How To Use The Gain Settings Panel With Widex Compass

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How To Measure The Sensogram In Widex Compass

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New Video Tutorial, How To Fine Tune With Compass

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New Widex Fitting Tutorial Video, Using Compass Step By Step To Perform A Fitting.

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This new video is one of a series that has been released in the last few days. We shall feature each one.

WIDEX CLEAR - Widex for hearing healthcare professionals

WIDEX CLEAR - Widex for hearing healthcare professionals.

WIDEX CLEAR

The CLEAR family includes the three series CLEAR440, CLEAR330 and CLEAR220.

If you are looking for the premium wireless solution, then the CLEAR™ family is the answer.

CLEAR uses Widex’ own wireless technology called WidexLink, the first of its kind designed especially for hearing aids. This means that CLEAR hearing aids communicate with each other instantly and constantly, just like two ears do. And children can truly enjoy the benefits of natural sound.

Also part of the CLEAR family is our outstanding FUSION model (picture). FUSION is an all-in-one model designed to suit most types of hearing loss.

CLEAR for children includes:

• Seamless communication and coordination between hearing aids


• Real sound in real time


• Easy and high-speed access to external devices such as TV’s or mobile phones


• Widex’ own wireless technology – WidexLink – fast, secure and robust


• Fast, accurate and convenient wireless fitting


• A choice of three different receivers in the one model (FUSION only)

More information

Get a feature overview of the whole Widex for Children portfolio:
Download - Product and feature overview.pdf

Patient Reminders Software, an excellent potential Patient Retention Tool

Patient Reminders Software, Increasing Customer Engagement & Retention For Your Practice.

 

I very rarely advocate any other company’s products on this blog, I think the clue is in the blog name really. Although I am open to offers of freebies, an iPhone 5 for review perhaps? :) However, occasionally I come across a product or tool which I feel has real benefit for our Retail customers such as the OtoPod which was featured in an earlier post. In this case, it is a piece of software that can be deployed as part of a practice management suite that I feel could deliver real benefit to any Retail Practice.

I recently came across a piece of software that I feel maybe extremely beneficial for any retail organisation; the software is named Patient Reminders and is deployed as a net based system. I believe the software has the ability to be extremely beneficial to a retail organization. The software can be deployed in a way that will bring both tactical and long term strategic benefits to any brands Retail operations.

I feel that in a Retail operation the deployment of the system will allow:

· Increased customer engagement

· Better compliance in appointment fulfilment

· ongoing marketing opportunities

· Increased Patient Retention

The system is an automated sms reminder system, designed for and deployed by drug research companies for use in clinical trials, it is designed to remind Patients of follow up appointments, the metered taking of particular experimental drugs and the recording of their Patient Diary. The software can be adapted for our industry purposes particularly in retail operations either as standalone independents or national multi outlet brands. I think a well designed deployment of the system can be utilised to encourage:

• Brand Awareness
• Loyalty
• Customer Retention.

The idea in deployment would be to automate a schedule of text messages to be delivered, the core content of the text messages would be automated appointment reminders to assist in your set Patient journey/follow up schedule. This should and could include initial test appointments and no sale follow up messages.  You can also utilise the text messaging service as part of your standard marketing endeavours, notifying Patients of relevant offers or ongoing campaigns, carefully customised to them.

Increasing Appointment Compliance by 40%?

It also has the benefit of cutting down on paper use and postage costs, you can also be reasonably sure that your carefully designed message is in fact been read by your target audience. I read an interesting statistic recently that has real bearing on our industry among many others. It stated that in the US up to 44% of direct marketing mail went unread? I also noted with interest while I was researching this software, a study released by the NHS that stated that compliance with appointments had increased by 40% with the introduction of an automated sms reminder system.

 

That Study Data Can Be Downloaded Here Text Messaging in Healthcare

The following is a brief outline of the Patient Reminders system from the company who provides it

PATIENT REMINDERS - HELPING OUR HEARING AID CUSTOMERS & PRACTITIONERS

Patient Reminders is a simple, secure, web form for practitioners or patients to:

• Register hearing aid device serial numbers for warranty protection
• Opt in to receive perfectly timed SMS and/or email reminders to return for a hearing aid service or test at the correct interval
• Be updated on special offers or new products and be motivated to book a demonstration

Only very basic information is needed on the web form:

• Device type from a prepared pick-list
• Serial number
• Date of fitting/supply from calendar picker
• Practitioner from prepared pick-list
• Cell phone and or email
• First name
• Country and language from pick-lists

From the date of fitting, the system automatically builds the perfect visit schedule. Messages are sent to patients at the correct time in the local language and font. Languages such as Hebrew, Russian and Chinese are supported as standard making it a global solution. The solution can be designed to include the Practitioners/Retailers name, website and phone number within the message sign-off, ensuring complete ease of use, encouraging the patient to call and book the appointment or product demonstration.

