Daniel Guardans:
Hi and welcome to our first episode of the CX Coffee Chat for 2025. I’m your host Daniel Guardans. I’m the EMEA Business Director here at The Nest. And today I’m pleased to have with me Federico Floridi, Head of Inside Sales, Post Sales and Collection and Impress. Hi Federico, welcome and thank you for joining us.
Federico Floridi:
Hey, how you doing? Thank you so much, Dani. Thank you for inviting me.
Daniel Guardans:
Thank you 100 % from our site. So, Federico, can you please introduce yourself to the audience? We would love to hear a bit about you. Tell us a bit about your journey.
Federico Floridi:
Yeah, of course. Of course, of course. Thank you so much, first of all, and again, thank you for inviting me. This is like a great opportunity, I think. And nothing, my journey was pretty straightforward. I worked in different companies before joining Impress two years ago. I worked in BPO’s as well and worked in Amazon, and now I’m at Impress, which is still considered as a startup, but we are so big that it’s not really much of a startup feeling anymore being in 10 countries across Europe and then in the US as well. pretty much what I’m doing right now, I transitioned from my original role as Head of Inside Sales and Post Sales and Collection.
A few months ago I was assigned to a different role because this is like a little bit of the beauty of working in a startup, always being ready to jump on the next challenge and this is something that I really like and that really enjoy. And right now I’m actually taking care of the UK market, mostly focusing on the sales part and on the post sales part. So I’m doing like you know both roles and trying to do the patient journey as well as possible.
Daniel Guardans:
And as you said, right, so your role has been transitioning throughout this period.
Federico Floridi:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly, exactly. yeah, this is little bit like the transition. Like, you know, because as I said before, this is like, you know, how beautiful it is to work in a startup because once there is a need for something different, you always need to be there and ready to jump on that. You cannot really like, you know, waste any time. And because like, of course, the different kind of resources compared to, for example, to where I was in Amazon and the structure of where I was in Amazon, you always need to be very flexible. So I really think like, you it’s a great opportunity to work in a startup, especially in very successful startup as Impress. And I think it’s something that I would always suggest to anyone to have this kind of experience because you can really leverage your kind of your instincts and your flexibility at work. Because I mean, you can really understand if you can be that kind of person that can be flexible and jump on different things at the same time, or jump on different things from time to time. Or if you’re just like more of a person that needs like, you know, really to stay on that job, on that title, on the same team and work on his goals. There is nothing bad on either way. It’s just a different kind of profile that you need in different situations. But I would always suggest this kind of experience to anyone.
Daniel Guardans:
Right. Because you’ve worked in like, as you said, right, Amazon, BPOs. How did you leverage that from in the startups scale up ecosystem space that you’re in right now?
Federico Floridi:
Yeah, this is a very good question, Dani, because I mean, this is a little bit of a mix, because it’s not that when you jump on a startup, you can just be, okay, this is a startup feeling, let’s all go in this way, let’s all go in that way. No, I think, know, especially because I’ve worked in a very good BPO, such as teleperformance, such as CPM, and then I jumped on Amazon.
I had like different kind of structures in both situations, in BPOs and Amazon. And then what I actually did as soon as I jumped in Impress, I brought some of what I learned into Impress to make things more like structure, I would say, as it is, for example, in Amazon. So constructing actually written workflows where everyone could actually access them, read what the workflow is about, and then can suggest changes so that then the changes can be visible for everyone. Because this is a little bit like the difference in between, I think, of a startup, especially of rising startup, and a more structured company as Amazon. In Amazon, of course, everything is there, is very much controlled, everything is written, everything can be reviewed by anyone.
Then when you jump on a startup, because there are so many changes, it doesn’t mean that you cannot structure those changes. It is actually something that to me is very much needed. You can do changes, you can make changes at any point you want, because mean, changes are very good if they are well thought and very structured, but you need to… make sure that everyone knows about those changes because otherwise we’ll have different departments working on different workflows when in reality they need to work on the same workflows and they need to be aware of any change and the change needs to be approved and if not approved they need to be known by everyone.
Daniel Guardans:
Right. Yeah. And then you’ve been at Impress for a long time, right?
Federico Floridi:
Hmm, yes, almost like two years!
