Interview with Jim Kothe, Vice President of Sales, Oticon US
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Topic: Dual Hearing Instruments
Carolyn Smaka: This is Carolyn Smaka with AudiologyOnline, and today I'm speaking with Jim Kothe from Oticon. Jim, welcome back to AudiologyOnline.
Jim Kothe: Thanks Carolyn. Nice to be with you today.
SMAKA: Jim, can you tell our readers about your background, and what you do for Oticon?
KOTHE: Sure. I'm Vice President of Sales and I'm responsible for our sales and training here in the US. I started as an audiologist in Wisconsin about 25 years ago, worked for a time in a private practice, and have been with Oticon for a little over 20 years.
SMAKA: Today, we're going to be talking about a new product that Oticon has launched called Dual. Jim, where did the name Dual come from?
KOTHE: Product naming is a very interesting process and it is always a challenge to find product names that work around the world. In this case, the name Dual relates the unique benefits of this product family.
Dual has enabled us, for the first time, to bring together two very important aspects that people look for in hearing instruments, into one product family. The first, of course, is performance and the second is the emotional impact of the instrument's design. Dual offers both of these critical components - delivering the performance people need and the interesting and extremely appealing look that people want. People don't have to make a choice anymore - "Well, I want this performance, but I like this look" - because with Dual they can have both.
The name Dual also refers to the progress that we've made over the past few years in having two instruments "talk" to each other. This true binaural processing has given users another big jump forward in their ability to perform in noisy situations, which is of course what everyone is aiming for.
SMAKA: That's interesting that the name Dual actually relates to various aspects of the product. And, there are actually two series of products within the Dual family?
KOTHE: Yes. We know that professionals are always looking for newer products that can offer greater benefits or provide better performance. But then, on the flip side, these advances can be a real challenge because there are more and more choices available for the professional and for the consumer.
So, one of the big concepts behind Dual is giving the hearing care professional all the options needed in order to fit both experienced and new users, and to really make that process of choice a lot easier for the consumer. The way that we do that is by having one family of instruments called Dual, which includes two series of instruments he Connect series and the Mini series. The Dual Connect series includes all of the wireless options and benefits that we've had in our high performing hearing aids in the past. The Connect instruments talk to each other - the right side talks to the left side nd offer all of the wireless connectivity options to cell phones, TVs, iPods and other devices. The Dual Mini series is designed for people who want instruments as small as possible, and as simple as possible.
Having two series of instruments enables professionals to talk to consumers about Dual, knowing that whatever the client's preference - whether it's more performance benefits or more along the line of the real emotional connection they can have to the look of the instrument both preferences are available to them.
That's a big advantage for the hearing care professional because it gives them the ability to talk to the consumer and to get to a "yes" a lot quicker in the decision process. The professional can ask, "Is this the sort of an instrument that you could see yourself wearing?" and when the consumer says "yes" to that, then it's just a matter of personalizing that instrument for the wearer.
SMAKA: So you're talking about simplifying the hearing instrument selection process. Typically, we see consumers going home with all these brochures, with all these different options circled, and it can be overwhelming. Sometimes too much information can be a reason for someone not to make a decision to move forward with hearing aids.
KOTHE: Exactly. And the advantage with Dual is that the hearing care professional knows what all the options are, and the consumer doesn't necessarily need to know that. So, we can get rid of what I call the emotional rollercoaster that can occur during the hearing instrument selection process. The emotional rollercoaster occurs when consumers walk in to a professional's office with a specific instrument in mind - maybe they've seen it an advertisement, or maybe it's something a friend has. Maybe it has an iconic design, like Delta's triangular design, or it's an open fitting and very hard to see when worn.
And the consumer walks in thinking, "Well, that's what I want", but the professional may recommend other features or the performance of an instrument slightly different from that one. Now you have an emotional roller coaster where consumers feel they can't have what they wanted, because the professional is telling them they should have something different for their audiological needs.
With Dual, we can get off that emotional rollercoaster, because Dual provides the performance that the hearing care professional wants as well as the look that the consumer really wants. We put together the best of those two worlds with Dual.
