Its All About The Data

I have said it before and I will say it again, it is all about the information. Your business can thrive from its existing Patient base. But in order for this to happen you need the information, the skinny, the Intel. Not only do you need it, more importantly it has to be easy to use and deploy across your organization. So what is the answer? A CRM or Customer Relationship Manager software programme.

The release of Noah 4 has gone a long way towards handling the clinical needs of a Hearing Health Practice. It truly is a fantastic piece of kit for clear and easy use and the deployment of all the needed clinical data and notes to manage a Patient on an ongoing basis. However as a commercial management system it is I am afraid pants. For sound commercial management of your Patient database you need to look elsewhere. Preferably you would like to get a programme that is indeed designed with our Profession in mind. There are many out there at present, the beauty of those is that the connect in one way or other to Noah. This means better reporting facilities including test results and very little if any double entry.

Why do you need this facility, simply because it will give you power, power to run your practice in the most efficient way. Power to deploy commercial strategies with the minimum of fuss. Power to run your Patient journey programme in an automated way. Your existing Patients are your best form of marketing, I think that this is a universally accepted truism. You can not effectively leverage them without a CRM, you can not effectively run mail merge campaigns without a CRM. You can not with ease effectively run your Practice without a CRM.

The benefits of running a fully functional CRM include

• Targeted Mail Merge Campaigns
• Automated mailings
• Integrated reminder
• Automated Patient Journey
• The easy and visible storage of all the data needed to effectively engage your Patients
• Easy reporting
• Easier financial transparency

These are just some of the valuable benefits that are provided by a fully functional CRM. The joy of running a database search for Patients not seen in the last six months. Getting a list and being able to instantly mail merge with a pre typed template call back letter can not be over stated. I would like to see you try that with an excel sheet. Another great use is for Test No Sales, they did not buy from you for some reason. But that does not mean they were not interested. So call them back for a yearly check up again with a simple search and mail merge. Maybe they will bite this time.

A CRM will also allow you to easier figure out the KPIs you set for yourself, the records just need to be queried in the right manner to spit out the data. With most CRMs you will just need to set up the search terms once, save them and they will be there to run in the background day after day. So first week of the new month, you get a list for six monthly call backs. Your receptionist undertakes the mail merge and over that week your diary is booked. Second week of the month, Test No Sales 12 months list and so on.

Reporting to a GP in Ireland and the UK and an MD in the USA is made easier. Organize a really good template report and run a mail merge at the end of every day on the Patients that were tested that day. Attach the audiogram printout and voila. Instant report to be sent to the Doctor. I truly believe that this in particular is imperative. I call it marketing by osmosis, it is non threatening soft marketing, the Doctor gets to see your reports semi regularly. The quality of the report is excellent and it is obvious that you are indeed a fellow Medical Professional.

You can go the other route and send him a Practice pack, but I guarantee you are wasting your time and killing trees for nothing. It will promptly end up in the bin. Its simple, a CRM gives you instant access to the information, information is power, the power to organize and run your clinical and commercial strategies in an easy and efficient way. It just does not get any better!

Regards

Geoff

Deciding On Differentiation In Your Hearing Health Practice

Moving into the New Year is always a time to take stock of what has gone before and deciding how to move forward. This Year is no different, however the imperative on strategy for moving forward for our profession in some countries is great.

In the USA divergent pressures have arisen in the last twelve months that may or may not lead to an even more competitive market place and a possible decision on change in service offerings. Here in Ireland, we have probably one of the worst recessions in modern memory aligned with the reduction in our grant. We also face the external pressures of possible regulation and the commercial pressure of large Nationals upping their game.

These market conditions, whilst not necessarily new in some cases are pressing because of their alignment. However, it is not yet the time to take your hat and coat and leave by any means. We will need to look at the coming year intelligently, look at our businesses honestly and decide how we mean to move forward in order that our businesses survive and thrive.

It is my opinion that small Independents can and will survive into the future. I think that they may well have to change their thinking about the services they offer and indeed how they offer them. I also think that they may have to look at collaboration with other Independents to increase their buying power and Strategic power. I have been advising my customers to carve out a niche for themselves and then defend that niche moving forward.

