Benco Dental Reviews

Pros

Very approachable! Mgmt values your opinion!
This is a company that is growing and wants the employees to be apart of the fun!
National Sales meetings reflect the theme this 3rd generational company is trying to achieve.

Cons

With any sales position, be prepared for long hours, working nights and weekends. If the time is invested you will be rewarded.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep listening and being proactive!

Pros

The Cohen Family Involvement at all levels
Sales department recognition of efforts and results
Their national meetings
Outstanding Customer Service Department
Many people have had long careers at Benco

Cons

Multi levels of management unwilling to recognize,admit or do anything about blatant favoritism.
Management attitude of willingly overlooking the "more seasoned" representative-what could they possibly know anyway? Why should experience mean anything?

Advice to Senior Management

Please Wake Up and do something, you should not allow your company to continually lose even more talented people.
Put together an even better commission structure with the company absorbing some costs

Pros

Benco offers very good Income potential especially considering no college degree required
Flexibility
Innovative
Family work balance

Cons

Regional competition
Not Nationwide vs large national players

Pros

*exactly opposite of the previous reviews
*first priority is taking care of their customers & employees
*MGR's listen, and plan with the TR's in mind
*better software than competitors - customer ordering software and rep's software
*when visiting the HQ's I made sure I asked the local employees what their takes were
and every one of them had good things to say.
*built an infrastructure first (Reno DC and the best service techs available) and added sales team
into the mix after
*the company has a true vision that included taking care of what they had first (profit sharing, etc)
and building for the future.
*6 months in - comparing to 10 years with another dental distributor...I give it a 9.5 out of 10.

Cons

*From the sales perspective, not a lot.
*Normal 15% annual growing pains
*Could be more aggressive on the benefits package but as a whole, its fine.
*Frustrated with the thankless current employees who come on glassdoor.com and complain. My experience has been completely opposite. Please be a man/woman of class and confront your managers and explain to them your discontent in a professional manner. This is a much better situation (operations included) than other competitors I've been associated with.

Advice to Senior Management

I appreciate the time you have allowed me to make a well-thought out decision. You have given me ample information and built an amazing infrastructure around me in the process, allowing me to better myself and my family. Your focus is building this great company methodically and precisely is to be respected. I appreciate the attention to detail along the way. Most of all you have given me "opportunity". A word that escapes most sales people in their profession these days. Thank you.

Pros

The people (not managers) are fun, caring co-workers
It is a paycheck.
Recession proof dental industry means job stability in most areas.

Cons

Too many to list:

Absolutely pitiful, horrible, insurance to the point of being insulting
Managers play favorites at every opportunity
Pay scale is well below what you should be getting for the work you are doing

Advice to Senior Management

If you are considering a career at benco dental, think again. Although the company is "growing" and "expanding" it is losing some of its oldest, best, and brightest employees and salesmen in the process. To combat this, Benco says they are hiring new reps all of the time. Gee thanks - I feel better already now that "johnny smith" from some community college with no sales experience is hired to replace a 25 year veteran who has gone to the competition. Wouldn't that mean the company is not truly growing - just running faster on the treadmill? A lot of people - dentists included - are being stepped on for this "growth".

The things to dislike are many - a very rigid, corporate attitude towards absolutely everything - this business model is very "old school" and is almost "my way or the highway" mentality. Outdated really, it feels more like the attitude of the '60s or '70s when workers had little to no rights. managers are the absolute worste - completely power mad to the point of acting more like dictators. If you disagree with your manager's idea or way of doing things, be prepared for your daily life here to be a living hell. Benco may say they value ideas from employees - but only to an extent. They want robotic "yes men" who will agree with everything at every turn. If you think for yourself, again, your manager will make things rough on you. Each department is almost an independent entity - no one really knows who is doing what but if you make a mistake - you'll find out pretty quick. God forbid you ask a department if they handle a certain task - they will usually give you an unprofessional snotty response which is par for the course on a lot of things here.

Senior management is even worse - only they seem to know the direction Benco is really headed in and everything is extremely "hush hush". You will be told information at the last possible moment "from above" and then be expected to jump through hoops with no questions asked. You will be asked to drop everything you are doing(despite being loaded with work) more times than you can imagine.

The prevailing attitude here is clear - if you are a million dollar sales rep you can do what you want, when you want and how you want, getting away with it every time. Everyone else is expendable and can be replaced. Oh, of course unless you are in the "big boys club" - personal friends of the Cohens. Then you too can say and do what you want - to who you want - with no repercussions whatsoever.

The jobs are very unfalfilling - you come in, do your work, go home - repeat every five days while sometimes getting free tickets for something chanced off or a free lunch thrown in. No creativity whatsoever.

Overall, do not look to benco dental for a rewarding career. It is a steady below-average pay place. Raises are horrible even if you score as high as possible on their scale. I would say they barely cover the cost of living so you are not truly making more income. Getting time off is extremely difficult since many departments are now smaller yet expected to do even more work. Unless you are friends with your manager - you can then take vactions whenever you want no questions asked.

The list of bad far outshines the good with benco dental. Think twice and do your homework before applying or you just may regret it.

