How Exo Dental Gets 40% Case Acceptance

Dr. Jacob Smith, founder of Exo Dental, on coaching treatment coordinators across multiple locations, the accountability loop that runs itself, and going from under 10% to over 40% case acceptance without being in the room.

Full-arch dental implant treatment plans run $25,000 to $50,000. The average American has less than $10,000 in savings. Exo Dental asks patients to make one of the largest elective healthcare decisions of their lives — often in a single consultation — and they need a treatment coordinator who can explain the investment, handle every hesitation, and help the patient move forward.

Before Rilla, Exo Dental's case acceptance rate was under 10%. Today it runs above 40%.

That is not a different product. It is not a different patient. It is a different conversation.

Dr. Jacob Smith founded Exo Dental as a full-arch dental implant center with locations across Kansas and Arkansas. The differentiator from most implant practices is the integrated model: Exo Dental handles both the surgical side and the prosthetic side under one roof. Patients do not travel between an oral surgeon and a restorative dentist. The full treatment arc — from extraction through final restoration — is managed in a single facility by a coordinated team.

That integration is a clinical advantage. It is also a sales complexity. The treatment coordinator is not presenting a single procedure. They are presenting a full-arch rehabilitation — a multi-phase, multi-appointment, life-changing intervention that requires the patient to understand not just the cost but the sequence, the recovery, the alternatives, and the financing options. The consultation is closer to a financial planning conversation than a standard dental appointment.

Most dental practices have one location and one owner who can walk the floor. Exo Dental has multiple locations and multiple treatment coordinators. The owner cannot be in every consultation room. Before Rilla, coaching was sporadic and inconsistent. There was no systematic way to know what treatment coordinators were saying, how they were handling objections, or where in the conversation patients were dropping off.

Dr. Smith knew the conversion rates. He did not know why.

"Because Exo Dental is based out of multiple locations and we have multiple treatment coordinators, we needed a technology or AI or system to be able to monitor how treatment coordinators are discussing this information with patients."

The challenge is not unique to dentistry. Any multi-location service business where the sale happens in a private room with a single rep faces the same visibility gap. The manager can see the close rate. They cannot see the conversation.

Rilla records and summarizes every treatment coordinator consultation. Dr. Smith gets a structured breakdown of each conversation — what was said, how the financing discussion went, whether the key points were hit — without having to listen to every recording from start to finish.

"I can listen through it and give the coaching when it's convenient for me."

The coaching is specific because the data is specific. Instead of telling a treatment coordinator she needs to "explain financing better," Dr. Smith can pull up the exact moment in the consultation where the patient asked about monthly payments, hear how the coordinator responded, and coach on that response.

Exo Dental also uses Rilla's script-checking feature — the ability to define key points that should appear in every consultation and then score each coordinator against them. The points become a checklist. The checklist becomes a score. The score surfaces every day without the manager having to prompt it.

The feature Dr. Smith returns to most is the scoring system. Every consultation gets a score. Every treatment coordinator can see where they landed.

"They love to see how did they do on this consult? What was my score this time? And so that actually motivated them and held them accountable without me having to do anything."

This is the shift most coaching systems miss. Traditional coaching requires the manager to initiate every feedback loop — pull the rep, review the call, deliver the assessment, follow up. At scale, across multiple locations, that model collapses. There are not enough hours.

Rilla's scoring moves the initiation to the rep. The treatment coordinator checks her own score before the manager has reviewed the call. She identifies the gap before being told there is one. The manager's role shifts from enforcer to coach.

At multiple locations, that shift is the difference between a coaching culture that scales and one that does not.

Dr. Smith points to one member of his team to illustrate the system at its clearest.

One of Exo Dental's treatment coordinators had been in dentistry for fourteen years. Deep clinical knowledge, strong patient rapport, trusted by the team. She had never held a sales position.

Before Rilla, that gap showed up in the close rate. She understood the treatment. She could not consistently present the investment.

"Rilla was a key tool for her and now she has a closing rate over 40%."

The mechanism is not a mystery. Rilla gave her visibility into her own conversations. She could hear herself explain financing. She could see her script score. She could compare a consultation where the patient said yes to one where they said no, and identify the structural difference. Fourteen years of clinical expertise plus a systematic feedback loop produced a closer.

Exo Dental went from under 10% case acceptance to over 40%.

On a $25,000 average treatment plan, that math is significant. A practice presenting 20 consultations a month at 10% closes 2 cases — $50,000 in revenue. The same 20 consultations at 40% closes 8 cases — $200,000. Same lead volume. Same treatment. Four times the revenue.

"If we can sharpen our skills day after day, month after month, and we can help our patients accept this life-changing treatment, it is 100% worth it."

The Exo Dental model is reproducible. The specific mechanics:

Define your script. Identify the 8–12 key points that should appear in every treatment consultation. Write them down. Enter them in Rilla. Every coordinator is now measured against the same standard — not against your memory of how a good consultation sounds.

Score every consult. Do not wait for a bad close rate to trigger a coaching conversation. Score every consultation automatically. The coordinator sees the score. The manager sees the score. Gaps surface before they compound.

Coach on specifics, not impressions. "You need to be better at objections" is not coaching. "At 14:23 in Thursday's consult the patient said the price was too high and you moved to the next topic without addressing it — here is what that should sound like" is coaching. Rilla gives you the timestamp.

Invest the most coaching time in your best coordinators. The coordinator already closing at 35% has more upside than the one closing at 8%. Moving the top performer gains more revenue per hour of coaching than moving the bottom performer. The Exo Dental story — a 14-year dental veteran becoming a top closer — is the cleanest example of this principle in practice.

Exo Dental is a full-arch dental implant center with locations in Kansas and Arkansas, founded by Dr. Jacob Smith. Exo Dental handles surgical and prosthetic treatment under one roof, offering patients a single coordinated experience from initial consultation through final restoration.

Rilla is the conversation analytics platform for in-person sales and service teams. The platform records, transcribes, and scores customer-facing conversations, surfacing coaching insights for managers and self-assessment tools for reps. Teams using Rilla typically see a 25% lift in close rate within 90 days.