SEC Issues Alert Regarding Fraudulent Investment Fund for the Deaf | September 1, 2011 | The Insider | The Hearing Review | Hearing Review Products

SEC Issues Alert Regarding Fraudulent Investment Fund for the Deaf | September 1, 2011 | The Insider | The Hearing Review | Hearing Review Products.

Washington, DC — The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged an Internet-based investment company, Imperia Invest IBC (Imperia), with securities fraud for defrauding investors of $7 million, of which $4 million was primarily from victims who are deaf or have hearing loss.

In October 2010, the SEC obtained a temporary restraining order and emergency asset freeze against Imperia for defrauding more than 14,000 investors worldwide.

The SEC's complaint alleged Imperia fraudulently raised more than $7 million, of which $4 million was collected primarily from deaf investors in the United States.

The latest alert regarding Imperia is to warn potential investors, including deaf investors, about the risk of “advance fee fraud” schemes involving companies with names similar to Imperia. Advertisements with testimonials promise generous funds for “deaf and hearing support” and require an upfront fee for processing.

In an advance fee fraud, an investor or "eligible recipiant" is asked to pay a fee in advance of receiving any proceeds, money, stock, etc, in order for the deal to go through. Once the fee is accepted via Paypal or other online service, the promised funds are never sent to the victim.

In the investment scheme, Imperia and its subcompanies have allegedly promised returns in excess of 1.2% per day. In reality, the advanced fees and investments were siphoned into foreign bank accounts, never paying any money back to victims. Imperia’s Web site stated that investors could access their profits through the purchase of a Visa debit card from Imperia for a few hundred dollars. However, Imperia has no relationship with Visa and was using the Visa name without authorization.

For more details and a sign language enhanced video of the SEC's fraud alert, go to www.sec.gov/investor/alerts/imperia.htm

SOURCE: The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) 

As reported in The Hearing Review

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

BINAURAL HEARING – OPEN BOTH EARS TO THE SOUND OF LIFE - Widex Ireland. Digital hearing aids

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BINAURAL HEARING – OPEN BOTH EARS TO THE SOUND OF LIFE - Widex Ireland. Digital hearing aids

New page on the site dedicated to the benefits of Binaural Hearing.

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

15 reasons why you should wear two hearing instruments, sort of

Actually Seventeen reasons why you should wear two hearing aids

Taken from "Binaural Hearing aids: The Fitting of Choice for Bilateral Loss Subjects", Sergei Kochkin, Ph.D.

The following is the sum up of a survey undertaken by Sergei Kochkin several years ago. I have posted on it before but I thought it was ultra important to do so again, particularly now that Widex has introduced interear functions in the Clear hearing instrument platform. In order to get the very best from the hearing instruments you really need to wear two.

The interear features already have been described as giving the most natural sound and as more and more of our famous research and innovation is brought to bear on the processor and data exchange services the instruments will become even better and the underlying reason to wear binaural hearing instruments will be stronger.

So I would like to add two more reasons, although they are really just relevant if you are wearing Widex Clear hearing instruments,

Widex 1. Preserving Interaural level difference

Interaural level is important for preserving localisation

Widex 2. Preserving temporal cues

Again, this is important for preserving localisation.

Localisation is key for ability to tell the direction of a sound, it also allows you to build up a sound picture which will also assist you further with the understanding of speech in noise. Here are the other fifteen reasons.

1. Better understanding of speech

By wearing two hearing instruments rather than one, selective listening is more easily achieved. This means your brain can focus on the conversation you want to hear. Research shows that people wearing two hearing aids routinely understand speech and conversation significantly better than people wearing one hearing aid.

2. Better understanding in group & even noisy situations

Speech intelligibility is improved in difficult listening situations when wearing two hearing aids. However, advanced binaural technology tends to perform better in noise than the older (linear) technology.

3. Better ability to tell the direction of sound

This is called localization. In a social gathering, for example, localization allows you to hear from which direction someone is speaking to you. Also, localization helps you determine from which direction traffic is coming or where your children or grandchildren are playing. Simply put, with binaural hearing, you will better detect where sounds are coming from in every situation.

4. Better sound quality

When you listen to a stereo system, you use both speakers to get the smoothest, sharpest, and most natural sound quality. The same can be said of hearing instruments. By wearing two hearing instruments, you increase your hearing range from 180 degrees reception, with just one instrument, to 360 degrees. This greater range provides a better sense of balance and sound quality.

5. Smoother tone quality

Wearing two hearing instruments generally requires less volume than one. This results in less distortion and better reproduction of amplified sounds.

6. Wider hearing range

It's true. A person can hear sounds from a further distance with two ears, rather than just one. A voice that's barely heard at 10 feet with one ear can be heard up to 40 feet with two ears.

7. Better sound identification

Often, with just one hearing instrument, many noises and words sound alike. But with two hearing instruments, as with two ears, sounds are more easily distinguishable.

8. Keeps both ears active resulting in less hearing loss deterioration

Research has shown that when only one hearing instrument is worn, the unaided ear tends to lose its ability to hear and understand. This is clinically called the auditory deprivation effect. Those wearing two hearing instruments keep both ears active. In fact, wearing one hearing aid when two are required might result in greater deterioration of hearing loss in the unaided ear than when wearing no hearing aid at all.

9. Hearing is less tiring and listening more pleasant

More binaural hearing aid wearers report that listening and participating in conversation is more enjoyable with two instruments, instead of just one. This is because they do not have to strain to hear with the better ear. Thus, binaural hearing can help make life more relaxing.

10. Feeling of balanced hearing

Two-eared hearing results in a feeling of balanced reception of sound, also known as the stereo effect.

Whereas monaural hearing creates an unusual feeling of sounds being heard in one ear.

11. Greater comfort when loud noises occur

A lower volume control setting is required with each of two hearing instruments than with just one hearing instrument, resulting in better tolerance of loud sounds.

12. Reduced feedback and whistling

With a lower volume control setting the chances of hearing aid feedback is reduced.

13. Tinnitus Masking

About 50% of people with ringing in their ears report improvement when wearing hearing aids. If the

subject has a hearing aid in only one ear, there will still be ringing in the ear, which does not have a hearing aid present.

14. Consumer preference

When given the choice and allowed to hear binaurally, the overwhelming majority of consumers choose two hearing aids over one, when they have a hearing loss in both ears.

15. Customer satisfaction

Research with more than 5,000 consumers with hearing loss in both ears demonstrated that binaurally fit subjects are more satisfied than people fit with one hearing aid. Nature gave us two ears for a reason just like it gave us two eyes and limbs. So logically, just as you use both eyes to see clearly, you need two healthy ears to hear clearly. Before you decide on one hearing aid try two. Your hearing health provider can demonstrate to you the binaural advantage experience either through headphones (during testing), probe microphones, master hearing aids, or during your trial fitting. Decide for yourself.

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.