Daniel Guardans:
And you’ve seen like, because Impress has been a very successful startup, right? So it’s raised money throughout the different stages and it’s continued to grow. Do you see a very different way of working at the first beginnings abd Impress today?
Federico Floridi:
Yeah, absolutely. I would totally say that. I totally agree with what you said, Dani, especially if you think about the fact that now we are in 10 different countries. We are now like in, because of the acquisition of Dr. Smile, which was our biggest competitor, we are now in the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, France with a huge footprint and not forgetting about Spain, Italy and Portugal where we are leaders.
And now the UK where we are becoming leaders of the sector. So, I mean, this is a huge step and definitely I can see how things have changed towards a more structured, towards a more kind of way of working where everyone cooperates with each other, where everyone helps each other in making those changes, not just working in silos, because that’s another big issue when you work in a company where there are multiple changes or where there is a hyper growth, that sometimes you have departments working silos and departments don’t know what’s going on in the others. So this is something that I can see that the company is maturing so much and everyone is becoming more aware of what’s going on in the company.
Daniel Guardans:
Right? Because you’ve mentioned, right, there’s several countries and you’ve helped scale these sales teams to cover France, UK, Italy, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands. How do you ensure the sales quality is consistent across all these regions? And what measures do you implement to maintain alignment with the company like standards and goals?
Federico Floridi:
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, this is very good question. And I think it is very important when you work across different kind of countries that you standardize certain processes, but that you then apply those processes in a different way on each country. What do I mean by that? Because it kind of sounds that I’m saying the opposite of what I said before. No, instead, you standardize the processes so you… pretty much implement the same kind of processes, but then you need to apply them in a different way for a different public. Because of course, the way that you approach an Italian like me or like in Spanish is different of a way that you then need to approach an English person or a Dutch person. This is like, know, it sounds pretty obvious.
But sometimes people forget about that because even within Spain itself, like Dani, you know that I live in Barcelona, you live in Madrid. And you know that even the same people living in Madrid and Barcelona are different kinds of people, are different kinds of prospects, are different kinds of patients, and you need to be able to treat them differently. So you can standardize the processes, but then the approach needs to be different, to be adapted to the crowd and to the customers or to the patients that you are dealing with. So this is like something that to me it’s very important and it’s something that we work like, you know, very thoroughly to accomplish.
Daniel Guardans:
And how does it work in your case because you’re handling like different departments that sometimes have a clash, right? Because it’s the sales department and then the post sales. And sometimes there’s issues with the, it’s the responsibility of the sales team that potentially has, has oversold something. And then the post sales team might be affected by this. How do you balance teams that sometimes potentially might clash in some scenarios?
Federico Floridi:
Mm-hmm.
And this is like in a very good scenario, Dani, because I think, you know, this is a little bit of like, you know, sometimes they become internal wars, like, you know, between departments, that should happen. That should not absolutely happen because actually there should be a working together in between departments. That’s why it’s always important that the different departments talk to each other in understanding what’s going on because sometimes we forget that, yeah, it’s true that the post sales department is the department that kind of, you know, turn down fires.
But I mean, if you don’t work on the sales department to make sure that those fires don’t even happen, you would not be able to really like, you know, to turn those fires down. So it’s a little bit of prevention from the sales part. So to teach to the sales department how to sell and how to make a proper sale not as a sale that is not 100 % convincing, but it needs to be 1000 % convincing. And then in case there is, because it can always happen, because sometimes like, you know, some issues are out of control of the sales team.
If there is any kind of issues in post sales, like, you know, the two departments, the two people need to work together in order to fix it. So that’s what I always incentivize, like, you know, for people from the post sales once they jump on a case, like for example a refund or any kind of delay or anything like that, because these things can happen, they need to get in touch with the sales team, with the sales representative who made the sale to understand a little bit about the patient, about what happened, about what could be the reason. Because you know, maybe it’s easier than you thought and a chat or a quick call can save you so much more time later on in trying to deal with a very bad situation, with a very uncomfortable situation.
Daniel Guardans:
Exactly. And in that, with that sense, how do you, because I’m guessing you’ve hired quite a bit of people, right? How do you recruit onboard and like develop that top talent within the different departments? Do you look at specific skills? Is it more like a cultural fit that they’re potentially going to grow within Impress? Is there some, what are those things that are key for you?