The data is encrypted and secured on the Patient Reminders servers. This solution has been designed for the clinical trials industry. They are HIPPA, EU privacy Directive, Safe Harbor and CAN SPAM compliant. Data is never shared or divulged.

The benefits include:

• Making it easy for patients to reach back to practitioners
• Increased hearing aid device service and maintenance routines
• Elegant communications keeping customers happy and showing we care
• Gentle reminders at the optimal time to book new product demonstrations
• Increase customer loyalty and generate repeat sales

Patient Reminders can be viewed at

Patient Reminders

Like I said, I don’t normally plug other people, its hard to fit it in around me telling you how wonderful I am! But I think that this software could be of real value to Retailers. Let me know what you think,

Geoff

LOYALTY SCHEMES, ARE THEY FOR YOUR PRACTICE?

Loyalty schemes as strategically deployed programmes to aid to Patient Retention

Loyalty schemes are becoming more and more prevalent in the retail world and indeed beyond to the service industry. These schemes are not really deployed in our industry to any real extent. I think an introduction of a loyalty scheme can and will help your business in the long term. The mantra in our business, particularly at present, although in some quarters it is nothing new, is Patient Retention. We all know that in order to survive in the current economic climate we need to retain our Patients and in doing so we will see a growth in new business through customer referral. I have written before here along these themes and I am constantly thinking about tactical applications that will encourage that strategic goal.

In my day to day work in Widex Ireland I am on hand to advise and support our accounts with business and marketing ideas to assist them with their business. Here at Widex and I mean Widex internationally, we are committed to supporting our customers to grow and prosper. This is not all altruistic of course, it is grounded in the belief that if our customers prosper through our support, so shall we. Their success is by extension our success. This attitude is enshrined within Widex and has been since the inception of the company, I think we as a company have become famous for forging long standing business relationships with Partners as opposed to just selling to Customers.

Enough of the love fest already, I just give it as background as to why we are constantly thinking about ways for you, our customers to succeed, that and the hope that Mike (the big Gaffer) says, this guys a genius. Stop laughing Miller it could happen! Back to the point, Loyalty Schemes, so how will we introduce it and what will we offer. Also, what do we expect back from the scheme, the scheme, no matter its extent will involve some investment, whether that be time resources or money. In order to assess some of these questions we first have to understand what a loyalty scheme is and how it applies to our business.

So a loyalty scheme is defined as the following:

LOYALTY SCHEME:

• a scheme to keep the business of existing customers, e.g. by special
  discounts for loyalty card holders
  

So in essence it is a simple concept, in application is where it gets interesting. The immediate questions that are raised for me are:

• What Customers?
  
• What discounts?
  
• On what products?
  
• Loyalty Card? Now you are having a giggle right?
  

Ok, lets have a look at the preceding:

What customers? Hell allllll of them, even people who aren't your customers. When you start a good loyalty club, advertise it, anyone can join and avail of the discounts on the products or services you define. If they want either the products or indeed the services if you include any, they are either hearing instrument users or they know somebody who is. If you didn't sell them the last set of instruments lets try and make sure you sell them the next set of hearing instruments. So start your loyalty club and advertise its advent, advertise it as open to anybody on sign up. Include a reference to it in all your advertising, web, news media, leaflets, practice brochures etc, oh and it is a perfect opportunity to send a meaningful communication of real value(I talk about these a lot) to your existing customers.

What discounts? That is for you to decide, but they have to be meaningful and of value to your customers and more importantly to people who are not your customers yet. You need to look at it from a purely economic point of view, the cut in margin can be made up in volume sales. Another key thought here is that attracts new customers and helps to retain old ones is a real cheap lead. How much do you think it costs you via traditional marketing to generate a lead? If all it costs you here is a cut in margin and a few pence for mailing and loyalty cards, that is a pretty cheap lead.

On what products? Okay, this is where it becomes an interesting tactical exercise, you need to ask yourself what do I wish to achieve with this strategy. You also need to ask yourself what do my customers want and what would they value from me? I think there is actually a meeting of needs here, it would be nice for most businesses to increase revenue from regular purchase ancillary products. The core regular purchase ancillary products in our business are batteries and clean and care products, clean and care products are something that I am sure we would all like to encourage as they bolster instrument reliability and reduce failure and service costs. So for both us and the Patient the purchase of clean and care supplies are a win win. So encourage the sale through discounted products and do so in a way that brings benefit to you through offering discounts through a loyalty club. You can also consider in the medium to long term offering discounts on new sets of hearing instruments, again perhaps you are reducing margins, but we all give discounts to returning Patients. A loyalty scheme formalises this and also removes the need to discuss discount because you have set it.

