Pricing is all too often considered to be the only part of the value equation. This is however not what value is all about for us.
True value is about the total benefit you receive minus the price pay. That is exactly why Value Hearing was created. We felt that people were being given sub-optimal services at incredibly high prices. We reduced the prices to what was fair and sustainable, combined with an ever improving level of service that is second to none.
Due to our success, a lot of smaller providers have recently popped up aiming to beat us simply on price, but their low pricing comes at an extra cost to you. The hidden price you potentially pay is reduced quality of services, updates of models and technology and expertise and then products simply to make a sale.
Most hearing aid assessments available to you today last between 30 minutes and one hour and cost the same or sometimes more than the Value Hearing 90 Minute Comprehensive Hearing Aid Assessment. We could easily do the same, which would be more profitable to us as clinical time costs a lot of money. However, we have decided to go against the norm as we believe in empowering our clients to fully understand their hearing loss and hearing options.
Research shows that spending up to 3 hours in the initial visits (assessment, fitting and review) results in clients with highest levels of satisfaction. We took this to heart and we can say with utmost confidence that the doubling of investment in clinical time and associated costs, which we carry, has paid off dividends in highly satisfied clients.
Have a look at our independent survey results here or our customer testimonials to see for yourself. Interestingly, we have potential clients question the amount of testimonials we have as it just seems too good to be true. Little do they know that we have only published a fraction of those available to us for this exact reason.
The biggest saving we offer you isn’t our fair pricing structure at all. The biggest value we provide is our unique hearing aid selection process that takes into account not only your hearing ability in quiet environments, but also your actual performance in noisy situations as determined using clinical testing. We look at your scientifically measured inability to hear in noise and marry that up to a specific hearing aid’s ability to improve hearing in noise. This helps us find your ideal hearing solution that will provide the most benefit at the lowest price.
Compare this to our industry peers who rely only your hearing in quiet, lifestyle and budget without considering your actual performance in noise, to guess at which hearing aid might suit you best. No one else in Australia or even the world (as far as we know) does it our way, despite the tests and technical information allowing for this capability being widely available.
The main difference between a lower priced and higher priced hearing aid in any particular brand’s range is that the higher end products have more ability to clean up speech in background noise compared to its lower priced peers. The unfortunate fact is that hearing clinics generally price their hearing aids so they also make more profit from higher end hearing aids. Similarly many clinicians are paid higher commissions on more expensive hearing aids. Lifestyle charts were designed by the manufacturers of hearing aids to up-sell more expensive hearing aids. For instance, if your lifestyle consists of anything more than staying at home and watching television, you would be recommended increasingly more advanced and expensive hearing solutions. This results in you potentially being recommended hearing aids that you truly do not need.
Our process flips this whole way of thinking on its head. We carefully assess your actual performance in noise once your hearing loss has been corrected for. We then match that up with the expected performance in noise, based on the known technical capabilities, of a wide variety of hearing aids brands and models. To help keep us honest, our clinicians are NOT incentivised to sell one model or brand over another. This means you are truly recommended what is likely to provide the best value and best suited for you over the long term.
We use in-house developed software to compare your best matches and find the product best meeting your needs and hearing ability from all the models and brands available to you. You are then offered the one or two models that will provide the most benefit, without overshooting your requirements, at the best price. This process alone has saved people who were quoted top end hearing aids elsewhere in excess of $8 000! We are so confident of this selection process that we offer a 60 day money back guarantee, to allow you to get well past the 30 day honeymoon period.
We know this process works as our client satisfaction using the Net Promoter score (NPS ™) is higher than that of Apple ™ (72) and clients have rated us at 98% satisfaction on independent surveys.
Hearing aid manufacturers launch new products at least twice a year. Not all models get changed and often times they release a new style at these launches. When a new range is released, many manufacturers offer massive discounts on outgoing ranges. This allows the clinic to either offer a special promo to the unsuspecting buyer or to make more profit on the old outgoing range.
We have seen massive improvements in client benefit with new hearing aid releases. We don’t believe that anyone should be stuck with an older model if a new better performing model is just around the corner. As such we offer you up to 90 days after you have purchased hearing aids from us to upgrade to newer technology if it becomes available during that period. You simply pay or get refunded the difference.
Improved hearing is not about just the hearing aid at all, as most online retailers, who make money on hearing aid sales alone, would like you to believe.
Your hearing and communication environments change over time, hearing aids lose performance due to various reasons such as clogged microphones or speakers or even worn components.
Many clinics simply rely on you to call them if you have any problems, which many hearing aid users sadly don’t do. This leads to individuals wearing suboptimal hearing aids for months or years until the devices inevitably fail or worse yet, the user simply decides that hearing aids never really worked for them and stick the aids in the drawer to try and forget about the lost expense.
We have employed technology to actively recall clients if we haven’t seen them for 6 months. We find that it takes a round 6 months on average for hearing aids to start drifting in performance due to the points mentioned above.
Our check-ups aren’t just over the counter with our office staff; we get you in to see the audiologist, who will check your ears, read out the hearing aid’s data logging and ensure that everything is working as it should for you to receive ongoing optimal benefit. This also allows us to perform any fine tuning that may be required.
Some might call us crazy, but we even let you know a few months before your hearing aid warranty is about to expire. Sure, we could leave this out of our scope of service like most other clinics do and then reap the rewards of profit on out of warranty repairs.
For us it is more than just the profits lost or gained. For us it is about giving you the opportunity to enjoy your hearing aids with as few problems as possible well after the included warranty (normally 3 to 4 years) has expired. During the last year in warranty service, we find that most manufacturers refurbish hearing aids to work like new again, which may mean years of extra trouble free service without the need to upgrade or pay for a multitude of ongoing repairs.
While your hearing aids are away for this service, we loan you hearing aids, so you can continue to enjoy uninterrupted optimal hearing.
We are not a set and forget kind of company. We are a market leader, which many of our industry peers are trying and failing to emulate. We understand that because of this we cannot rest on our laurels. One of our company’s core values is to continually improve and innovate to better serve you. This is process has been evidenced by many of our clients who have been with us for years and it is a process that will never cease.
We are not a jack of all trades like many of our smaller and larger peers. We have a significant focus on providing members of Adult hearing impaired Australian community with the best possible hearing loss services and products. As such we have a wealth of experience delivering exceptional outcomes to clients just like you. We stay on top of the latest developments that are likely to benefit you the most.
We value our clients and their hearing health and as such we offer significant discounts when upgrading, giving you the ability to benefit from better technology. As such we have in place significant fixed upgrade discounts for existing clients, to benefit from better technology even more affordably once the time comes to purchase hearing aids again.