SMAKA: Jim, can you go into more detail about what the Connect series offers in terms of performance?
KOTHE: Sure. The Dual Connect series includes everything we have in our highest performing instrument today, which is an Epoq XW, and then some.
We know the audiological advantages of having an extended bandwidth (up to 10,000 Hz), of having the instrument synchronize all of the automatic features including the directional microphone system and the noise management system, and of synchronized processing so that the instrument on one side of the head knows what the other instrument is doing. We've termed this Spatial Sound because of the benefits for the wearer - giving users the ablility to locate things in space quickly and organize their auditory world. When this is done well it gives the user an ability to perform better in noisy situations. It gives the right information to the brain to make sense of a complicated sound picture and sort out the speech or other signal that is most important at that time. All of those audiological benefits of Spatial Sound are in Dual Connect, along with wireless connectivity.
The second big advantage in Dual connect for the user is the ability to connect to other devices through a wireless connection.
At times, people with hearing loss feel like they can't enjoy music the way that they use to, or they can't have a good experience on the phone talking to their children or friends across the country, or they can't enjoy TV the way that they use to.
By having wireless capabilities in their hearing instruments now, we are giving people that conduit to the people they love, to the friends that they want to talk with, and to the things that they really enjoy doing things that are very emotional for them. We do this through a device called Streamer that is an option available to Dual connect users.
We've come a long way in the first year and a half since wireless connectivity became available with hearing instruments. But we're really just on the edge of what it could mean for our profession being able to provide the connections that people are looking for.
SMAKA: What is it about the design of Dual that's going to get people excited?
KOTHE: That's a really good question, because I think the profession has made a lot of progress in the last couple of years in the design of instruments, particularly with open fit devices. What has been really important for us at Oticon, and the reason that we started with the triangular design, is that we wanted to have something that is as far away as possible from the look of a traditional hearing instrument.
We worked very closely with design teams around the world. We wanted to find a design that, upon seeing it for the first time, a consumer's first thought would be, "Oh, that's an interesting device, and I could see myself wearing that" instead of thinking, "Oh, that's a variation of a hearing aid."
We started that trend with Delta almost three years ago, and have since continued to look for other designs that might have that same appeal as Delta. And it turns out that the triangular design is the best in terms of the getting the initial emotional appeal that has people saying, "I can see myself wearing that."
In fact, we often hear that when a wearer takes off Delta to show a friend, the friend is sometimes even a little confused. A common reaction is, "Is that an earpiece for a phone? Or what is that?" And they are very surprised when the person replies, "No, it's my hearing device."
SMAKA: Cosmetics can be a huge hurdle to get over in terms of acceptance of hearing solutions. How does the design of the Mini series differ from that of the Connect series?
KOTHE: The design is exactly the same, utilizing the proven, extremely appealing triangular design that people have seen with Delta.
The only difference is that the Mini series utilizes a size 10 battery, while the Connect series utilizes a 312 that is needed, of course, to run the wireless application.
In regard to performance, Dual utilizes the RISE platform, or chip. Oticon has been using this platform in our high performance instruments over the past year. And by moving the RISE platform down into a form that will fit in the Dual Mini, we've been able to increase the performance quite a bit while maintaining the proven design of Delta.
For example, using the RISE platform in Dual Mini gives users a 35% increase in the battery life. We've also been able to put an auto t-coil in the instruments. Dual uses a whole new moisture resistant technique called Nanocoating, which is the very best the industry offers in moisture protection. Another huge benefit is the increased bandwidth out to 10,000 Hertz.
SMAKA: When Delta was launched, the innovative marketing was really different and geared toward a different market segment than we had seen in the industry. Can you talk about the marketing of Dual?
