Word-of-mouth push for Star Dental’s India foray
Star Dental India has announced the launch of its first unit in the chain of multi specialty dental care centres, christened Clove at New Delhi’s Rajouri Garden. The professionally run group is looking to set up 300 company owned clinics across India by 2015.
Commenting on the India foray, Amarinder Pal Singh, CEO, Star Dental India said that the focus is expansion in tier I, II and III cities, as well as the NCR region. The company has already set up seven facilities across five locations in the Delhi NCR area, including Vikas Puri, Shivalik, SDA and Faridabad.
Along with the dental center, a mobile clinic, which will offer dental care at highly subsidised rates, has also been launched.
Singh informed that the oral care industry in India stands at $1.8 billion and is pegged to grow at six per cent annually. When asked what percentage share of this market Star Dental is looking at, he insisted that the focus is more on opening as many number of clinics as possible and ensuring consistent quality dental care across all the clinics. “We have affordable rates for our services, which fits in with Clove’s ethos of value for money,” he maintained.
To maintain the high quality service, stringent attention is being given to hire the best talent, along with providing a good amount of training as well as the right incentives and compensation. Star Dental is looking to hire as many as 2,000-3,000 dentists over the next two-three years.
As of now, all promotions are being handled by an in-house team, but Star Dental is considering bringing on board a creative and media agency by the end of this year.
Given the government regulations regarding advertising of medical services, Star Dental is relying more on word-of-mouth publicity of its existing customers for promotion. “Our customers are our biggest promoters,” Singh said.
The company does have a comprehensive media strategy in place involving print, radio, social media and region-specific media vehicles to announce the opening of new clinics.
Clove will provide complete dental care solutions encompassing general dentistry, endodontic and cosmetic procedures, periodontics procedures, orthodontic procedures, oral & maxillofacial surgery, prosthodontics and pedodontic procedures.
Headquartered in Delhi, Star Dental India was set up on March 18, 2011. The company is one of the first in the country to launch its own dental laboratory.