Avoiding the 'Purple Elephant'
Posted Sep 23, 2013 in Industry News
Mike Hill's Barry D. The Lab Guy made its debut in the January issue of LMT; here's the latest in his series of comic strips and commentary depicting life in the lab.
Several years ago we received a case that sparked a complete shift in the way our lab is run. A doctor asked us to make two zirconia crowns for a 17-year-old girl. The crowns were to replace teeth #8-9 and the prescription specified that the length of the centrals be 18mm long! We called to clarify the instructions and the doctor confirmed that the patient had a standard bite, nothing was out of proportion and that she wanted teeth that were 18mm long.
Over the course of five phone calls, we presented every possible failure scenario. The doctor insisted: 18mm. In the end, we produced and delivered the crowns as directed. The case never came back and the doctor tells us it went very nicely. We continue to do business together and all is well—except for the fact that somewhere in Southern California there is a woman with tusk-like incisors!
At my former company, one of my salespeople had a saying, "If a client wants us to make our product look like a purple elephant,...