KOTHE: Yes, and you're right Carolyn. We have put a great deal of energy into making sure that the marketing pieces that we offer are attracting people to professionals' offices. When we were planning the marketing for Dual, we set out to appeal to both existing users and new users. Because of the design, people can actually see themselves wearing Dual. And we use a lot of images that help people see that better hearing is a transformation into something that they can actually hope for in their lives. The Dual marketing materials have similar compelling themes to what you've seen from us before, but with all new visuals, all new graphics, and with all of the new statements that we can make about its performance. We're using some creative ways to reach people on a much more emotional level. People don't want to see hearing aids in ads, and they tend not to want to see grandpas and grandkids. They don't react as well to these more traditional ways of marketing.
We have a very good, proven track record with our Delta marketing materials. One of the interesting things we saw with those materials is that 70% of the reaction to them was from new users, which is fantastic. It's much better than we've ever seen from any other sort of marketing in the industry, and we expect that to continue with Dual.
The other 30% of the people reacting to the marketing campaign were existing users who said, "Oh, I'd like to try that too." So, the advantage we have now with Dual marketing is we can satisfy both new users and existing users.
The types of media that we use will be different for each group. We'll tend to use more direct mail for existing users because each practitioner knows who those people are in their own database, and it's much more cost effective to reach out to them directly through direct mail. We already know the images and the message that we can deliver to existing users in order to entice them to walk in the office and ask, "How can I take that step up with hearing aids?"
With new users, we'll continue to offer inserts, and we've also produced a TV commercial. These are the most effective and cost effective means to reach out to people who haven't thought of themselves as entering the hearing care system yet. We already know that we've been able to actually improve the cost effectiveness of the way that we do this advertising and this marketing by a factor of 60%.
SMAKA: What kinds of things have you heard from people wearing Dual?
KOTHE: Well, you know there's a lot of clinical information that we'll provide based on the clinical trials we conducted before Dual was released.
But, maybe one person that everybody can relate to would be a fellow who actually resisted hearing care for about 20 years until Delta came out, and then for the first time he tried instruments. And that's Huey Lewis, and he became a spokesman for us.
Recently, Huey was fit with Dual Connect instruments because he was now ready to take that step up in performance. He immediately noticed all of the benefits of Spatial Sound - being much more aware of the auditory space and being able sort sounds out. His first reaction was, "I'm a little surprised because I was really happy with my Deltas. I couldn't imagine it could get much better, and it's gotten a whole lot better with Dual."
And then, the second thing he really reacted to was the ability to use his cell phone. He spends a lot of time on his cell phone. And Huey tends to talk in terms maybe not typical of some of our users, but he said being able to talk on his cell phone with his Dual instruments is "Slammin!" [laughs]
SMAKA: [laughs]
KOTHE: Huey is like many of our patients who are extremely active, and looking to take that next step up in hearing care. He's a very busy person, still performing and recently appeared on Broadway. It's nice to see someone like Huey, who at first didn't want to be seen in public with hearing aids or be known as someone with hearing loss, go from those sorts of feelings to being really proud of what he's doing for his hearing. And now, he's taking that next step up into absolutely the best performance he can get.
SMAKA: And he's a musician, and we know that musicians may have very specific ideas of how hearing aids should sound, and they also have very high requirements for sound quality.
KOTHE: Yes, they can be very discriminating. And, of course, Huey Lewis loves to plug in his iPod and be able to listen to music through his Dual hearing instruments that are tuned for his hearing loss, and he's able to get absolutely the best sound possible for music.
It's very important to him and it's a very emotional thing. As I think it is for a lot of people. We tend to think about hearing instruments in terms of improving communication but, you know, music can be very emotional for people. And being able to fully enjoy music again is a huge step forward.
SMAKA: I don't know if you can share this, but which of these really cool Dual case colors does Huey Lewis prefer?
KOTHE: [laughs] That's actually interesting because he likes to have a different color on each side, so that he can easily tell the right from the left. So, if I am not mistaken right now Huey is wearing a cabernet red on one side and a sunset orange on the other.
SMAKA: Very funky, I like that. Jim, I'm hearing you talk about emotional connections throughout this interview today.
KOTHE: Yes, you know it's easy to talk about the technical side of hearing instruments. But, the challenge is how to apply that. We'll reach many more consumers by talking about the emotional side of things.