When I discuss this concept the principles I am discussing are based on Porter’s Generic Strategies. The strategies were first set out in 1985 by Michael Porter in 1985 in his book, “Competitive Advantage, Creating And Sustaining Superior Performance”. Porter called the generic strategies

Cost Leadership Strategy

Differentiation Strategy

Focus Strategy

The Cost Leadership Strategy

Porter’s generic strategies are ways of gaining competitive advantage. There are two main ways of achieving this within a Cost Leadership strategy:

• Increasing profits by reducing costs, while charging industry-average prices.
• Increasing market share through charging lower prices, while still making a reasonable profit on each sale because you’ve reduced costs.

We see this strategy at work in our profession already, most notably with one of the large Nationals that trades within the UK and Ireland. Elements of this strategy are also at play in the USA with some of the players that have entered the market in the last few years. Remember that Cost Leadership is about minimizing the cost to the organization of delivering the products and services. The cost of goods or services to the customer is in fact a separate issue!

The Cost Leadership strategy is exactly that – it involves being the leader in terms of cost in your industry or market. This strategy is quite dangerous to an organization unless there is also real differentiation. Simply being amongst the lowest-cost producers is not good enough, as you leave yourself wide open to attack by other low cost producers who may undercut your prices and therefore block your attempts to increase market share.

You therefore need to be confident that you can achieve and maintain the number one position before choosing the Cost Leadership route. Companies that are successful in achieving Cost Leadership usually have:

• Access to the capital needed to invest in technology that will bring costs down.
• Very efficient logistics.
• A low cost base (labor, materials, facilities), and a way of sustainably cutting costs below those of other competitors.

The greatest risk in pursuing a Cost Leadership strategy is that these sources of cost reduction are not unique to you, and that other competitors copy your cost reduction strategies. This is why it’s important to continuously find ways of reducing every cost.

The Differentiation Strategy

Differentiation involves making your products or services different from and more attractive those of your competitors. How you do this depends on the exact nature of your industry and of the products and services themselves, but will typically involve features, functionality, durability, support and also brand image that your customers value.

To make a success of a Differentiation strategy, organizations need:

• Good research, development and innovation.
• The ability to deliver high-quality products or services.
• Effective sales and marketing, so that the market understands the benefits offered by the differentiated offerings.

Large organizations pursuing a differentiation strategy need to stay agile with their new product development processes. Otherwise, they risk attack on several fronts by competitors pursuing Focus Differentiation strategies in different market segments.

The Focus Strategy

Companies that use Focus strategies concentrate on particular niche markets and, by understanding the dynamics of that market and the unique needs of customers within it, develop uniquely low cost or well-specified products for the market. Because they serve customers in their market uniquely well, they tend to build strong brand loyalty amongst their customers. This makes their particular market segment less attractive to competitors.

As with broad market strategies, it is still essential to decide whether you will pursue Cost Leadership or Differentiation once you have selected a Focus strategy as your main approach: Focus is not normally enough on its own.

But whether you use Cost Focus or Differentiation Focus, the key to making a success of a generic Focus strategy is to ensure that you are adding something extra as a result of serving only that market niche. It’s simply not enough to focus on only one market segment because your organization is too small to serve a broader market (if you do, you risk competing against better-resourced broad market companies’ offerings.)

Your choice of which generic strategy to pursue underpins every other strategic decision you make, so it’s worth spending time to get it right. But you do need to make a decision, Porter specifically warns against trying to hedge your bets by following more than one strategy. One of the most important reasons for this advice is that the things you need to do to make each type of strategy work appeal to different types of people. Cost Leadership requires a very detailed internal focus on processes. Differentiation, on the other hand, demands an outward-facing, highly creative approach.

So, when you come to choose which of the three generic strategies is for you, it’s vital that you take your organization’s competencies and strengths into account. It is advised that you use some steps that will allow you choose the strategy that is right for you.

Step 1: For each generic strategy, carry out a SWOT Analysis of your business strengths and weaknesses, and the opportunities and threats you would face, if you in fact adopted that strategy.