Loyalty Card? Yes please, nice shiny pieces of plastic woohoooooo. I love em, makes me feel all growed up! Sorry I digress, a good quality loyalty card is in the scheme of things quite cheap to have printed, then individualizing it is easy with some of the desktop printing solutions designed for this purpose. Get a well designed loyalty card printed up, even better if your till system scans codes, you can entry the data on it and the production and scan of the card at point of sale can automatically apportion discount. In this manner you can also capture ongoing data pertaining to purchasing and design and customise individual offers to your Patients. Of course none of this works as well if you do not have good CRM systems coupled with good point of sales systems. But don't let that put you off, it can be done manually, just design your CRM in order that you can record purchases on it in a way that you can search and quantify. The only way to manage and grow your business is by knowing all the data.

Please feel free to comment and tell me why I am wrong! J

Thoughts on the current market outlook

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In my position at Widex Ireland I am constantly out and about in our market place meeting with Dispensers and discussing the ongoing business outlook. The overwhelming response is that business is harder this year than it was last year, when you discuss it in a more in-depth way several things become clear. Our market place and our customers have changed, not only has our marketplace and customers changed but some of the larger players within our market are changing as well. They are becoming better at what they do, better at dealing with Patients and better at retaining them. You will need to change with the changing reality if you want to continue to compete. With a view to my ongoing discussions, these are the points I consistently hear:

• New Customers are few and far between
• Any new Customers are better educated pertaining to Hearing Instruments
• Any new Customers are more aware of ongoing care required
• Any new Customers are shopping around for price
• There is a perceived massive reduction on ROI on traditional marketing
• 60 to 70%, and perhaps more in certain practices, of business written at present, is return business
• A large part of what is termed new business written is in fact Patient referral business

I think the preceding points are representative of the industry outlook in Ireland, from my discussions with owner Dispensers across the world, but particularly in the USA, it appears that this situation is in fact relatively representative of the industry worldwide. I would like to address these perceptions because I do not necessarily believe they are exactly true as stated.

With reference to the new customers, from manufacturers figures worldwide, there has been little or no drop in units sold internationally. However, there has been a drop in average sales price per unit, this may or may not be weighted by sales to public health services(traditionally much cheaper units sold at volume). In other words, there actually appears to be the same amount of new business been written year on year and in some markets there has been an increase in units sold.

New customers being better educated, this appears to be borne out by the figures and indeed by my conversations with Dispensers. For the first time, Patient expectations and levels of technology for the most part are aligned. By that I mean, we are managing Patient expectations better, the information that they view on the internet and receive from others is also in line with what current technology can deliver. Hearing instruments from most manufacturers are approaching a sadolin moment (they do exactly what they say on the tin!).

Confidence in low end and mid end technology to meet lifestyle requirements is at an all time high, that combined with the present economic conditions is in fact pushing average sales price down. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as perception of hearing instruments and their ability to assist with loss changes so will the volume of units sold. Don’t necessarily think about the units that are sold, think about the large proportion of people with loss who do not purchase. The people who purchase hearing aids are only at the most 10% of the people who may be assisted with hearing instruments. That is a huge un-tapped market, whilst the reasons for this are multiple and complex, perceptions of hearing instrument efficacy plays a part.

New customers being aware of ongoing care needs, again this is not a bad thing for our industry. If you in fact give a comprehensive care package with your hearing instrument sale, you have nothing to fear. If you don’t, you better start thinking about giving one! Alternatively you may look at this an opportunity to increase unit volume and ancillary revenue. Perhaps if you run a parallel pricing scheme. One pricing scheme that includes hearing instrument price and ongoing care package and another that just includes hearing instrument price with a separate payment structure for aftercare packages, or indeed aftercare visits. You can even mix these up offering the hearing instrument and two years care or the hearing instrument and three years care etc.

New customers shopping around for price, this is a common reality in all spheres of business. I think you should pitch your price to your market segment, with an eye to your competitors. By that I mean, if you are a boutique practice that deals with high technology consumers and your practice setting reflects this, well then by extrapolation your prices can also represent this within reason. However, if you are working out of the boot of your car or in clinics in less than salubrious conditions, your prices also need to reflect this.