It's a lesson that we learned with Delta. And I think, the second lesson that we learned with Epoq is that the first lesson doesn't go away. [laughs] Many people tend to think that existing users are more interested in the technical aspects of hearing instruments, since they are already using them and in the hearing care system. But, we can't make that assumption.
Existing users still react mainly to "Is that a style that I want to wear? Is that something I can see myself wearing?" And so, the hearing instrument discussion with the professional becomes about emotional connections. The professional will ask, "Do you listen to music? Have you stopped listening to music because you no longer enjoy it? How are you doing with TV? Do you talk on the phone quite a bit? Who do you like to talk to? Where do your kids live?"
And if we can appeal to the emotions, and link the benefits of hearing instruments to those emotional needs, it becomes really easy for the professional to move consumers to the next step in their journey. With Dual, the professional can say "Yes, we have an instrument, and it looks like this - could you see yourself wearing that?" And the consumer will probably say "Oh gosh, yes, I would love to wear something like that." And then the professional can simply personalize the selection for them. And so all of the discussion about which model, which features, and all the confusion that we add in to the hearing instrument selection process can go on in the hearing care professional's head rather than overwhelming the consumer.
Dual will absolutely become a "go to" instrument for professionals because that discussion gets much easier, and more and more consumers will take the next step to get the care they need for their hearing loss.
SMAKA: We conducted our whole interview and we didn't even say dB! That's the best part.
KOTHE: Right, because when you look at Dual from the user's point of view in terms of what they want, you don't talk in terms of dB. It's about a design that they can see themselves wearing, performance, and options for connecting to people and other things they enjoy.
And then the hearing aid discussion becomes more of a consultative process rather than just talking about product. Dual gives professionals the ability to not have to sell products, but rather to consult and help consumers, which is what professionals want and like to do.
SMAKA: Best of luck with Dual. It has been great speaking with you today.
KOTHE: Thank you, Carolyn, we appreciate the opportunity to get the word out about Dual.
More information about Dual can be found at www.oticonusa.com/ or on the Oticon Web Channel on AudiologyOnline.
Jim Kothe: Thanks Carolyn. Nice to be with you today.
SMAKA: Jim, can you tell our readers about your background, and what you do for Oticon?
KOTHE: Sure. I'm Vice President of Sales and I'm responsible for our sales and training here in the US. I started as an audiologist in Wisconsin about 25 years ago, worked for a time in a private practice, and have been with Oticon for a little over 20 years.
SMAKA: Today, we're going to be talking about a new product that Oticon has launched called Dual. Jim, where did the name Dual come from?
KOTHE: Product naming is a very interesting process and it is always a challenge to find product names that work around the world. In this case, the name Dual relates the unique benefits of this product family.
Dual has enabled us, for the first time, to bring together two very important aspects that people look for in hearing instruments, into one product family. The first, of course, is performance and the second is the emotional impact of the instrument's design. Dual offers both of these critical components - delivering the performance people need and the interesting and extremely appealing look that people want. People don't have to make a choice anymore - "Well, I want this performance, but I like this look" - because with Dual they can have both.
The name Dual also refers to the progress that we've made over the past few years in having two instruments "talk" to each other. This true binaural processing has given users another big jump forward in their ability to perform in noisy situations, which is of course what everyone is aiming for.
SMAKA: That's interesting that the name Dual actually relates to various aspects of the product. And, there are actually two series of products within the Dual family?
KOTHE: Yes. We know that professionals are always looking for newer products that can offer greater benefits or provide better performance. But then, on the flip side, these advances can be a real challenge because there are more and more choices available for the professional and for the consumer.
So, one of the big concepts behind Dual is giving the hearing care professional all the options needed in order to fit both experienced and new users, and to really make that process of choice a lot easier for the consumer. The way that we do that is by having one family of instruments called Dual, which includes two series of instruments he Connect series and the Mini series. The Dual Connect series includes all of the wireless options and benefits that we've had in our high performing hearing aids in the past. The Connect instruments talk to each other - the right side talks to the left side nd offer all of the wireless connectivity options to cell phones, TVs, iPods and other devices. The Dual Mini series is designed for people who want instruments as small as possible, and as simple as possible.