Pros

Benco is in a very recession resistant industry. They are always growing. Its a stable place to work. Your satisfaction can vary widely depending on the department, job title, and manager. There are some outstanding individuals that work there. If you are in the correct area's it can be rewarding and fun. If you are also looking for a stable 9-5 job and just want to get a list of duties and go home at the end of the day, this could be a good place to work.

The company has many actives, community service projects, luncheons, etc to try to keep spirits up. Its not usual for a company of this size. There is also an excellent brainstorming program that allows employees to suggest ideas that do get reviewed by senior management and the owners.

Generally, Senior management was approachable and knows you by name.

Cons

This is a company struggling with its growth. Many processes are procedures are simply outdated for the size of the company. Many things don't flow right.

If you check PA's Best Places to work ranking, you can see that Benco debuted very high on the list and steadily went down in rank at the years when on, until they failed to rank in 2008.

Over the past 3 years, almost all management and senior management has been hired externally from larger companies. They've given up on trying to grow talent on the inside, and now prefer to buy it off the shelf. There is a melting pot of management styles from all different companies, and I would expect it to be this way for many years before it becomes uniform again.

Departments are very siloed. Its a battle to get things done if you need to involve a different department or group. You have to be stubborn accepting a new project or duty because you will own it forever even if it doesn't belong to you or your department. Arguments with other departments on responsibility and procedures often get in the way of doing your job.

I would describe the culture as "our way or the highway." You are going to be told what projects you will be doing and how you will be doing them. In my time there, I was never asked the simple question "what do you like doing?"

There are often too many hands in the pot when it comes to management. Many associates get work and projects from multiple managers and directors. In many areas there are defiantly too many bosses.

As far as motivation and rewards, it seems that Benco will take a one size fits all approach. As a professional staff, you may get rewarded in a manner that is more suited for a warehouse worker or call center rep. At the professional staff level, this can seem a bit insincere.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't think that a shiny new corporate office building is going to magically solve all your problems. Treat everyone as an important, valuable member of the team, not just sales reps that do more than 1 million in sales.

Pros

Looking back I can't think of any! Maybe the insurance. Not good money made here. Very backward way of doing things.

Cons

Very poor management, more people skills needed too much expected

Advice to Senior Management

Hire people that know what they're doing!

Pros

Good Family, Family Company, Continueing to grow, Great Opportunity

Cons

Not a whole lot of support. Be Sure you are in a good market.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the work

Pros

The best reason to work for Benco Dental is that everyone is very friendly and seems to enjoy what they do. They really do want to see everyone succeed and provide a lot of training and seminars throughout the year to keep you up to speed with things happening in the dental industry.

Cons

In the area I worked there was not too great of an opportunity to make money, due to the poor economy of the city and the area. There was a little too much favoritism due to the fact that Benco buys out existing dental distributors, so they people that wok there tend to have worked together for a while and can be unwelcoming to anyone new.

Advice to Senior Management

I would say that sometimes the lack of sales is more due to the area and the economy than the sales rep.

Pros

Company has been around for many years. Stable industry - dentists will always need supplies and Benco provides a good resource for the dental industry. Prices are very good, and competitive. Northeastern Pennsylvania is a depressed area with very few opportunities. A job at Benco is better than being unemployed. We got free hot dogs a few times (only 2 per employee).

Cons

You're not going to be promoted or make any real money unless you are with the "in" crowd there. This is a family owned business, and if you're not in the Cohen family you have no chance of moving up and making real money.

There's too much gossip and backstabbing.

The environment and mood there is very dull and drab. Rigid and corporate, and not a very diverse or interesting staff for the most part. You are expected to be a robot. Individuality is not part of the culture.

They've been doing business since 1930, and there's a lot of the old mentality and resistance in embracing new ideas and change.

Management plays favorites. It's by no means a fair workplace. If you do a better job than your manager or show them up in any way, they will make you pay for it.

Holidays and days off are few. I was told you are not permitted to take an extra day off next to a holiday. You worked Christmas eve until 5, New Year's eve until 5, and no days off for Easter.

During the 9/11 attacks they would not let the staff go home. They forced everyone to work through some of the darkest days in our nation's history. On Sept. 11th staff gathered around a television. Management turned off the TV and told workers to get back to work.

Raises are pitiful, even if you score as high as possible on the grade scale they have.

Don't work here more than a year or two, you are wasting your time. Pay won't keep up with cost of living.

It seems like it takes forever to get anything done. Too many hands in the pot. Then if a project is going slow the blame falls on the wrong person.

They freely spend money on everything and anything, but not wages.

Too many meetings. Do we really need to have a meeting to plan the next meeting?

Advice to Senior Management

Stop telling employees how much you care about them, and how great it is to work there. Do something for them - like pay them what they are worth. Stop using outdated corporate philosophy and policies. This is 2008, so that old style thinking does not work anymore if you want to attract and keep the most talented people. Cut out the favoritism. Put people who can do the job best in the Management positions, not just a family friend. Give employees flexibility and work/personal life balance. Stop worrying about the little things and focus on the bigger issues.