Having done this, it may be clear that your organization is unlikely to be able to make a success of some of the generic strategies.

Step 2: You can use one of Porter’s other tools, “A Five Forces Analysis” to understand the nature of the industry you are in.

Step 3: Compare the SWOT Analyses of the viable strategic options with the results of your Five Forces analysis. For each strategic option, ask yourself how you could use that strategy to:

• Reduce or manage supplier power.
• Reduce or manage buyer/customer power.
• Come out on top of the competitive rivalry.
• Reduce or eliminate the threat of substitution.
• Reduce or eliminate the threat of new entry.

These business tools are deeply conceptual, but they give structure to your business analysis and good data that you can use as a foundation for business planning. These exercises have true value for you as a business person, they will allow you to make informed and intelligent decisions based on hard data that will allow you to hopefully thrive.

It would be my feeling that a differentiation or focus strategy would be the right strategies to follow for most Independents. Going back to that carving out a niche statement earlier, you need to find your niche, carve it out and defend it. What your niche is, is something that you would know better than I. However, I feel that an important element is the down home, local, friendly and willing to go the extra mile attitude that smaller Independents bring to table. That is a hard differentiator of you as a business, now all you need to do is find your other hard differentiators and then drive them forward.

Regards

Geoff

Articles on Porter’s concepts can be found at

Porter Five Force Analysis

Porter Generic Strategies

Similar Posts: Manage Your Health Practice, The Rater Model of Assessment, 14 Points, Seven Deadly Diseases, Deming’s Theories & Applying them to Health Practices

Here we are, the end of another year again, for me it is a time to thank my favorite deity that I have managed to get a year older. There was a time when that in itself was a big achievement, although now the most dangerous thing I have to deal with is an un-happy customer. This can be daunting in and of itself, but usually they are not actively trying to kill you! Well ….. mostly  

This started at ten thing but then just kept growing, some of these tips may not apply to everybody. They may already have instituted most of the things, but I hope that everybody will at least find one tip that is helpful to them. So what twenty things do you need to do in order that your Practice sees growth next year?

1. Look at your KPIs from this year and decide what areas you need to focus on for next year.
2. If you do not have a Practice Management software system, not talking Noah here, get one.
3. Ensure all your Patient data is entered into your Practice Management software.
4. Put in place a clear and in-depth Patient Retention & Referral Strategy.
5. Put in place a clear Patient Journey.
6. Put in place a corresponding clear and rigid Patient Communication Strategy.
7. Ensure the buy in of all your stakeholders, Staff primarily and Patients also.
8. In your new, or old Practice Management software, automate service callbacks as per your Patient Journey.
9. Write some clear, medico legal grade, precise and human letters to be used in your new automatic mail-merges for Call Back letters, Hearing Test Reports, Test No Sales one month contact letter, Test No Sales Annual Test Call Back Letter etc.. etc..
10. Re-paint your Practice, unless you have done it in the last ten months.
11. Replace your waiting room chairs unless you have done within the last four years.
12. Make a New Years Resolution that between every appointment you will take five minutes to clean your consultation room, tidying away cables, tubing boxes, cleaning equipment etc. from view.
13. Replace your Posters and point of sales displays if they are any more than three months old.
14. Actually leverage your shop window if you have one, with well thought out and deployed POS.
15. Review your practice environs critically with the concept of brand presentation in mind, be honest and ruthless.
16. Ensure your web presence does not let you down.
17. Leverage your website for campaign offers, educational uses and introduce a regularly updated news section.
18. Remember your web presence is not static, it needs to be dynamic.
19. Think clearly and carefully about a social media presence and how it can affect you web presence.
20. This list is not exhaustive, think up ten more things you need to do!

That should at least be a start for your New Year planning, best wishes for success in the New Year.