Federico Floridi:
Mm-hmm.
I think this is something that it depends. It depends really on the department, of course. I don’t fully think 100 % that the same person doing post sales is a person that usually does sales and the way around. It could happen. It could absolutely happen because I developed in the past a sales team within the post sales team.
What do I mean by that? That sometimes, especially in B2B, you can kind of do that because, you know, when you have a recurring kind of customer in B2B and you kind of fix their issue, that customer becomes a really like, you know, it kind of starts trusting the person and the customer will actually buy anything from that person.
So that’s a very good strategy actually for cross-selling and up-selling. So this is something different. But usually, for the sales department, you want someone very driven, very sales-driven and very target-driven, and that kind of person that will really have that kind of different energy, that kind of energy that could be convincing, but not convincing, like threatening convincing, of course, convincing to make the customers understand how good is the product, how well the product will be for them, how their life could change.
So this is a different kind of personality that we were required from compared to the one in post sales. Whether in post sales, you will need more like an empathetic kind of person, a person who is patient and ready to listen to the patient and to understand why the patient took the time to get in touch with them and to really explain what’s going on and understand what’s going on and trying to see how to fix the issue.
But as I said before, I’m not saying that, of course, you know, salespeople need to be sharks, just like, you know, sales-driven, disrespecting patients or not caring about their feelings because that’s absolutely not true. Exactly, exactly, because I mean…
Daniel Guardans:
Yeah, it will kill you in the long run.
Federico Floridi:
Yes, exactly! At the end, need to remember, especially in companies like Impress or other companies, you have like sales that can be done directly in a face-to-face kind of situation where you already get the kind of confidence with the person, you get the kind of relationship with the person and the trust, which is very quick because it’s a face-to-face kind of situation. But then when you have an inside sales, for example, sales agent, that’s a different kind of ballpark. Because if you think about it, that person only has a few seconds or maximum one or two minutes to kind of connect with the customer and to create the kind of circular trust and the relationship to then sell. So…we need to be careful because sometimes actually, especially for inside sales, we need the kind of more empathetic salesperson because maybe on the phone, it’s a little bit harder to really try to get into the customer and try to build that trust.
Daniel Guardans:
Exactly. Especially I’m thinking as you guys are touching such a sensitive aspect which is health. You need that profile to be able to be extremely empathetic, right? Because it’s…
Federico Floridi:
Oh my god, Dani, yes, yeah, because if you think about it, this is something, I know that we always say, okay, like beautiful smile, like, you know, all those kind of things, but it’s not just about your smile. The smile is a consequence, it’s not the objective. The beautiful smile is a consequence of the objective of having straight teeth and having like, you know, teeth that are healthy.
Daniel Guardans:
Great.
Federico Floridi:
But this is just a positive consequence of the work behind that. But we’re talking about health. Anything related to your mouth, to your teeth will have consequences on your entire body. And I’m coming from a medical kind of background. My dad was also a dentist. He was a teacher at the university. So I was always raised with that kind of feeling, with that kind of teaching on how important it is to keep your mouth healthy. So as you said, it’s so important because first of all, it’s psychologically important because your smile is pretty much what everyone sees at first, it’s your business card, your presentation card… And then you need it.
So after the psychological part, you need to remember that this is important because of the medical part, because this is really like a medical procedure. It’s not just an aesthetic procedure, it’s a medical procedure. That’s why we use amazing doctors to do that. We don’t just use machines, AI and things like that. We use doctors and their knowledge to make people’s mouth healthy and their teeth healthy.
Daniel Guardans:
Especially because most mouths are, each mouth is quite unique, right? There’s not as,
Federico Floridi:
It is unique. It’s like no mouth is going to be the same as someone else. It’s one of those things that make us very much different. Of course, there are like four or five treatments that you can diagnose in order to make someone’s healthy. But then the way of going to the healthy kind of teeth, healthy situation, is different. can take different times, it could take different movements, could take different kind of approaches. it’s a real orthodontist, it’s different branch of dentistry.
Daniel Guardans:
And having a dad as a dentist, were you forced to floss every meal?
Federico Floridi:
Yeah, my dad was the kind of person that would give you free will. He would teach you what to do and what could be the best to do, but then it would be your responsibility. He would then treat me like, I don’t know, thank God I didn’t have many teeth issues.