Having two series of instruments enables professionals to talk to consumers about Dual, knowing that whatever the client's preference - whether it's more performance benefits or more along the line of the real emotional connection they can have to the look of the instrument both preferences are available to them.
That's a big advantage for the hearing care professional because it gives them the ability to talk to the consumer and to get to a "yes" a lot quicker in the decision process. The professional can ask, "Is this the sort of an instrument that you could see yourself wearing?" and when the consumer says "yes" to that, then it's just a matter of personalizing that instrument for the wearer.
SMAKA: So you're talking about simplifying the hearing instrument selection process. Typically, we see consumers going home with all these brochures, with all these different options circled, and it can be overwhelming. Sometimes too much information can be a reason for someone not to make a decision to move forward with hearing aids.
KOTHE: Exactly. And the advantage with Dual is that the hearing care professional knows what all the options are, and the consumer doesn't necessarily need to know that. So, we can get rid of what I call the emotional rollercoaster that can occur during the hearing instrument selection process. The emotional rollercoaster occurs when consumers walk in to a professional's office with a specific instrument in mind - maybe they've seen it an advertisement, or maybe it's something a friend has. Maybe it has an iconic design, like Delta's triangular design, or it's an open fitting and very hard to see when worn.
And the consumer walks in thinking, "Well, that's what I want", but the professional may recommend other features or the performance of an instrument slightly different from that one. Now you have an emotional roller coaster where consumers feel they can't have what they wanted, because the professional is telling them they should have something different for their audiological needs.
With Dual, we can get off that emotional rollercoaster, because Dual provides the performance that the hearing care professional wants as well as the look that the consumer really wants. We put together the best of those two worlds with Dual.
SMAKA: Jim, can you go into more detail about what the Connect series offers in terms of performance?
KOTHE: Sure. The Dual Connect series includes everything we have in our highest performing instrument today, which is an Epoq XW, and then some.
We know the audiological advantages of having an extended bandwidth (up to 10,000 Hz), of having the instrument synchronize all of the automatic features including the directional microphone system and the noise management system, and of synchronized processing so that the instrument on one side of the head knows what the other instrument is doing. We've termed this Spatial Sound because of the benefits for the wearer - giving users the ablility to locate things in space quickly and organize their auditory world. When this is done well it gives the user an ability to perform better in noisy situations. It gives the right information to the brain to make sense of a complicated sound picture and sort out the speech or other signal that is most important at that time. All of those audiological benefits of Spatial Sound are in Dual Connect, along with wireless connectivity.
The second big advantage in Dual connect for the user is the ability to connect to other devices through a wireless connection.
At times, people with hearing loss feel like they can't enjoy music the way that they use to, or they can't have a good experience on the phone talking to their children or friends across the country, or they can't enjoy TV the way that they use to.
By having wireless capabilities in their hearing instruments now, we are giving people that conduit to the people they love, to the friends that they want to talk with, and to the things that they really enjoy doing things that are very emotional for them. We do this through a device called Streamer that is an option available to Dual connect users.
We've come a long way in the first year and a half since wireless connectivity became available with hearing instruments. But we're really just on the edge of what it could mean for our profession being able to provide the connections that people are looking for.
SMAKA: What is it about the design of Dual that's going to get people excited?
KOTHE: That's a really good question, because I think the profession has made a lot of progress in the last couple of years in the design of instruments, particularly with open fit devices. What has been really important for us at Oticon, and the reason that we started with the triangular design, is that we wanted to have something that is as far away as possible from the look of a traditional hearing instrument.
We worked very closely with design teams around the world. We wanted to find a design that, upon seeing it for the first time, a consumer's first thought would be, "Oh, that's an interesting device, and I could see myself wearing that" instead of thinking, "Oh, that's a variation of a hearing aid."
