June 04, 2009 - Kitchener, Ontario, Canada - Unitron today announced the top-line findings of an independent Best Practices Benchmarking Study commissioned by the Company to examine business practices of hearing healthcare clinics across the United States. Final findings of the quantitative research survey - which analyzed the operating profiles, business development and marketing activities of 300 independent audiology practices - will offer insight and opportunities to hearing healthcare professionals in their short- and long-term business planning.
Commented Brian Taylor, Manager of Professional Services Unitron USA, "The intelligence we've compiled through the Best Practices Benchmarking Study gives us an in-depth understanding of our hearing healthcare professional customers today, and the challenges and opportunities they have - whether that's attracting or retaining customers, determining more profitable service practices, understanding the actual hard and soft costs of their business, and much more. We can then use this data to support our customers with purpose-driven tools - above and beyond products - to address these challenges and opportunities."
Continued Taylor, "Equally important, by providing the findings directly to our customers - most of whom operate independently and therefore don't have the means to compare key business metrics against industry best practices - we're able to share what others are doing successfully. Independent practitioners can then incorporate these practices into their own performance evaluation and goal-setting. It's a very beneficial collaboration for everyone."
Key Findings Reveal Major Opportunities
While Unitron plans to communicate the complete results of the Best Practices Benchmarking Study to its hearing healthcare professional customers in Fall, 2009, the Company shared several of the study's key findings:
- Marketing Plans Make a Difference - approximately 53% of participants indicated their practices develop and follow a marketing plan. The vast majority of those with a marketing plan expressed greater optimism and satisfaction with their long-term business prospects than those practices operating without a formal plan.
- Key Metrics: Reality Versus Perception- the study revealed a lack of correspondence between how the majority of business owners believed their practices were performing against key financial metrics (such as cost of goods;break-even point, returns and product mix) and their actual performance. This disconnect presents an excellent opportunity for many practices to closely measure and manage their costs revenue and productivity.
- Finding Time for Face Time - with consumer research indicating a major correlation between time spent with the customer and overall customer satisfaction, the survey revealed a huge opportunity for most practices: results indicated that many clinics could allocate more one-on-one customer time by analyzing and adapting how their in-clinic time is spent.
The study results also clearly pointed to the economy as a number-one concern for hearing healthcare practices. Said Taylor, "In this type of economic environment, it is absolutely critical to look closely at your business practices and evaluate how and where your dollars and time are spent. The results of the 2009 Best Practices Benchmarking Study can assist the more than 10,000 private hearing healthcare practices in the U.S. to establish on-going tracking and performance evaluation of their key metrics to measurably improve results. It's an invaluable tool for our hearing professional customers to determine if they are doing the right things and doing them right."
The Best Practices Benchmarking Study results have a margin of error of +/-5.6% at the 95% confidence interval. Data was collected in November and December 2008. This study was conducted by PMG Intelligence, a strategic intelligence firm based out of Waterloo, Ontario. Canada
About Unitron
Unitron is a global innovator of technologically advanced hearing instruments. We care deeply about people with hearing loss and work closely with hearing healthcare professionals to make advanced, purpose-driven solutions available to everyone. Headquartered in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, Unitron, a member of the Sonova Group, meets the needs of customers through 16 international offices and through distributors in a further 53 countries.
For more information, please visit us on the web at unitron.com or on the Unitron web channel on Audiology Online.