I mean a dentist at home, but not because he will like, will be fixated and looking at my teeth every two seconds. No, He will look at my teeth only when I had an issue and he will tell me, you see, I told you, you were supposed to do this. You didn’t do it. Now you need to. So he would, but I had to be honest. He was, it was more like of a surgeon. So his area was, was a little bit stronger. So he just removed like three of my four wisdom teeth with a lot of pleasure when he did it, when he did it with a smile on his face because finally he could put his hands in his son. Unfortunately he passed away two years ago, but I still remember his face when he removed my wisdom teeth.
Daniel Guardans:
Wow. So going back to what we were initially talking about. What are like these KPIs that you look into right? Are there specific KPIs that you look into? Is it like revenue for you? Do you play around with different KPIs and so your team doesn’t just focus on one KPI and you look at different stuff to make sure that you guys continue this improvement and growth and optimize these processes that you guys have internally?
Federico Floridi:
Yeah, we try to make things as simple as possible, especially for our teams. Then, of course, internally, a manager level will review so many KPIs just to get to the perfection. Because if there is all the major KPIs that are going towards green, you always want to check if there is any other KPI that is going towards red just to keep on working because I mean, it’s kind of a circle. You never get to the perfection. There is always like a better perfection on top of the perfection. And so for our teams, for the sales team, what we really look into is the conversion rate. This is like something that is very important, especially in clinic, because if you think about it, every patient going to the clinic, is time for our doctors, for our nurses, for our sales representatives. So we want to try to make sure that the conversion rate, what I mean by conversion rate is like, you know the percentage of patients going for the first visit that then purchase the actual aligners, the actual treatment. So this is something that it’s very easy to test because I mean, you just need to really… Every sales agent can do it because they can just like, you know, count how many patients they sold divided how many patients they’ve seen and that’s it. And we always try to really push on this. And of course, in line with what I said before, also is the refunds. So the number of refunds, the percentage of refunds in total, and this is also something that we give to the sales team. So really like connecting to what I said before on the post sales and the sales team, working together, the refund rate is not just a KPI for the post sales team. If not, it’s also KPI for the sales team because they need to prevent any kind of refund. They need to make sure that there is no refund. So they are accountable for the refund rate as well.
Then, of course, moving towards the…
Daniel Guardans:
Because you, sorry… can I interrupt here? So to understand that correctly. So it’s more because you wanted to avoid someone to oversell something wrong, right?
Federico Floridi:
Exactly, exactly, exactly, exactly. You know, selling when the patient is not fully convinced… So it’s important to make sure, because as we said before, this is a medical treatment. So if the patient is not fully convinced, the medical treatment will not have the desired results because you need to remember that this treatment will entitle you to put your aligners for 22 hours a day, you will need to put your aligners 22 hours a day for 6, 7, 12 months. It’s something important, it’s a commitment. It’s something that sometimes we forget, but it’s a commitment because you need to learn, remember to take them off when you eat or when you drink something very hot and then you need to brush, put them back on. And you shouldn’t lose them because otherwise, you know, that’s the big issue. So it’s very, very important. You need to take pictures in between different kind of stages. It’s a commitment. So the cells need to be convincing.
The patients need to be convinced that they can do it because otherwise, the treatment will not go well. So that’s why it’s important that the sale is nice and clean.
So that there is no second thought, there is no actually thinking about it, I’m not that sure that can be able to do it, or I’m not sure I really got clear how it works. So it needs to be clear, clean, and sure. And that’s why the refund rate is also something for which the sales team is accountable for. And then for the post sales team, on top of refunds, of course,
We have different kind of KPIs like on AHD, on also on the reopen rate, CSAT, NPS. Also, going back to the sales team, we also give, it’s not the CSAT, but it’s the Google review. Each clinic has its own Google review. So each clinic is responsible for their reviews. So it’s important for us to also… have the kind of review as a KPI because nowadays, everyone goes on Google reviews. When you go on Google Maps, because you need to go somewhere, the Google review is already there. As soon as you search for something, it shows up, it’s already there. You already see if it’s a 3.2 or if it’s a 4.6. And then already, that makes you wonder wherher you want to go there. But a 500 reviews, 4.6, I love it! Yeah, yeah, I’m going for it! And so that’s something important as well. So these more or less are the KPIs that we really make our teams accountable for.