A perceived massive reduction on ROI on traditional marketing, I have heard this consistently and assumed it to be correct. However, I have over time concluded an interesting idea, it came from the term itself, “traditional marketing”. The adverts that are being run are exactly the same as has always been run, there is no real change in the content or overall feel of the adverts that are being run. Our demographic is increasingly sophisticated, we know this to be true, then we pitch to them with the same adverts, through the same channels that we have always done. Does anything about the last statement seem odd to you? Change up your advertising, change your layout, try a new pitch, investigate other media channels. Use eye catching visual humour in your advertising where possible, use eye catching visuals all of the time.

Return business, it does appear that the key to ongoing success and even growth is return business. Practices that I service who have traditionally high percentages of return business are doing very well at the minute. If your practice does not retain Patients, you need to sit down and honestly ask yourself why? Then you quickly need to deal with the issues, it will not affect your business levels short time, however in the medium to long term it will stabilise your business income.

Patient referral business, I am afraid this is an extension of my last paragraph, if your Patient won’t return to you for another set of hearing instruments, why would they refer their friends? So in short, what can we take from the above, what action points can you take?

Although things are hard, there are still customers out there, in order to get your share of the market you need to think on your feet. You need to consider all media channels for marketing and you also need to consider new elements in your practice as marketing avenues. You need to consider every Patient as a long term investment and a marketing vehicle in their own right, and you need to do it today. Design your practice and practice procedures around this concept, if you have traditionally done that, well done! You are doing relatively well already, if you have not, start now. Your business will feel the effects of that change in the medium to long term.

In my next post I want to discuss some ideas I have around non traditional marketing channels and how you might integrate them into you practice in a relatively cost neutral way. 

Your web strategy, Facebook, Twitter, or not?

Image via CrunchBase

If you are a follower of Widex Ireland, you know that we post some content and tweet a lot of links pertaining to social media and web presence. In my recent posts here I have been concentrating on web presence pertaining to your website.

Whilst I was writing the last post I touched upon the concept of web presence strategy, or online strategy. I actually realised that some people neither have one or completely understand what the phrase means or how it refers to their online presence.

For instance, my strategy is to connect to both my customers and indeed end users through several online media channels, this blog, facebook, my space, youtube and twitter to be exact. Oh and probably Google Plus when they realise they forgot to invite me, they’re busy, probably just slipped their minds! The underlying strategy and overall long term goal is to build a community of both Dispensers and end users for Widex internationally.

I also wish to positively affect these peoples buying decisions and increase their perception of and loyalty to, my adopted brand. Those are my long term goals and overall strategy, in order to attain this I have to apply and follow clear tactical guidelines and actions.

Chief among these guidelines for me would be:

• Honest, human interaction with all my followers
• Good, well written, factual and clear content
• Content that is of interest to my target market
• Honest and immediate interaction with my followers
• Educational content

The tactical actions I take pertaining to these guidelines are:

• Regular tweets of own content
• Regular re-tweets of content of interest
• Cross platform posting of tweets to Facebook
• Regular posts on the blog
• Cross platform postings of the blog to Twitter
• Uploading of videos to youtube and cross platform posting of same
• Clear

My online presence is multi platform because this allows me to reach as many possible followers as I can. However, this approach is time consuming and challenging. There are several tools that allow me to reduce the time I spend on our presence, however, they do not reduce the challenge of posting diverse and intelligent content. Stop laughing at the back please, wesley Miller said I was intelligent, although, he was giggling at the time?

Do not forget, I am endeavouring to cater to two very different audiences, Dispensing professionals and end users.They both demand differing information around the same topics. This is a constant challenge for me, I need to design content that will be of interest to both audiences on a regular basis if I indeed want to carry both audiences along with me on my travels.

It is indeed not always possible, for instance this post and the last few preceding ones have been part of our business support ethos, something that is very strong in both Widex Ireland and Widex Internationally. Your average end user has no real interest in applying an online strategy. The closest they tend to get to online strategy is remembering not to post on facebook drunk, although that is indeed one of my own closely held strategies.  The average Dispenser probably would like to know about online business strategies.

I have barely touched the surface of my online strategy and indeed the use of social media, it is a subject that is exhaustive. I wish just to give bare outlines and indeed the points I think are imperative. 

Before you move forward with any online strategy, I would caution you to think carefully about what the long term goals of that strategy are? I would then clearly lay out the steps that you will take to attain those long term goals. The question you should clearly ask yourself is, why do I want a website, or facebook page, or Twitter account? If the answer is because my competitor has one, then you will do yourself a great disservice by obtaining one.

