice then becomes mandatory.

The pull principle (kanban) can be adequately applied here because the laboratory’s services must be integrated into the practice’s own cycle. How many orders should you place in the laboratory? How long will the laboratory take to process the orders? Will your orders be delivered on time? These are questions that have the potential to influence the overall workflow.

Outsourcing work to laboratory

Before you make your first order with a laboratory, it is good to consider this question: how many orders can it handle at a certain period of time? When it comes to traffic jams, work should be outsourced to a laboratory. With MyOrthoLab®, we work with a lot of customers outside Germany so delivery times or postal routes are a factor that can sometimes be problematic.

Automation and computerization in the laboratory ultimately save a lot of time. For example, a 3D printer can work in parallel with technicians and under certain conditions at night, and semi-automated planning replaces many coordination processes that used to take much longer.

Outsourcing work to patients

You can outsource work not only to other service providers but also to patients. The best example is our braces configurator. We offer an option for patients to design components for braces individually and according to their taste through this web application. Children especially love this tool, which in turn increases the acceptance and anticipation of the braces.

At the same time, this procedure eliminates the need for discussion regarding the selection during practice appointments. Not only do we save time, but also promote patient satisfaction by allowing the patient to select the designs at home and alter them as per his/her wishes.

The average price of a practice hour in Germany is around 350 euros. If we multiply this by the number of new patients per year, we arrive at quite a large sum. The implementation of such a configurator amounts to around 10,000 to 15,000 euros. Therefore, it usually pays for itself within one year. Just have a look at it.

We also use a configurator in the laboratory for our medical customers so that they can send their orders to MyOrthoLab® in a standardized way.50 Request access to try it out.