How Planet DDS scaled self-serve gifting across teams and generated 7x pipeline ROI

Planet DDS is a dental software company serving practices across North America. When two teams, field marketing and HR, came together around the same frustration with their existing gifting vendor, they went looking for one platform that could solve both problems at once.

We sat down with Blu Nordgren, Director of Events and Field Marketing, and Daisy Dimas, Senior People Experience and Communications Specialist, to hear how Planet DDS went from storage unit runs and bulk order guesswork to a self-serve gifting program spanning sales, HR, events, and training.

The challenge: Manual gifting, mounting logistics, and broken trust

Before Reachdesk, gifting at Planet DDS was, in Blu's words, "a hot mess." Both teams were dealing with different vendors and the same core problems:

• All manual, all the time: When a rep wanted to send 15 stress relievers to a new training cohort, someone had to drive to the storage unit, pack it themselves, and ship it out.
• No self-serve capability: Every one-off request funneled through Blu's team, making gifting feel like a burden rather than a tool.
• Pre-purchased inventory and storage fees: Daisy's team had to buy items in bulk, pay per pallet for warehouse storage, and guess sizing. Tenured employees were receiving the same branded swag items year after year, and gift cards were going unused.

A vendor that couldn't be trusted: The final straw was a thank-you gift sent to Blu herself as a quality test. She opened the box to find the water bottle loose inside, next to the empty branded box it was supposed to come in.

The solution: A modern gifting platform that eliminated operational overhead

Blu had been aware of Reachdesk for years. When Planet DDS's VP of Marketing pushed to evaluate the bigger platforms, the comparison was quick. Reachdesk's demo was thorough and engaged. The competing platform's first call was, as Blu put it, "so lackluster that we were like, they don't even care."

Three things made Reachdesk the clear choice:

• On-demand fulfillment via the vendor marketplace: Rather than holding stock, the team can send gifts locally and directly from Reachdesk's supplier network, with no pre-purchasing, no storage fees, and no bulk guessing.
• A store portal built for on-demand swag: Branded items are available to order when needed, meaning Planet DDS no longer has to keep swag on the shelf at all times. Employees and customers pick what they want, and it's produced and shipped on demand.
• Global warehousing for longer shelf-life items: For swag and gifts that make sense to hold in volume, Reachdesk's warehouse network handles storage and fulfillment across regions, removing the need for the team's own storage unit entirely.
• Self-serve gifting for the revenue team: Reps could send one-off gifts independently, directly from Salesforce, without routing through Blu.

Daisy's sign-off was a key part of the process. Planet DDS committed to a $50K minimum spend in year one and hit it ahead of schedule, driven by strong internal adoption and high recipient engagement.

Results: Wins across pipeline, events, and employee engagement

The impact showed up fast and across multiple parts of the business:

• 20 opportunities created and nearly 7x influenced pipeline return in the first six months with Reachdesk, tracked through Salesforce.
• 93% gift claim rate from a team still in the early stages of adoption.
• Events relief: The team moved all remaining bulk swag from its storage unit to the Reachdesk warehouse. The first trade show shipment arrived on time, correctly labeled, with every event-specific detail handled.
• Higher employee redemption rates on the storefront compared to the previous vendor, thanks to a broader, more relevant catalog.

Faster issue resolution: Problems that previously required going through a vendor rep now take Daisy a couple of clicks to fix herself, backed by 24/5 support from the Reachdesk team.

Campaign spotlight #1: A self-serve swag store for employees, customers, and events

Before Reachdesk, Planet DDS had no scalable way to get the right swag into the right hands. Internally, employees were receiving the same bulk-ordered items year after year and letting gift cards go unused. Externally, branded gear only reached people if someone handed it to them in person. The Reachdesk-powered Store Portal changed both.

1. On-demand swag for employees (Planeteers)

With an on-demand catalog that goes well beyond the standard t-shirt and mug, employees actually want to spend their credits now.

• Twice a year, for Employee Appreciation Month and the holidays, each employee gets a $100 storefront gift card to spend on whatever they choose.
• New hires receive a branded welcome kit as part of onboarding that feels personal from day one.
• A new wellness rewards program ties storefront gift cards to quarterly activity milestones, with increasing value by tier.

2. A branded swag store for customers and prospects

The success of the internal swag store led to an external rollout, giving sales, marketing, and training teams an easy way to share branded merch with customers and prospects during relevant milestones and after events.

• The Zenith Card ($80 credit) is given selectively by sales reps at events to high-value contacts.
• The Cosmic Cash Card ($25 credit) is handed out by the training team as prizes during customer onboarding sessions.

The storefront link sits in the Planet DDS homepage footer and is promoted in a monthly social campaign. After the first post, a customer spent over $100 on branded gear unprompted.

"We want them to go in to spend our money first, get a little more connected to the brand, and then hopefully come back on their own."
Blu Nordgren, Director of Events and Field Marketing, Planet DDS

Campaign spotlight #2: Reusing leftover event swag to build FOMO and customer engagement

After Planet DDS's annual customer summit, Orbit, the team always ended up with leftover branded swag. Dated, event-specific, and headed for the bin. Blu saw a different use for it.

She built an Orbit FOMO campaign in Reachdesk, sending the full conference package, the shirt, the pen, the lip balm, the bag, to customers who missed the event, whether they couldn't get budget approval, had to cancel last minute, or simply weren't able to attend. Reachdesk handled all fulfillment directly from the warehouse where the remaining items were already stored.

The response was immediate. Customers who received the package sent thank-you notes. Those who had to cancel last minute said they couldn't wait to come next year. And for those who just missed out, it created a genuine moment of connection with the brand ahead of the next event.

The campaign solved two things at once: a thoughtful touchpoint for customers who felt they missed out, and a second life for event swag that would otherwise be thrown away.

"It puts a smile on someone's face by helping them feel connected to an event they had to miss. And it gives the swag a second life instead of a trash can."
‍Blu Nordgren, Director of Events and Field Marketing, Planet DDS

Looking ahead: Turning gifting into a company-wide engagement strategy

Gifting is spreading across Planet DDS organically. The sales team is being nudged through weekly challenges, including one that asks reps to use Gong's AI to find a personal detail from a recent call and match a gift to it. The product team has started requesting access. Daisy is exploring giving managers their own gifting capability so they can recognize employees directly, something that was never possible before.

For teams evaluating gifting platforms, both Blu and Daisy come back to the same two things: ease of use, and a vendor you can actually trust.

"Just having that trust gives us the confidence to think about how we can keep expanding. Giving managers their own gifting access, recognizing employees on milestones, things we never could have considered before."
Daisy Dimas, Sr. People Experience and Communications Specialist, PlanetDDS

"You don't have to be techy at all to use Reachdesk. And when an issue comes up, they don't bring you the problem. They bring you the solution."
Blu Nordgren, Director of Events and Field Marketing, Planet DDS

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