Leader in Hearing Devices Achieves Record Sales
How hearing aid company successfully implemented a higher-price product roll-out and created patient trust.
Challenge – Roll out impressive new hearing aid product, far superior to anything on the market, but with higher price and unskilled sales team.
A global manufacturer and retailer of hearing devices called on WCW to help it increase sales, profitability and market share. With higher aspirations for a business mired in sixth place in the U.S. market, this European-based company would soon introduce a high-end digital device that was head and shoulders above anything in the marketplace. However, the price reflected its impressive features. In addition, the company had another hurdle to jump: many of the hearing experts in its retail centers were poor salespeople.
Solution – Sales training and service that was client/patient centered and implementable throughout retail outlets.
WCW developed a comprehensive and consistent sales methodology and training process that was customer and patient centered. We led a 2½-day planning and team-building session with the company’s vice president of sales and top sales managers to establish a sales strategy for aggressive growth, improve the team’s planning skills and process, and introduce a planning process and design that could be exported to the field via a national sales meeting.
We also built a retail sales and service training program that addressed basic selling skills appropriate to the industry’s healthcare professionals and dispensers. The one-day program was designed to be delivered by the regional directors and field training team. A coaching component supported new patient management and selling skills at the practice level.
In addition, to support key staff members in their new role as consultants to practice owners and managers, WCW developed a performance training and development process, which included a 2 ½-day training program with support tools and materials for use in the field. WCW provided ongoing coaching to the consultants over a one-year period and gave them process documentation tools to ensure consistency, effectiveness and institutional memory in the event of consultant transition.
Results – 3 consecutive years of record breaking sales, client trust greatly increased, and organization now in top position in marketplace.
The hearing device company achieved three consecutive years of record-breaking results, with each year a 30%-plus improvement over the previous. The organization occupies the top position in the marketplace largely due to these factors: salespeople, audiologists, and dispensers are doing a better job of building trust and rapport with clients and patients, demonstrating the hearing device, and closing the sale; sales and training staff have more empathy for each other’s work and are collaborating more effectively; and consultants can leverage a variety of methods to assist accounts – from financial to leadership to sales to marketing.
