Time to Read: 11 minutes
- We focus on serving only self-motivated adult Australians with hearing loss
- Our clinicians don't get paid massive sales bonuses
- We prescribe larger volumes than many clinics, meaning that we can negotiate better rates with our suppliers
- We leverage technology to improve personalised services while keeping costs down
- Our clinicians are highly experienced in the latest hearing technology , so we are able to address issues quickly, saving on expensive clinical time
- You aren't over-prescribed with more profitable models
- My next step
We are often asked why our hearing aids are priced so competitively
We certainly do not aim to be the cheapest by any means. Our aim is to provide quality hearing aids and associated services of the Highest Calibre at reasonable prices.
It seems that the moment someone sees the same product offered at a lower price, they suspect something is wrong with the lower priced offering. This thinking is natural and is a well-known fact in marketing. In fact, it is used against you in all aspects of daily life.
One study revealed that when people were given samples of a $15 Cake and a $55 cake, they overwhelmingly said the $55 cake tasted MUCH better. The more expensive cake was described as being more moist, having better frosting and having much better flavour. Little did they know it was all the same cake! You can view the video showing this experiment below. There are many other examples of this behaviour if you know what to look for.
This sort of pricing strategy is used in all fields, including hearing care. I believe this psychological tendency to see the more expensive option as better is the reason we are asked about our prices. Sure, we could simply increase our prices and get rid of the problem all together. However, this would go against what we are trying to achieve as a company - reasonable pricing for the highest quality service and products. We are about making high quality hearing care more accessible for the self-motivated Australian.
The quality of our services and products are ACTUALLY Second to NONE. You can view the 23+ pages of client testimonials we have on our website. We also have independent reviews (where we have no control over what is shown) on sites like Google and Facebook. We perform the Net Promoter Score ™ (NPS) survey on our own clients at least once a year during your journey with us and we have maintained satisfaction scores higher than Apple ™ Retail. These scores have steadily been improving ever since and are higher than any we could find publicly listed for our industry.
So how do we keep our prices reasonable while still providing the highest Quality services and Hearing Aids?
As a company focused on our core clientele, the Self-Motivated Adult Australian with hearing loss, we are able to efficiently structure all our processes to deliver the best outcome at a reasonable cost.
Compare this to most of our peers in the market. They tend to serve basically anyone the can get their hands on. This potentially leads to great inefficiencies and ends up with self-motivated hearing aid buyers often subsidising the other services delivered at a loss or at lower profit. At the same time, the highest paying client, you, receive sub-standard services due to a lack of specialisation of the clinic’s part. This was the main reason Value Hearing was founded – the highest paying clients often ended up with the worst service in the traditional model! This is simply not fair and we decided to do something about it!
There are a few competitors who have come along since our inception in 2009 that offer cheap hearing aids, but they don’t seem to have much proof of high quality of care.
Some of our clinicians do not get paid commission at all, while others receive a very small (Sub $100) client satisfaction bonus regardless of the prescription. This means that our clinicians aren’t encouraged to prescribe one model over another and they aren’t challenged ethically to prescribe hearing aids when medical or other intervention will serve the client better. They are simply rewarded for delivering a satisfied client at the end of the process.
Compare this to some other clinics where clinicians are paid up to 10% or more of the sale price of the hearing aids prescribed. In some cases, these bonuses could be well over $1,000 per client. This bonus amount is paid for from your pocket, hence the higher initial asking retail price. Keep in mind, that this higher price does not equate to better outcomes for you. This remuneration model might mean that you might potentially be over-prescribed, while not necessarily receiving the quality care you would expect considering the price.
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We prescribe larger volumes than many clinics, meaning that we can negotiate better rates with our suppliers
Due to our focus, all of our time is spent on providing quality hearing aids and premium quality services to people who actually need them. Our clinicians frequently fit between 2 to 5 times as many, better than pensioner class, hearing aids a month compared to an average clinician working in a diverse generalist clinic. This means that we can negotiate significant discounts from many of our suppliers. These savings are passed on to you, while keeping us sustainable.
As mentioned before, inefficiencies, as found in many businesses, costs money. These costs are often passed on to you, the customer. We have invested a great deal of time and money in developing and leveraging technology to take care of the day to day repetitive tasks in our business. This means that we are able to achieve much more with less staff, while the staff we have can almost be entirely focused on best serving our core client, you.
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Our clinicians are highly experienced in the latest hearing technology, so we are able to address issues quickly, saving on expensive clinical time
Clinical time costs between $200 and $500 an hour, depending on how efficiently a hearing clinic is operated. Due to the volume of, better than pensioner class, hearing aids our clinicians works with every month, they gain extensive experience very quickly. This means that client visits are more efficient as our clinicians know how to get the best performance out of the latest technology in the quickest possible time. This also means less clinical visits for the same outcome, saving time and money for you and us.
Added to that we have a large pool of experience we can draw from. Our technology allows for example a more experienced audiologist in QLD to take control of the computer and the hearing aids of another clinician in another state, who might be facing a challenge with a more difficult case.
Similarly, we don’t use hearing aids known to have poor performance, such as out of date hearing aids or hearing aids with obvious problems. We avoid these no matter what incentive any manufacturer would try to give us to sell these products. It is our reputation and your long term benefit that is on the line.
Unlike most of our peers, we use a specialised speech in noise testing on top of the standard test battery when evaluating your need for hearing aids. This means that we have a complete set of results to guide us to not only finding a hearing aid that will work for you in quiet, but also one that will improve your hearing in noise.
This comprehensive testing means that we can pinpoint the model you need from the hundreds available without over-prescribing technology you don’t actually need.
So, you don’t only save due to our reasonable pricing, but you will be recommended a lower priced model if your results indicate this is all you need. Many clinics go straight to the top end models if you are even slightly socially active. Our results over the last 8 years, reveal that more expensive models are not actually necessary in many cases. So you are only prescribed what you actually need with Value Hearing. To top it of our recommendations come with a full 60 day money back guarantee, so you have nothing to lose.
What’s My Next Step?
Book an appointment now to receive an unbiased opinion on the right hearing solution for you at a reasonable price.
Remember, hearing care is not just about the product. Your long term benefit is HIGHLY dependent on the after care service attached to the hearing aids.
We offer you the very best products and High Quality care at reasonable rates due to our specialisation.