The initial step that should be taken by any business is the fundamental one, the foundation that all of your presence will be built on, your website. You need to treat your website as a living document, it should constantly change and evolve. Acceptable webpage design even as little as two years ago is now very dated looking. Has your webpage been updated in the last year, if not, why not?

I am speaking of your content here, not even your site design, your business regularly has events in its yearly life cycle, such as marketing campaigns, product offers, new additions to your price list, changes in your price list etc. These are ideal opportunities to update your site, keeping your content fresh.

In fact, in order to keep your site high on page one of the search engines returns, you need to update your content regularly with a view to constantly changing keywords and tags to reflect current search terms. This alone should drive you to tend your website carefully and often. These regime should include careful and honest assessment of your site design.

If it looks dated, change it, include a news segment that is regularly updated with cross links to an offers page where you keep your latest practice offers updated. Add a blog page that you update with content on a regular basis, the content you can use is endless, but always put your own spin on it. A viewer will spot canned content a mile away and their perception of you will be affected.

Always remember, you are dealing with the perceptions of not only existing, but prospective customers. Their perceptions of you are implicitly your top priority. their perceptions are what will make them pick you as a provider or indeed move on to somebody else.

The foundation step, before you move into any social networks is to ensure your website is right for you, ensure it represents you as you would like it to.

Included in the preceding paragraphs is an outline of how I utilise several on line platforms, my web-presence, to achieve my long term strategy. The question is, what is your long term web-presence strategy and how will you achieve it?

Tips to help you with your website or blog.

Image via Wikipedia

I have been thinking more and more about web presence and the perceptual effect that a site has on a prospective Patient. The following is a summation of my own thoughts and some of the elements that I have noted on the web.

There is a lot of information out there in relation to business web presence and strategy. From using keywords to optimise your site for search engines, to your actual ongoing strategy for having a web presence. The latter is something that a lot of companies just do not think about in a in depth manner. Simply put, why are you on the web and what is your long term strategy for your web presence.

If you do not think clearly about this question and then utilise your strategy effectively, you are wasting your time. I will come back to this subject and explain further the concepts and practices that pertain to long term web strategy in another post.

The overall goal for your website is to attract and keep visitors. If you have undertaken the hard work to have your page highly ranked in the search engines, or indeed you have undertaken some marketing to increase your web traffic, it makes sense to ensure your visitor stays on your site. These tips may assist you to accomplish that goal.

What are some of the ways you can improve the overall chances that a customer will stay on long enough on your website, to become interested in a consultation or purchase?

• Make your call to action obvious on your home page. There must be a clear and concise call to action on your home page. In the case of our industry it could be  a headline such as “Free Hearing Test Provided”, “Providers of Bespoke Hearing Solutions”. Be sure to include the solutions that you are providing also, however, do not get text heavy, detail the solutions as links. If they want more information they can click through to a more in depth explanation. The place to click needs to be obvious, practically shouting “CLICK ME, CLICK ME”.
• Write great headlines. Attracting readers is a big part of your motivation. But don’t write outrageous headlines that do not match your content. Like traditional advertising, you need to ensure that you are not entering into any false advertising.
• Improve readability. Add white space and ensure you are using fonts that are clear and attractive. Get rid of any clutter, think clean lines. Readers are more likely to stay on a site where it’s easier to see the information that they wish to see. Include clear high res pictures on your pages.
• Have videos on the site. In our industry it is relatively easy to source high quality videos from manufacturers, embed them in your site. Several people within the industry are making their own videos, if you do it, make sure your production quality is high, the content is good, the presenter has a relatively decent screen presence and the finished video is edited and outputted in a relatively high resolution.
• Include Patient testimonials. Ask your Patient’s for testimonials, if you have indeed treated them properly and provided solutions to their problems, they will be happy to provide them. Don’t be embarrassed to ask, a large proportion of your Patients would normally be happy to help you in some way. These testimonials will add authenticity and allow a prospective Patient to begin to trust you and your claims, they also may increase the chances a prospective Patient will look a bit deeper around your site.
• Have a blog page on your site. Ensure the content is good, of interest to the potential customer and well written. Your blog the information provided and the tone it is provided in tends to be more informal, it is where your prospective customer finds out about your knowledge and ability to provide advice.
• Keep the important information above the fold. Users need to see the core of your message without having to scroll down.
• Make it easy to find information. Do not make it difficult to find information on your site. If somebody can not find what they are looking for easily, they will go back to the original search and try another company.
• Have a prominent Search Box. Users need to have an easy way to find just what they are looking for. Make your search box enormous, ensure that any and all permutations of a search entered will lead them to what they are looking for on your site.

