The hearing aid industry as you might expect generally deals in the main with elderly people, due to the nature of a hearing loss affecting this age group more commonly. I know from my own experiences with my own family, how confusion can so easily set in later on in life. It’s a sad fact of life that unfortunately elderly people can become confused and are therefore sometimes more vulnerable and need to be treated in a diligent and responsible manner.We saw in part one of upselling that offers are not always what they seem.
If you walk down any high street, you can’t help but notice the number of “Sale” posters in the shop windows, no matter what time of the year you go. Sometimes you will see 50% offers but when you go in and look, the sale only relates to a limited number of old stock clearance items that the shop wants to get rid of. But the signs and posters splashed over their windows have actually done what they were put up there to do, which was to get you in the door.
Many lower priced hearing aid sites, such as those offered at £99 or £149 or less than £495, will always have these starting prices to get you “through the door” so to speak but what must be realised is that those lower priced products will in no way do what the higher priced products can in the way of performance. This is where the phrase ” You pay for what you get” is so true in many ways. It’s a little bit like comparing free NHS hearing aids with the private micro advanced invisible computers that go deep into the ear canal making them virtually invisible to the naked eye.
Anyway, back to the subject of up selling and as examples of this that goes on in everyday life, I remember when 40 years ago when we used to buy shoes the shoe sales person always used to ask if I wanted shoe polish. Today if you walk into a garage for petrol, they are always trying to force chocolate bar offers at you. It’s no wonder there’s an obesity problem in this country. When they ask me in a garage, I always politely say “no thank you but do you sell shoe polish?”.
So you see up selling is everywhere. You can’t escape it, I even went into the butchers a few months ago for some sausages for tea and the butcher said ” I’ve got some lovely Scottish fillet steak”, Guess what?, he didn’t have any shoe polish either.
Whilst it must be said that in life that you do generally get what you pay for, it is a shame that in a what should be a totally caring profession, the hearing aid industry is full of these so called luring sprats, that are simply advertised to get unsuspecting customers through their doors. However those customers actually believe that these cheaper solutions will do everything they want them to.
Just remember though, you can never have enough shoe polish !!!
For hearing aids at prices far cheaper than the high street that come without shoe polish, call 0800 0304 542
The “Which Report” on private hearing aids was carried out in conjunction with the former charitable body R.N.I.D. – Now known as Action on Hearing Loss. This report highlighted the need for improvements in high street dispensing standards.
