Founded in 1930 and headquartered in Pittston, Pennsylvania, Benco Dental is the largest privately owned and fastest-growing distributor of dental supplies and equipment in the United States. Its 1,500 employees sell a catalog of 300,000 products to dental practices across the country.
At a glance
- Industry
- Medical
- Employees
- 1,500
- Founded
- 1930
- Revenue
- $1B
- Website
- benco.com
- Proton products
- CRMeCommerce AI
That catalog is also the problem. Nearly 30% of those products were introduced in the past three years, and customers increasingly expect one consistent experience whether they order online, call in, or wait for a rep to walk through the door. Benco concluded those were problems it could only solve with AI.
The challenge: three channels, three versions of the same gap
The same shortfall looked different depending on where you stood in the business.
Ecommerce. Benco wanted to guide customers to the products they actually need and follow through with a great delivery experience online.
But most personalization tools are designed for B2C websites and take a reductive approach — factoring in only ecommerce data, or making recommendations that ignore which buyer is logged in. That isn't sufficient for a distributor's multichannel model, and Benco was feeling the pain.
Customer service and inside sales. Customers' needs were slipping through the cracks and reps were missing sales opportunities. CSRs and ISRs sold reactively, asking “is there anything else I can add to your order?” or reaching for catch-alls like “there's a buy 2, get 1 free promotion on gloves this week — do you need gloves?”
Benco wanted these reps to become proactive order-makers rather than passive order-takers: a profit center instead of a cost center.
Outside sales. In a high-volume, high-SKU environment where nearly a third of the catalog turns over every three years, field reps didn't have the visibility or the data to pitch new products confidently, or to answer a customer's question on the spot.
“If we could figure out a way to feed our reps information about their customers without them having to go search for it, they'd be able to act upon it faster and become more efficient.”
Katy Cohen · Chief Revenue Officer, Benco DentalWhy Proton: buy the models instead of building the team
Benco priced out the alternative. Building neural network AI in-house is cost prohibitive for a distributor, and a simplistic off-the-shelf recommendation engine wouldn't have the same impact. Proton's models were already trained on the way distribution works.
“When we identified that Proton could deliver the AI models we knew we needed at a substantially reduced cost from us having to build a team internally and develop it custom, that was really compelling. And certainly, the fact that they have distribution experience and understand the problems that we're trying to solve was also very helpful.”
Mike Burns · Chief Information Officer, Benco DentalStarting online: the phase with essentially zero change management
Benco implemented Proton in phases, and the first one asked nothing of a single rep.
AI-generated personalized recommendations went in throughout the ecommerce site: semantic and keyword search, reorder reminders, substitute and switch-and-save suggestions, cross-sells, and complete-the-cart ideas — every one of them tailored to the exact customer shopping at that moment.
“I think that one is probably a good place for a new distributor to start because there is essentially zero change management. You can demonstrate the results and the veracity of the models and that gives you ammunition as you start changing the tools that the sales reps use.”
Mike Burns · Chief Information Officer, Benco DentalThe site doubled as a listening post. Proton tracks what customers browse online and passes it to the reps who manage those accounts, so a click at 11pm becomes something a human can talk about the next morning.
In 2020, Benco attributed an incremental $2.7 million of ecommerce revenue to Proton's “similar products” model alone.
The sales rollout: from order-takers to order-makers
Ten percent of Benco's orders arrive by phone and email. Proton gave that team a simple web app with real-time reorder and add-on recommendations, so a call about bite trays turns into: “Great! I'm also looking at your account and suspect you might be due to reorder gloves and bibs soon. Would you like to add either of those to your order?”
Inside sales got a different question answered: who to call, and what to sell. An AI-generated account prioritization list ranks customers by revenue impact, helps each rep stay on top of over 150 accounts, and flags the ones showing at-risk purchasing behavior before they quietly churn.
“Proton made it easy and seamless. I'd say the part that really clicked for the inside sales reps was they were able to use one unified platform for product information, CRM and calling lists. Previously they had to use multiple tools. It removed a lot of friction and allowed them to more easily be compliant in tracking who they talked to, about what and the follow-up steps.”
Mike Burns · Chief Information Officer, Benco DentalThe last phase was the hardest audience: 346 outside sales reps, a group that has historically been difficult to reach with new technology. They now carry one mobile and web app holding product data, order history, sales trends, and searchable sell sheets, plus cross-channel visibility, task management, and opportunity management.
“In just two minutes in the car before they go into a dental office, sales reps can quickly skim through the app and see everything going on with that customer, and that knowledge is powerful when they engage with their customers.”
Katy Cohen · Chief Revenue Officer, Benco DentalBefore
With Proton
Phone orders
BeforeCatch-all pitches: “is there anything else I can add to your order?”
With ProtonReal-time reorder and add-on recommendations for the specific customer on the line.
Rep tools
BeforeProduct information, CRM, and calling lists lived in separate systems.
With ProtonOne unified platform, so logging who was called, about what, and what's next is simple.
Field prep
BeforeReps had to go searching for customer data — or walk into the office without it.
With ProtonTwo minutes in the car: order history, sales trends, and searchable sell sheets.
The results: $7.21 for every pitch a rep makes
Benco measures Proton the way it measures anything else — by what comes back.
Every pitch is worth seven times more
On average, Benco earns $7.21 in incremental revenue for every Proton pitch recommendation a sales rep makes. Before Proton, that figure was $0.99, so each pitch now earns 7.3 times as much.
The difference is relevance: customers get targeted recommendations meant for them instead of company-wide promotional pushes.
$2.7M from a single ecommerce model
In 2020, Proton's “similar products” AI model alone drove an incremental $2.7 million in ecommerce revenue. That significantly outperformed the substitute product model Benco had tried to build internally — proof that a neural network approach beats a simpler one on the same problem.
Customer service turned into a revenue generator
In the first half of 2021, Benco's customer service reps generated roughly $250,000 in attributed revenue through Proton add-on product recommendations — from a team whose job used to end the moment the order was written down.
Ecommerce back to pre-pandemic levels in three months
Benco's online revenue dipped with COVID-19, then returned to pre-pandemic weekly levels in just three months. June and July of 2020 came in higher than December of the year before. Benco attributes that recovery in part to Proton.
Wins reps couldn’t have found on their own
Browsing data flowing from the website out to the field turns into business. “I won an entirely new category of business from one of my customers because I referenced a product they had recently browsed online during one of my site visits,” one outside sales rep told Proton.
Another was blunter about the time it gives back: “I'm kind of obsessed with the fact that I could look up an article for somebody or look up product information right there. The amount of time that has saved me is insane.”
The bottom line: a partner that earned each phase with the last one
Benco credits four things. Proton's recommendation engine is designed exclusively for B2B distributors, so it pulls data from every sales channel and every relevant system rather than ecommerce alone.
Benco's leaders drove the change from the top, as they have with technology for decades. The recommendations surface where reps and customers are already working. And the rollout was sequenced so each phase funded belief in the next.
That sequencing is what made the sales team receptive. “When we introduced Proton to our sales reps, it wasn't ‘Hey, here's this new thing. We hope it works.'” Burns said. “We said, ‘These are the same kind of models we use in Benco.com, which have demonstrated these verifiable results. This will help you sell more and make more commissions.'”