Daniel Guardans:
Yeah, especially with the reviews, one thing that’s pretty interesting that I’ve found is that the places that I mostly go when I’m in Barcelona or I’m in Madrid that I’ve always been going since when I was a kid, I never put a review. Whereas when I’m in a different city, in a restaurant, for example, I put a review on that. And these reviews have to be like, it’s always like an interesting paradigm because…you want to make sure that the restaurant that you go to doesn’t have too many reviews because then every tourist that comes from everywhere in the world will go there. But yeah, I think reviews are especially important in Google. I agree with you that this is something that we’re seeing more and more in across.
Federico Floridi:
Yeah, Google and Trustpilot because I mean, especially in certain countries, some people look into Trustpilot.
In Spain, it’s true that not so many people look at Trustpilot. But for example, in the UK, Trustpilot is something very much used in the UK and the US.
It’s a good tool. And as you said, Google reviews are crucial because when you search for anything like a restaurant, you already see the review right over there on Google. And for me, being vegan, like, you whenever I go to the new vegan restaurant or anything like that, it’s important to leave reviews because, you know, it’s a community. So it’s good to tell, okay, yeah, this is not great or this is great, and especially for new places, it’s good to establish them.
But work-wise, it’s a great tool and we are empowered to actually make those reviews really rocking and five-stars reviews. We have all the tools to do that. We have great clinics, beautiful clinics, amazing doctors and nurses. And so we have great treatments. So I don’t see why we shouldn’t always have five stars. So this is why we really make everyone accountable for them.
Daniel Guardans:
And speaking of tools, with this whole AI wave that we’re living in, is there specific AI that you’re looking into or that you already implemented within Impress that is changing a bit on how you guys operate today?
Federico Floridi:
Mm-hmm.
I cannot speak too much about this because there are certain news coming very soon.. We always try to implement the AI with the human part. As I said before, our treatments are designed by doctors. So technology… It’s super important because if you think about it, 20 years ago, we would never be able to do what we are doing right now. But the doctors are super important in creating these treatments because certified doctors use the tools that we have in order to create this treatment. And they follow the movements of each tooth in order to accomplish the results that we promised to our patients. So AI is very important. It’s going to be even more important in the next few months. But I want to stress really on how important it is, especially in the medical field, that our brains are really used in making sure that our patients have the best results. So we use it. We use it also for different kinds of applications especially with the customer service, patient care, and all these kinds of areas, because I think it’s very important. And I think it’s an important tool, and being completely honest with you, I think AI is an important tool when there are certain information that can be shared and where there is no need to use a human person.
Giving you an example, for example, I’m waiting for my treatment to be delivered. I want to know what it is. I don’t need to contact like Dani and speak to Dani to know that AI can already tell me if it’s alright, correctly implemented. Can already tell me what it is and then, you know, give me a tracking and I can click on the tracking and see where, where the order is and when it’s going to be delivered. So, I can ask to Dani, in the time the AI showed this to my patients, I can ask to Dani to do more complex kind of tasks. So I don’t want Dani to be removed and just to be replaced by a machine, of course. I want Dani to be working on more complex things that a machine is not able to do or a machine doesn’t do in the way that I like it to. So this is something very important. This is something where…
I think all this care about AI should stop now because it’s not going to replace us. It’s going to make our life better and easier. Yeah, exactly.
Daniel Guardans:
Yeah you’re right! And Federico as we’re running out of time the question that we always ask our guests in the podcast is there any piece of advice that you can recommend our audience to look into in this new 2025 that we’re entering
Federico Floridi:
That’s very good question. My piece of advice is not to be scared, not to be scared of making any change. We’re at the beginning of 2025, it’s going to be a different kind of year politically and economically. Because of the political part, the economy is going to be different. And what I would suggest to anyone, not to be scared to jump for a new challenge.
I’m always saying that we’re never too old or never too successful to jump for a new challenge that can make us more successful. So don’t be afraid to jump on a new challenge because that could really lead to something big.
Daniel Guardans:
There you go. Thank you so much for your time. Let’s wrap it up here.
Federico Floridi:
Of course. Thank you so much, Dani. It was a pleasure.
Daniel Guardans:
Thank you for being here!
