If used correctly, iPad-based hearing screeners are a great way to optimize your business. Using them actively – in the right way – means that you can successfully engage with prospects in your community, educate them about hearing health, and drive more people to your clinics.  

IPad-based screeners can also be a great way to prequalify customers to determine whether they have a hearing loss. 

This blog will inspire you to use iPad-based screeners in different settings to provide information about hearing health, secure new leads to your clinics, and prequalify customers before booking an appointment with your audiologist.  Read more in our blog, What is a hearing screener and how can it benefit you.    

• Your clinics
• Optical shops
• Partner up with local organizations
• Visit local workplaces 
• Events

Customers often bring loved ones with them to their hearing appointments, so invite them to use your iPad-based screener at your clinics. Set it up in a high-traffic, easily accessible part of your waiting room, and have your staff encourage people to use it.  Some clinics have mistakenly set up their screener in a corner of their clinic with no easy access or introduction from the clinic staff. This means that no one uses it and, as a result, it brings very limited value. Be sure to feature your iPad-based screener prominently. Make it part of your workflow for your front desk staff to invite visitors to try it. If your clinics are in a high-traffic location, you could also set a table outside, offering free hearing screenings to people walking by.

By offering a simple screening solution – available without an appointment – you’re lowering the barrier of entry for prospects, creating awareness about their hearing health, and inspiring them to act to improve their hearing.  It’s also helpful (and reassuring) to tell these prospects that your audiologists can expertly help them find a solution if their screening indicates a hearing loss. 

Many people are not well-informed about hearing health and don’t know how to act on a hearing loss. Talk to prospects about the symptoms of hearing loss – and the consequences of not treating this condition – to attract people to try the screener and visit your clinics for further assessment and hearing solutions if needed. You can get inspiration on what to communicate here.  

As another benefit, you can use an iPad screener in your clinics to pre-qualify leads. This will improve your clinic’s productivity and ensure that your busy service providers are only seeing customers with an established hearing loss. The pre-qualification often starts when the prospect calls to book an appointment. If you doubt the person has a hearing loss, or if they only seem interested in a hearing test rather than a hearing solution, you might opt to have them complete a tablet screening before scheduling an appointment with your audiologists. By using an iPad-based screener to pre-qualify customers, your staff will be able to maximize your audiologist’s time by only booking customers with hearing loss. This will boost your audiologist’s productivity by allowing them to focus on the customers who truly need solutions for their hearing loss – and not spending time with customers who don’t have issues with their hearing. This results in increased efficiency, more sales, and a superior customer experience. 

Increasingly, optical shops are using tablet-based hearing screeners as a tool to test customers’ hearing when they come in for a vision exam. Some shops have their own hearing clinic on-site, while others opt to serve as a lead generator for a hearing clinic partner. Use an iPad-based screener like Auditdata Engage to pre-test all your optical customers and, if they have a hearing loss, refer them to your audiologists or partners. Auditdata clients have found that this approach allows them to start communicating with their customers about hearing health – and encouraging them to act on their hearing loss – much earlier than they would otherwise have. Read more in our blog about leveraging opportunities between optical and hearing care.

Use an iPad-based screener to test prospects at local businesses. Partner with busy local organizations, such as general practitioners, community centers, pharmacies, fitness centers, health centers, etc. But don’t just stick an iPad on a table and expect to generate tons of leads from it. Work with the staff at the partner businesses to ensure they understand the purpose of the screener, and that they can (and will) convince their customers to use it. Incentivize your partner companies with a small financial incentive per test completed or appointment booked from their location.  

Many businesses have realized that investing in their employees’ health has a great return on investment. Research has shown that when companies invest in their employees’ well-being, they often experience lower turnover and burnout, and greater productivity and engagement. Hearing health is an important part of this equation. Poor hearing can damage employees’ well-being, make them feel isolated, and increase their stress levels. Offer to screen employees at local companies to test for hearing loss and talk to them about the importance of good hearing health. 

In addition to addressing potential hearing losses, this is also a good opportunity to help protect employees’ hearing, especially if they work in noisy environments, such as construction, factory jobs, etc.  Therefore, when working with enterprises, it’s a good idea to provide both hearing protection and hearing aid solutions.  

Since most people are not aware of the consequences of poor hearing, consider setting up informational workshops to discuss hearing health, offer tablet-based hearing assessments of all employees, and deliver hearing protection and hearing solutions to employees, as needed.  Read more about our great partner in the Faroe Islands who has successfully used the tablet-based screener in this way.  

Generate leads and drive more traffic to your clinics by using Engage to conduct hearing screenings at events in your area. Since the iPad-based screener is portable and easy to use, it’s an ideal tool for community events, health and wellness fairs, film screenings, theater productions, road races, senior center activities, Veterans’ Clubs, and more. Speak to event attendees about the importance of hearing health, and the consequences of untreated hearing losses. Explain that the portable hearing screener is quick, easy, and accurate, and that people can get screened in just a few minutes – without an appointment. If the screener indicates that someone has a hearing loss, encourage them to come to your clinics for further evaluation and a suitable solution. Using the Engage screener together with Auditdata Manage allows you to easily book appointments, even from remote locations.  We recommend that you send your audiologist to the events so they can meet prospects, discuss hearing health, answer questions, overcome objections, and explain the many benefits of hearing aids. When you’re at an event (or out in the community) and see your existing customers, remind them of your friends and family program and ask them to kindly refer their contacts to your clinics.