Look at your site from a prospective Patients point of view. What do you honestly think of your site and what elements on your site would drive you away?

The changes in our Patients.

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I recently read an article pertaining to the changing nature of Patients, and stop harrying from the back, Widex Ireland contrary to the rumours can read, but I digress. The article was actually in reference to the changing knowledge profile of Doctors’ Patients, however it was thoroughly valid to our sector. It really started me thinking, and after we identified what the burning smell was and the fire brigade had been sent away, this is what I come up with.

When I first entered practice, only a short few years ago, Patients who attended my practice were not particularly knowledgeable about either their possible condition or any of the many instruments that may be available to them. Questions of this nature where nearly always answered with what could be termed a generic answer. If you asked what do you know about hearing instruments? The answer tended to be not much, but I know there is the small ones that go in the ear and the ones that go outside the ear.

Again, if you asked the same question about hearing loss, you would either get a not much or again a generic answer pertaining to age. Over the years I began to notice this changing, it was initially a slow affair, with one or two Patients a month surprising me with more specific knowledge. It still really amounted to slightly more targeted but generic knowledge, such as a brand name in the case of the hearing instrument question or perhaps a clearer definition of a hearing loss.

Usually when I discussed this with the Patient, it transpired that the source of knowledge was usually the internet. At that time it was unusual for our Patients, our Demographic to utilise the internet for anything, let alone searches pertaining to hearing loss and instruments. But I believe that this has changed radically.

I no longer practice, can you hear the sigh of relief?, but in my function with Widex Ireland I get to speak to practising Dispensers every day. What I have found is that Dispensers report that more and more prospective and existing Patients express opinions with real knowledge. Thoughts about their particular pathology of loss and perhaps its’ aetiology, they also express much better knowledge about the instruments that are available, mentioning not only brands but also platforms or indeed instrument configurations.

With this in mind and also my experience on the multiple social platforms that Widex Ireland uses, it has become obvious to me that a large part of our customer base is not only web literate but that number is increasing exponentially daily. They are being taught their new skills through active retirement clubs, government initiatives, even by their sons, daughters and grandchildren.

So where am I going with this, wait for it, wait for it, have I ever let you down before? Ok there was that time, oh yes and that other time, oh yes and that….., again I digress. What this means to us is that a large and growing part of our customer base is now online, not only are they online but they understand how online works. They are searching out information pertaining to their ailment and the possible solutions that may be available. When they search for the centres that may supply them those solutions, you want to be there and you want to dress to impress.

Every practice should sit down and devise a strategy for their internet presence, at this stage, although there is a headlong rush towards social media, social networking is not yet key to our business. Don’t get me wrong, it is important and will become more and more important as time goes by. What is important right now is your traditional web presence and how you use it. Your website!Start with your website, before you enter into any social media networks.

If I have clicked through to your website from a search link, you have about five seconds for me to decide to stay. What will make me stay? Level of production quality, clarity, my first thoughts. With this in mind, your landing page and indeed all the sites pages need to be designed with this in mind. It must look professional, it should have high quality pictures of high resolution. The chosen colour scheme and font should speak of professionalism and sophistication.

So, your page has all of this and you have grabbed my attention, I want to get to the information I need quickly, I want a decent summation of the information with the facility to click through to a fuller explanation. I want the click through and summation to be clear, I want it to wave at me. If I click through to the more in depth information I want a back button, a big one so I can see it and I don’t have to think about it.

I want your site to be intuitive and easy, because if its not, I am sure your competitor or his competitor has a site just like that. If you have a web shop on your site or a blog and you should, because again, they may not be a big part of your business now, but that will change. I want easy links, again in the shop I want big high res pictures of what I am going to buy with clear outlines of what it is. I also do not want to jump through hoops to pay you, you make me jump through hoops and I is taking my money elsewhere.

Your site including your blog and your web shop should be easily searched, even if I put a stupid miss-spelt reference, I want your search facility to offer me the option of the right product or blog post.  I do not want to dig through your site for information, perhaps because I am lazy, perhaps because I have the attention span of a goldfish or perhaps because I am just learning this damned new fangled rubbish and your failure to make it easy for me has irritated me enough to go back to Google to look for another vendor.

I finally get to the point, the most important web presence you have is your website, it tells all your potential customers who you are. Its look and presentation tells of your professionalism and the experience while browsing it psychologically affects somebody's perception of you. It can be a fantastic tool for you and your practice or it can be an insidious presence working against you, you need to decide which.