Regards

Geoff

Why The Power Is Now In The Hands Off The Patient/Consumer

Regards
Geoff

Using the Patient Journey as a Patient Retention & Referral Strategy

As I have previously vouchsafed, our Patients/Customers have become ever more sophisticated and most Practices really need to adapt their planned Patient engagement and service scheduling to reflect that. You should look at your ongoing Patient engagement strategy as part of your long term Patient Retention and indeed Patient referral strategy. Your existing Patients are your cheapest lead generation tools, the maths is indeed simple. If one of your Patients returns and makes a second purchase, any money that you have invested in them is returned. If they in fact feel strongly enough to return to you for a second set of instruments, they damn sure feel strong enough to recommend you to their friends or associates. Word of mouth leads are qualified leads, these people have not turned up for the merriment as indeed some of your leads from traditional advertising have, they realise that they have an issue and someone has informed them that you are the answer to their problems.

With this in mind, any money or services that you invest in your Patients, is indeed money better spent than probably on any other market channel you may use. I was reading recently that the cost of acquiring a new Patient had risen to $900 in the states. So lets look at what a decent Patient engagement and retention strategy would cost to you in real terms. The general model for Patient engagement I suggest to increase Patient engagement would be:

• Test and sale
• Fitting
• Rehab visit/Fine tuning Visit at one month
• Possible further Rehab/Fine tuning Visit
• Service Call at six months to continue at six month intervals.

This journey is designed to maximize Patient engagement with you and indeed your practice which gives you maximum opportunity to shape and enforce a Patient’s perception of both you and your practice. This journey also allows for several communications a year with your Patient, structured mailings that certainly will not appear to be junk mail. I believe that less is better with mail marketing, I have watched for years some elements of our industry bombard their Patient database with mailings about new products etc. with real dismay. How exactly do you feel about consistent mailing from one of your service providers if indeed the mailings do not have any value to you? If you feel this way, how do you think your Patients feel about your mailings?

The introduction of the Patient Journey to your practice allows you to mail your Patient on a regular basis with communications that are perceived to have real value for them. It also allows you to consistently maintain your Patient engagement and keeps you consistently in their minds. The structure of the Patient Journey also allows you to introduce the subject of new technology at a seemingly apt time.

You will mail your Patients every six months to return to your office for service, you can also mail them perhaps twice  yearly campaign offers on ancillary products such as buy two packs of batteries get one free, or buy re-fill drying capsules get cleaning tablets free. It is important that the mailings are structured and well thought out; they must also be pertinent to the Patient. Don’t forget a Christmas card, get them printed, take the time to personalize them, have yourself and your staff sign them and send them out.

If your Patient is returning to you every six months, you do not need to send them offers on new technology, you can tell them about it, show it to them in person. If done properly and at the right time it will not appear to be a sales push, it will merely be more of your famed education and good advice. It will also more importantly be received as such.

What briefly follows is the structure of the service calls that I adopted while in practice, the following structure is scheduled after the sales, fit and rehab visits.

Service Call 1: Review Patient’s experience, clean aid, clean mould if necessary, change wax cap if necessary, change tubing if necessary or change thin tubes and tips, fine tune aid if necessary, ask about need for ancillary products and supply a free pack of batteries. Time scheduled 15 to 30 minutes.

Service Call 2: Review Patient’s experience, hearing scan test, clean aid, clean mould if necessary, change wax cap if necessary, change tubing or thin tube and tips if necessary, fine tune aid if necessary, ask about need for ancillary products and supply a free pack of batteries. Time scheduled 30 to 40 minutes.

Service Call 3: Review Patient’s experience, clean aid, clean mould if necessary, change wax cap if necessary, change tubing or thin tube and tips if necessary, fine tune aid if necessary, ask about need for ancillary products. Time scheduled 15 to 30 minutes.

Service Call 4: Review Patient’s experience, hearing scan test, clean aid, clean mould if necessary, change wax cap if necessary, change tubing or thin tube and tips if necessary, fine tune aid if necessary, ask about need for ancillary products and provide free pack of batteries. Time scheduled 30 to 40 minutes.

Service Call 5: Review Patient’s experience, Clean aid, clean mould if necessary, change wax cap if necessary, change tubing or thin tubes and tips if necessary, fine tune aid if necessary, ask about need for ancillary products provide free batteries, talk briefly about new technology & current offers. Time scheduled 15 to 30 minutes.

