This is getting to be a bullish business. There are a lot of people who have decided it was a good business because they see others doing well and want their piece of the pie. I hear stories everyday from clients who have been to other clinics and are pushed into buying something they don’t want, or feel they don’t need. It happened here just the other day; a patient who was a borderline hearing aid candidate told me that the other clinic in town kept hounding her, until she was pushed into getting a second opinion.
I’m not a bullish salesperson. Let’s face it, we are all sales people to a certain degree, but in general, there are those that are pushy, and those that prefer to wait for the client to be ready, and being ready to wear a hearing aid can mean the difference between success and failure with the instruments. Most times, when someone books an appointment under the pressure of family, they either won’t make a purchase or will return the hearing aids within a short period of time. This makes the whole effort a waste of time, and in the case of those clinics who charge a return or restocking fee, it will also leave a bad taste for the whole industry in the eyes of the client, and they may never consider purchasing a hearing aid again.
People who are good at this can tell when a potential client is not ready. People who are very good at this know when to stop pushing and start making the patient comfortable with the idea that they have some treatable hearing loss, and help them begin the journey to acceptance. Hearing loss is often compared to the death of a loved one when it comes to acceptance; there are anywhere from 3 to seven stages, (depending on who you ask), and they all have different time frames for different people. I have had one client who did all 3-7 in 48 hours. Others have taken years to get out of the denial stage, (my mother in law took 7 years to get out of it, but bypassed several others). Trying to push someone through them will likely keep them from ever considering coming back to you.
There are ways, and they can take time, but in the long run being patient with people is going to get you further than bullying them into buying and chasing them away from not only your office, but anyone else’s. That gives the entire industry a bad name and makes it either more difficult, or impossible to treat that person again. If nothing else it makes them skeptical, and when they close their minds to the idea, everybody loses, not just the practitioner.