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AS Heard On TV, or not in this case.

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A unique study for Voice of The Listener, funded by Widex, finds 53% of over 65s have trouble hearing what is being said on TV and have pinpointed why.

Lack of speech intelligibility on TV programs, especially for the over 65s and those with a hearing impairment, is a growing problem. This research has thrown up some surprising causes and led to a BBC initiative to resolve it.

The key findings were as follows:

• 45% of programs watched by those with poor or very poor hearing gave them spoken word problems
• 53% of over 65s could not hear speech in 22 identified problem programs
• 29% of programs posed speech audibility problems to 10% of over 65s52% of respondents said that background music “reduced their enjoyment”

The study sample was made of 8500 over 65s, who completed a TV diary that asked detailed questions about their viewing. The results were then analyzed and 22 problem programs were identified with which a significant number of the viewers had issues.

Recordings of these programs were subjected to rigorous sound testing. It was found that background music was indeed a contributing factor, but poor recording and sub standard artist dialog levels negatively affected a greater proportion of programs.

Six programs had added music that masked the voice of the presenter or actor. A further six had poor microphone placement recording indistinct dialog. Seven programs had artists whose vocal performance was at too low a level to be recorded adequately by the microphone.

To its credit, the BBC has responded quickly, it has launched an industry wide training initiative through the BBC Academy. A series of training modules based on the findings are being made available to the whole broadcasting industry. They will also be used in college courses including the National Film and TV School.

Acknowledgements:

Dick Bates, Peter Meneer and David Walker (all former BBC executives) initiated this programme

GFK NOP was both the research company for the BBC Pulse Online panel and the supplementary VLV paper diary project among the over 65s

Louise Wilcox MIBS (Partner DWS Associates volunteered her services to analyze the programs.

Story first Published in Listen, The World of Widex, issue 03, 2011

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The Widex Clear 330 and Clear 330 Fusion

The mid range Widex Clear 330 platform is a strong instrument range with the new Clear processor and Widexlink technology and the inclusion of some of the renowned Widex strategies. The 330 platform is a full family from custom to BTE including the Passion and the new Fusion form factor.

At present we have available all of the BTE instruments and we hope to have the custom instruments within a few months. I shall of course keep you informed of our progress with this.

The instruments are ten channel instruments as opposed to the 15 available on the Clear 440. They retain several of the inter ear features available on the 440, such as IE Feedback Cancellation, IE Zen, program synchronisation and volume control.

The instruments, were applicable, have multi channel adaptive directionality with the HD Locator and also the digital Pinna. Whilst it lacks the extra localisation cues given by the IE Compression system, the HD Locator combined with the Digital Pinna will give front to back localisation cues. The HD Locator system is already a fantastic directionality system, combined with the new processor in the Clear platform it will excel even further.

The instruments will also have the Free Focus feature if paired with an M Dex. The noise reduction system supplied is the Speech Enhancer, the noise reduction system that was utilised in the Widex Mind 440.

The Speech Enhancer is still the only noise reduction system ever shown to effect signal to noise ratio without any assistance from directional strategies. That is several years after its release in the Mind 440.

Applied in tandem with the faster and more powerful processor available in the Clear platform the Speech Enhancer should be even more effective in dealing with real world complex sound situations than it currently is in the Mind 440.

The Widex Clear 330 also has the two Widex Cornerstone audiological strategies the Audibility Extender and Zen. The early feedback on the latest generation of Audibility Extender is extremely positive with experienced users of the strategy reporting that it is the best one yet.

The instruments will have 4 programmes + Zen and will also be able to utilise compound programs as with the 440. The Zen as mentioned before will be the new Inter Ear version. The 330 will have connectivity to the full Dex Range.

On the programming side, the Widex Clear 330 and 220 platforms can only be programmed and fine tuned with Compass 5.4. When connecting to the instruments it is imperative that you give it certain information. Particularly the acoustic properties and receiver selection if applicable. This information is vital for the efficacy of the instrument and can be input in the selection screen

 

 

the Widex Clear 330 platform has access to the expanded sensogram, giving you the ability to undertake the sensogram across 14 frequencies. My opinion would be that if you can, you should undertake the sensogram across the 14 frequencies, it will make a difference to you and your Patient. Your Patient will have an instrument as closely fit to their hearing loss as is possible and the pay off for you is reduced follow up and fine tunes. A win win for everyone I think.

In the Fine tuning sphere you also have access to the channels for fine tuning purposes. Again this feature was first introduced with the Clear 440 and it has been included for the 330 platform. the occlusion control feature has been included to assist with those difficult fits.