Service Call 6: Review Patient’s experience, hearing scan test, clean aid, clean mould if necessary, change wax cap if necessary, change tubing or thin tube and tips if necessary, fine tune aid if necessary, ask about need for ancillary products provide free pack of batteries. Openly discuss changing to a new product and assess readiness. Time scheduled 30 to 40 minutes.

Service Call 7: Review Patient’s experience, Clean aid, clean mould if necessary, change wax cap if necessary, change tubing or thin tube and tips if necessary, fine tune aid if necessary, ask about need for ancillary products, provide free pack of batteries, talk briefly about new technology & current offers. Time scheduled 15 to 30 minutes.

Service Call 8: Review Patient’s experience, hearing scan test, clean aid, clean mould if necessary, change wax cap if necessary, change tubing if necessary, fine tune aid if necessary, ask about need for ancillary products, provide free pack of batteries. Advise changing to a new product and assess readiness. Time scheduled 30 to 40 minutes.

This schedule allowed me to meet my patients on occasions where I was calling them for an appointment, not them chasing me. It increased my engagement with them and allowed me to build a real and strong relationship with them. Whilst this patient journey is a major element of the strategy for engagement, it only facilitates the other strategies and procedures that you put in place.

In all, this strategy will cost you in real terms for products supplied approximately 50 to 60 euros a year. In terms of time spent it will cost you approximately 100 euros more or less a year if you think your time is worth 100 euros an hour. I would sup posit that in fact that investment would be radically reduced or balance by the margin made on ancillary products that your Patient will purchase during this time if in fact you make it easy and sensible to do so. Such as drying tablets, batteries, washing tablets, a new drying case, a new washing case etc etc. If indeed for some reason your Patient does not indeed buy any ancillaries, you have invested approximately 700 euro on your Patient over a four and a half to five year period.

If indeed they provide one new Patient to you only, you are already ahead on traditional marketing costs. In my experience they will in fact provide you two or more, who will in turn become retained Patients and provide you their own referrals. In any mans language, that is a win win situation, your Patients are provided with real service and support and you are rewarded with continuing new business.

Regards

Geoff

Related Articles:

10 Best Practices For Patient Retention

Customer Satisfaction, Making Them Ecstatic

Making Your Website Work For Your Hearing Health Practice

Imagine your website handing you fully qualified leads, leads that know they have a problem and want to do something about it. Now imagine this happening on a daily basis, how cool would that be? Don’t worry its not another episode of PTSD, I didn’t imagine it, the power to make this happen is available. It has been introduced as a very interesting piece of software that can live on your website.

Introducing: where’s the drum roll, there should be a clap of thunder, ta daaaaaa!

I am back to web presence with this post as you may have guessed and I am taking the tablets, so no worries there . I came across an interesting Irish company recently named CTone Limited, they supply some really interesting web products that pertain to our industry. The primary one of real interest to us is an online hearing test and lead generation tool.

The system which is made up of three separate parts can be placed effectively on your site allowing a prospective Patient test their hearing with decent accuracy. The system will flag up a loss and will offer a contact form to the Patient to be filled out for a follow up contact or it can simply offer a telephone number to call. They also have quite an amazing emulation system that can play audio that is engineered to suit the Patients test results. It can be set to play an unassisted sound file and then the same sound file that has been changed to suit their loss.

I think it is a great system with real power, an online test, then an emulation, in fact almost a demonstration of what hearing instruments can do, then a contact form to be filled out. All on your website for any prospective Patient to use in the comfort of their own home, a completely non threatening environment. The separate parts of the system are intuitive, easy to use and the workflow encourages the filling in of the lead generation form.

It introduces prospective Patients to assessment of loss in a non threatening manner. They do not have to attend your clinic to confirm there is an issue. When they confirm the issue, if they so wish, they can then enter into a dialogue with you hopefully culminating in an appointment for a full test and lifestyle impact assessment.

The Game Changer?

The test itself is relatively easy to undertake and the user interface is pretty intuitive. The tones are constant and the Patient uses a slider to change the intensity to a point where they can just hear it. They confirm and the system moves onto a new frequency. It is relatively simple and uncluttered, perfect for deployment on your site. It will also feed into your SEO strategies, marking out your site in a new way.