We started that trend with Delta almost three years ago, and have since continued to look for other designs that might have that same appeal as Delta. And it turns out that the triangular design is the best in terms of the getting the initial emotional appeal that has people saying, "I can see myself wearing that."
In fact, we often hear that when a wearer takes off Delta to show a friend, the friend is sometimes even a little confused. A common reaction is, "Is that an earpiece for a phone? Or what is that?" And they are very surprised when the person replies, "No, it's my hearing device."
SMAKA: Cosmetics can be a huge hurdle to get over in terms of acceptance of hearing solutions. How does the design of the Mini series differ from that of the Connect series?
KOTHE: The design is exactly the same, utilizing the proven, extremely appealing triangular design that people have seen with Delta.
The only difference is that the Mini series utilizes a size 10 battery, while the Connect series utilizes a 312 that is needed, of course, to run the wireless application.
In regard to performance, Dual utilizes the RISE platform, or chip. Oticon has been using this platform in our high performance instruments over the past year. And by moving the RISE platform down into a form that will fit in the Dual Mini, we've been able to increase the performance quite a bit while maintaining the proven design of Delta.
For example, using the RISE platform in Dual Mini gives users a 35% increase in the battery life. We've also been able to put an auto t-coil in the instruments. Dual uses a whole new moisture resistant technique called Nanocoating, which is the very best the industry offers in moisture protection. Another huge benefit is the increased bandwidth out to 10,000 Hertz.
SMAKA: When Delta was launched, the innovative marketing was really different and geared toward a different market segment than we had seen in the industry. Can you talk about the marketing of Dual?
KOTHE: Yes, and you're right Carolyn. We have put a great deal of energy into making sure that the marketing pieces that we offer are attracting people to professionals' offices. When we were planning the marketing for Dual, we set out to appeal to both existing users and new users. Because of the design, people can actually see themselves wearing Dual. And we use a lot of images that help people see that better hearing is a transformation into something that they can actually hope for in their lives. The Dual marketing materials have similar compelling themes to what you've seen from us before, but with all new visuals, all new graphics, and with all of the new statements that we can make about its performance. We're using some creative ways to reach people on a much more emotional level. People don't want to see hearing aids in ads, and they tend not to want to see grandpas and grandkids. They don't react as well to these more traditional ways of marketing.
We have a very good, proven track record with our Delta marketing materials. One of the interesting things we saw with those materials is that 70% of the reaction to them was from new users, which is fantastic. It's much better than we've ever seen from any other sort of marketing in the industry, and we expect that to continue with Dual.
The other 30% of the people reacting to the marketing campaign were existing users who said, "Oh, I'd like to try that too." So, the advantage we have now with Dual marketing is we can satisfy both new users and existing users.
The types of media that we use will be different for each group. We'll tend to use more direct mail for existing users because each practitioner knows who those people are in their own database, and it's much more cost effective to reach out to them directly through direct mail. We already know the images and the message that we can deliver to existing users in order to entice them to walk in the office and ask, "How can I take that step up with hearing aids?"
With new users, we'll continue to offer inserts, and we've also produced a TV commercial. These are the most effective and cost effective means to reach out to people who haven't thought of themselves as entering the hearing care system yet. We already know that we've been able to actually improve the cost effectiveness of the way that we do this advertising and this marketing by a factor of 60%.
SMAKA: What kinds of things have you heard from people wearing Dual?
KOTHE: Well, you know there's a lot of clinical information that we'll provide based on the clinical trials we conducted before Dual was released.
But, maybe one person that everybody can relate to would be a fellow who actually resisted hearing care for about 20 years until Delta came out, and then for the first time he tried instruments. And that's Huey Lewis, and he became a spokesman for us.
Recently, Huey was fit with Dual Connect instruments because he was now ready to take that step up in performance. He immediately noticed all of the benefits of Spatial Sound - being much more aware of the auditory space and being able sort sounds out. His first reaction was, "I'm a little surprised because I was really happy with my Deltas. I couldn't imagine it could get much better, and it's gotten a whole lot better with Dual."