I think this touches on the main run down of the instruments, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch.      

The launch of the Clear 330 & 220 Instruments

 

We at Widex Ireland have just finished launching the Widex Clear 330 & 220 instruments to the Irish market. The launch was very successful and the devices were well received by customers and non customers alike.

With the introduction of the full Widex Clear technology range run in tandem with the existing Widex Mind platform offerings we feel that we are finally offering a strong balanced series of instruments to our Customers and their Patients.

Some of our Customers were in fact worried that we were going to allow the Mind platform to slip from our offerings. I was glad to assuage their worries telling them that the Mind platform and particularly the Mind 220 family were some of our most successful instruments ever and were here to stay for the moment.

In Ireland, just like other areas in our world, economic times have been tough for business. Our business is no different and has been effected by the prevailing economic climate. For our Customers the introduction of the Mind 220 family occurred at exactly the right time.

It meant that not only could they offer a hearing instrument to their Patients at a low price but they could have faith that it was an outstanding instrument with Widexs’ renowned sound quality and the efficacy that they had come to expect from the Mind series.

But I digress, the launch of the new products is what I should be rabbiting on about. The new downgrades were really well received, particularly the Clear Fusion 330 and Clear Fusion 220. We think the introduction of these devices will deliver un-restricted versatility to our customers in fulfilling the needs of a large proportion of their Patients.

The Clear Fusion has exceeded our expectations in every market that it has been launched in and has caused quite a headache for our manufacturing and production teams. I believe the expression is flying off the shelves, our manufacturing team are working at full tilt to supply demand, so if you are having difficulty acquiring one, don’t fear, Fusions are winging their way towards you as we speak.

We also gave the Dispensers a sneak preview of the Phone Dex, a landline wireless streaming solution which I will be sacked for mentioning here! But hey, I cant resist :) and Widex have come to expect it of me :) I shall just throw in a “sorry Mike”, “I prostrate myself before your towering benevolence and famed forgiveness, oh and you’ll miss me if you fire me”, “I shall never do it again until next time” here. Have to hedge your bets right.

Our customers where really impressed by the Phone Dex, oh those words again, and felt confident that it would be an ideal solution for more than one or two of their Patients. As I spoke about the instruments and the connectivity options I could see several of the Dispensers thinking about the Patients they would fit them to.

It brought me back to when I was in practice and product launches I had attended. It is easy for Dispensers to get jaded by product launches, you would also think that it would be easy for us to become jaded giving presentations. But there is real excitement around the Clear platform, both at Dispenser level and internally within the Widex family.

We at Widex feel that we have made a huge leap forward in technology with the Clear platform, laying the foundations for even more advances based on that technology both in hearing instruments and other possible applications for near field wireless connectivity.

I am really excited that the full platform is now nearly released, with the exception of the custom devices, the technology utilised in the platform across the different technology levels is outstanding giving truly strong instruments in every technology level and price point. Each tech level of the Clear platform represents itself well within that market segment and dare I say it is a front runner if not the leader in its market segment.

Below is a quick comparison sheet for the Widex Clear platform, I shall detail the devices and technology utilised within in separate posts.

The Irish Launch of the Clear 330 & 220 Families.

We have begun the launch of the Clear 330 and 220 to the Irish Market. The kick off event was yesterday in Belfast and the instruments were extremely well received by all of the Dispensers present. As always the Widex Ireland back office staff and frontline audiology staff had everything set up to perfection and everybody present got a chance to play with the devices extensively.

 

The Downgrades are strong devices and I feel they are best in class, however you would expect me to say that! :) I would urge you to try them yourself if you have the opportunity. All agreed that my presentation was mercifully short, I am not sure why that would be a good thing? I shall put up aforementioned presentation towards the end of the week.

 

I also plan to write up a run down on the instruments and their features on the blog in the next week

Guide To Using The Audibility Extender Successfully

This is a guide explaining the use of the Widex cornerstone audiological strategy of Frequency Transposition. This feature is named The Audibility Extender

You may download the file here Guide To Using The Audibility

HOW TO USE THE TOOLS IN THE TOPTOOL BAR Widex Compass and programming Widex Hearing Instruments.

This quick guide describes how to use the tools in the Toptool bar in the Fine Tuning window in Compass.

You can download the file here he TopTool Bar

How to define the acoustic identity using a Double ear-tip

The document explains the defining process of acoustic identity in Widex hearing instruments. The definition of the acoustic identity is imperative for Widex Instruments as it will affect the gain profile.

Download the files here Double Dome

      

Tulip Tip