I really do think that this is a fantastic piece of kit, this service can be feverishly working away on your website and capturing you qualified leads. Prospective Patients who are in no doubt they have a hearing problem before they fill out the contact form. Whilst the embed is SEOd for our business, if you also use high quality SEO principles on the embed page and on your site in general, it will drag people to your site and then to your door. What other form of marketing can do that for you in the current economic climate? In fact I like this so much I wish I had shares in it.

I liked it so much, I went and spoke to Martin Ganter of CTone Limited and asked him some in depth questions about the kit. Martin is a nice guy who has a long background in software, he and a couple of other lads came up with the concept of the online test. It is interesting to note that they in essence came at the problem from the audio direction as opposed to from an audiology direction. I think that is why the emulator in particular is so good you could eat it.

They have some particularly impressive PHDs from University College Dublin involved in the company and all of the research was in fact undertaken there. They also have some really great physical products either in the pipeline or just to production. I for one hope that the physical products we discussed come to market, I think they will blow people away, in fact I think that some of their concepts and approaches if taken up in the Hearing Instrument Manufacturing Industry may change it significantly.

They are in talks with several companies at present about licensing agreements for the software and one well known company is driving forward with it as a major strategy. You should talk to them before they are not allowed to talk to you, I really think their product is a game changer.

The company can be found at the following Link

Regards

Geoff

Related Posts:

The Hearing Pages , Tips To Help You With Your Practice Website , Your Practice’s Web Strategy, Social Media Or Not?

Making Your Website Work For Your Hearing Health Practice

Imagine your website handing you fully qualified leads, leads that know they have a problem and want to do something about it. Now imagine this happening on a daily basis, how cool would that be? Don’t worry its not another episode of PTSD, I didn’t imagine it, the power to make this happen is available. It has been introduced as a very interesting piece of software that can live on your website.

Introducing: where’s the drum roll, there should be a clap of thunder, ta daaaaaa!

I am back to web presence with this post as you may have guessed and I am taking the tablets, so no worries there . I came across an interesting Irish company recently named CTone Limited, they supply some really interesting web products that pertain to our industry. The primary one of real interest to us is an online hearing test and lead generation tool.

The system which is made up of three separate parts can be placed effectively on your site allowing a prospective Patient test their hearing with decent accuracy. The system will flag up a loss and will offer a contact form to the Patient to be filled out for a follow up contact or it can simply offer a telephone number to call. They also have quite an amazing emulation system that can play audio that is engineered to suit the Patients test results. It can be set to play an unassisted sound file and then the same sound file that has been changed to suit their loss.

I think it is a great system with real power, an online test, then an emulation, in fact almost a demonstration of what hearing instruments can do, then a contact form to be filled out. All on your website for any prospective Patient to use in the comfort of their own home, a completely non threatening environment. The separate parts of the system are intuitive, easy to use and the workflow encourages the filling in of the lead generation form.

It introduces prospective Patients to assessment of loss in a non threatening manner. They do not have to attend your clinic to confirm there is an issue. When they confirm the issue, if they so wish, they can then enter into a dialogue with you hopefully culminating in an appointment for a full test and lifestyle impact assessment.

The Game Changer?

The test itself is relatively easy to undertake and the user interface is pretty intuitive. The tones are constant and the Patient uses a slider to change the intensity to a point where they can just hear it. They confirm and the system moves onto a new frequency. It is relatively simple and uncluttered, perfect for deployment on your site. It will also feed into your SEO strategies, marking out your site in a new way.

I really do think that this is a fantastic piece of kit, this service can be feverishly working away on your website and capturing you qualified leads. Prospective Patients who are in no doubt they have a hearing problem before they fill out the contact form. Whilst the embed is SEOd for our business, if you also use high quality SEO principles on the embed page and on your site in general, it will drag people to your site and then to your door. What other form of marketing can do that for you in the current economic climate? In fact I like this so much I wish I had shares in it.

