Education and Outreach from Miracle-Ear in Sioux Falls
The hearing aid professionals in Sioux Falls get a lot of satisfaction from helping people hear. Sometimes that means volunteering at nursing homes and senior centers; and, cleaning and inspecting the devices of their competitors for no charge. Oftentimes, the seniors will be so impressed with their outreach that they’ll ultimately make the switch, franchisee Bob Reierson says.
“I think service is a big issue,” he explains; and oftentimes, the appreciative children of those they helped in the nursing home will remember Miracle-Ear when they need a hearing instrument themselves.
Educating the public
Unfortunately, an alarming percentage of people with treatable hearing loss don’t get the help that they need. As the Sioux Falls hearing aid specialist explains it, the industry has some work to do to get people that need help through the doors.
“What we need to do as an industry is we need to educate the public on hearing loss,” Reierson says. Very many people are left untreated, he adds; according to Miracle-Ear, some statistics suggest that only one in seven people seek the help they need for their hearing loss. It’s alarming that so many don’t act on their hearing loss, he explains, because over time they’ll lose the ability to hear and understand speech.
“In other words, their brain forgets what sounds sound like,” he adds. “Boy, it’s just tough to bring those speech recognition signals back into the brain.”
Hearing loss at all ages
Although hearing loss is very much induced by age and genetics, it’s not just a condition for those of advanced age. Most of their clientele in years past were over the age of 75, but Reierson indicates that their Sioux Falls hearing aid customers are much younger in the present day.
“We just fit a gentleman today who is 56-years-old,” he says. “We see people from all ages.”
And he truly means it. The Miracle-Ear Children’s Foundation—a program where they fit children with hearing losses at no charge—will provide hearing aids for kids that are still in primary school.
“We fit children that are six years old and even younger than that,” Reierson says. “Hearing loss can happen at any age.”
To illustrate his point, the Sioux Falls hearing center owner uses himself as an example.
“I’m a primetime example of that because I started wearing hearing aids when I was roughly 35-years-old,” Reierson says. He adds that with 25 years of wearing the Miracle-Ear devices himself, many of his friends don’t realize that he has hearing loss. That speaks volumes to the miniaturization of the technology, an important feature for young and old customers alike.