Henry Schein Halas invests in customer satisfaction

Henry Schein Halas is on a mission to underpin its sales of some of the best-known brands of dental equipment in the world with a world-class technical service and support infrastructure to back it up.

"Henry Schein Halas has a large inventory of some of the best brands of dental equipment in the world and my new role is to ensure that in both the short and long term, our customers are completely satisfied with their choice," explains Mr Jim Allsopp (pictured above), the new Henry Schein Halas Equipment Technical & Operations Manager heading up the push.

Henry Schein Halas distributes equipment from KaVo, Pelton & Crane, Planmeca, Morita, Imaging Sciences, SciCan, Cattani, Durr and many other brands intrinsic to the delivery of dentistry and drawing from such a broad base of suppliers has resulted in challenges in the past.

"The management at Henry Schein Halas continues to review all areas of the company's performance and my role has essentially been created to ensure any past misgivings about our ability to support what we sell remain in the past.

"The previous role that my position supersedes has been expanded because there is the clear realisation that in supporting complex dental equipment, you cannot just look at service in isolation. We have to look at installations, spare parts and the service and support infrastructure to ensure there are the right systems and processes in place that kick-in once our equipment is sold.

"We're now working hand-in-hand with the sales team to ensure we work as one. Our sales team manages the customer and the customer experience and once the sale reaches the committed level, we then become involved to manage the installation and ongoing support."

Mr Allsopp trained as a mechanical engineer and prior to joining Henry Schein Halas, was the COO of Sirona. In this new role, he manages a team of over 35 people that includes field service repair technicians, internal handpiece repair technicians, spare parts, administrative and support staff.

"We have a great team of people here already and we just needed to put the right structure in place to make everything work seamlessly and efficiently. Apart from our own team employed directly by Henry Schein Halas, we also have an expanded team of contractors to ensure we have truly national coverage. So a further aspect of my role is to ensure whoever services the product for us has everything they need from the appropriate training to spare parts and access to factory expertise if required.

"In addition, we are implementing technology to ensure we accurately forecast spare parts requirements so repairs can be completed as quickly as possible. We've also launched an iPhone app to help schedule the technician's time and to allow them to get sign off from the customer and to order any spare parts they may require.

"The customer is our clear focus and the customer is free to choose the technician they use. From our perspective, we are looking to work with reputable people who are open to training and open to working with us so we can give them what they need both in terms of parts and expertise if required.

"Our focus is to get our customer's problems fixed - whether the equipment is under warranty or otherwise - as soon as possible.

"It is essentially our initial goal to achieve customer satisfaction in the first instance and then we want to be the best in the country. We want to make our after sales service a selling proposition because we know that is very important and we know our customers will buy on that basis."