I liked it so much, I went and spoke to Martin Ganter of CTone Limited and asked him some in depth questions about the kit. Martin is a nice guy who has a long background in software, he and a couple of other lads came up with the concept of the online test. It is interesting to note that they in essence came at the problem from the audio direction as opposed to from an audiology direction. I think that is why the emulator in particular is so good you could eat it.

They have some particularly impressive PHDs from University College Dublin involved in the company and all of the research was in fact undertaken there. They also have some really great physical products either in the pipeline or just to production. I for one hope that the physical products we discussed come to market, I think they will blow people away, in fact I think that some of their concepts and approaches if taken up in the Hearing Instrument Manufacturing Industry may change it significantly.

They are in talks with several companies at present about licensing agreements for the software and one well known company is driving forward with it as a major strategy. You should talk to them before they are not allowed to talk to you, I really think their product is a game changer.

The company can be found at the following Link

Taken from the Post on Just Audiology Stuff

Post: Online Diagnosis & Lead Generation

FlowTown.com released an infographic called Social Advertising Reaching New Heights recently. It is a fascinating infographic detailing the use of Social Advertising and the goals that most businesses are moving towards in Social media. It also highlights the tools that businesses are using to monitor their campaigns. Enjoy

As you may know I wrote a series of articles in relation to this last year, the articles did not lend themselves well to blog posts as they were too in depth for your typical post. I have condensed these articles into an eBook and have made it available for download here. I think it will be easier to read as well as reference, print it and you can write notes in the margins, nothing like it.

I was asked to have a look at a new website recently for feedback. I have to say I am thoroughly impressed with the vision that has been deployed. In essence the website is a tool that allows a practice engage and manage new users during their trial or initial period of hearing aid use. The owners and designers of the site have designed it to assist in the reduction of cancellations after initial trial. I took a look at the tool and was astonished at its power and simplicity. Like all really good ideas, it’s one of those “Why didn’t I think of that?” ones.

I believe that this tool will

1. Lower your cancellation rates
2. Drive your Patient engagement strategy
3. Display your commitment to best practice
4. Can be leveraged to build your online community
5. Act as both a hard and soft differentiator for your practice
6. In time lower your marketing costs

The tool will allow you to communicate with your Patients consistently during the trial period, it will also give you a heads up on problem areas in order that you can design a strategy to deal with them before the issue overtakes the benefits accrued. The site is truly quite brilliant, the following are the features as displayed on the site

Ask questions

Set questions for your patients to answer during their trial period. Ask whatever you want: How did your hearing aids make you feel today? Can you hear people behind you? Which are clearer, male or female voices?

Give advice

Write messages and advice that patients will see when they use Earmeter. Time your advice throughout a trial to make your patient feel more engaged and happier with their new hearing aid. Messages are available online or via email

Continuous feedback

You get day-by-day feedback from your patients as they use Earmeter, which allows you to get a clear picture of how their trial is going and also lets you proactively fix their issues as soon as they happen.

Give incentives

Earmeter tracks your patients and lets you know how often they are responding to your questions, messages and advice. You can set goals and offer incentives for patients to meet those goals

Monitor your patients

Earmeter lets you quickly see your patients’ answers as soon as they’ve submitted them, allowing you to respond quickly to problems and issues without having to wait to the next time the patient is in your office

iPod/iPad/mobile compatible

Earmeter is compatible with mobile devices and all major web browsers, allowing your patients to work with you wherever they may be.

The site layout is relatively intuitive, the management of your presence also appears to be relatively easy and intuitive. There are also plans to allow full customisation of your site presence allowing you to upload logos, change colours etc. More importantly Patient use features are easy and intuitive with a small learning curve.

Whilst this tool will not be for all your Patients, I think a large part of your future Patients will be happy to use it. I think this is a fantastic tool, it fits well with modern thought on practice management and Patient engagement.

It will also encourage web connection with your Patients and their inclusion in your community. After they have finished their trial they can then be moved onto your facebook community for continuous engagement. The tool will not only benefit your cancellation rate it will also help drive your Patient engagement strategy and lower your ongoing marketing and mailing costs, how cool is that?

Click to go to earmeter.