And then, the second thing he really reacted to was the ability to use his cell phone. He spends a lot of time on his cell phone. And Huey tends to talk in terms maybe not typical of some of our users, but he said being able to talk on his cell phone with his Dual instruments is "Slammin!" [laughs]
SMAKA: [laughs]
KOTHE: Huey is like many of our patients who are extremely active, and looking to take that next step up in hearing care. He's a very busy person, still performing and recently appeared on Broadway. It's nice to see someone like Huey, who at first didn't want to be seen in public with hearing aids or be known as someone with hearing loss, go from those sorts of feelings to being really proud of what he's doing for his hearing. And now, he's taking that next step up into absolutely the best performance he can get.
SMAKA: And he's a musician, and we know that musicians may have very specific ideas of how hearing aids should sound, and they also have very high requirements for sound quality.
KOTHE: Yes, they can be very discriminating. And, of course, Huey Lewis loves to plug in his iPod and be able to listen to music through his Dual hearing instruments that are tuned for his hearing loss, and he's able to get absolutely the best sound possible for music.
It's very important to him and it's a very emotional thing. As I think it is for a lot of people. We tend to think about hearing instruments in terms of improving communication but, you know, music can be very emotional for people. And being able to fully enjoy music again is a huge step forward.
SMAKA: I don't know if you can share this, but which of these really cool Dual case colors does Huey Lewis prefer?
KOTHE: [laughs] That's actually interesting because he likes to have a different color on each side, so that he can easily tell the right from the left. So, if I am not mistaken right now Huey is wearing a cabernet red on one side and a sunset orange on the other.
SMAKA: Very funky, I like that. Jim, I'm hearing you talk about emotional connections throughout this interview today.
KOTHE: Yes, you know it's easy to talk about the technical side of hearing instruments. But, the challenge is how to apply that. We'll reach many more consumers by talking about the emotional side of things.
It's a lesson that we learned with Delta. And I think, the second lesson that we learned with Epoq is that the first lesson doesn't go away. [laughs] Many people tend to think that existing users are more interested in the technical aspects of hearing instruments, since they are already using them and in the hearing care system. But, we can't make that assumption.
Existing users still react mainly to "Is that a style that I want to wear? Is that something I can see myself wearing?" And so, the hearing instrument discussion with the professional becomes about emotional connections. The professional will ask, "Do you listen to music? Have you stopped listening to music because you no longer enjoy it? How are you doing with TV? Do you talk on the phone quite a bit? Who do you like to talk to? Where do your kids live?"
And if we can appeal to the emotions, and link the benefits of hearing instruments to those emotional needs, it becomes really easy for the professional to move consumers to the next step in their journey. With Dual, the professional can say "Yes, we have an instrument, and it looks like this - could you see yourself wearing that?" And the consumer will probably say "Oh gosh, yes, I would love to wear something like that." And then the professional can simply personalize the selection for them. And so all of the discussion about which model, which features, and all the confusion that we add in to the hearing instrument selection process can go on in the hearing care professional's head rather than overwhelming the consumer.
Dual will absolutely become a "go to" instrument for professionals because that discussion gets much easier, and more and more consumers will take the next step to get the care they need for their hearing loss.
SMAKA: We conducted our whole interview and we didn't even say dB! That's the best part.
KOTHE: Right, because when you look at Dual from the user's point of view in terms of what they want, you don't talk in terms of dB. It's about a design that they can see themselves wearing, performance, and options for connecting to people and other things they enjoy.
And then the hearing aid discussion becomes more of a consultative process rather than just talking about product. Dual gives professionals the ability to not have to sell products, but rather to consult and help consumers, which is what professionals want and like to do.
SMAKA: Best of luck with Dual. It has been great speaking with you today.
KOTHE: Thank you, Carolyn, we appreciate the opportunity to get the word out about Dual.
More information about Dual can be found at www.oticonusa.com/ or on the Oticon Web Channel on AudiologyOnline.
