THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, March 13, 1995 TAG: 9503120225
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BUSINESS WEEKLY
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
Kathy Harvey figures she has maybe 80,000 potential customers in South Hampton Roads. And she considers more than a dozen firms including discounters and doctor's offices her competition.
How her firm manages to survive between the discounters and the doctors is a lesson in retailing.
Harvey is president of Beltone Hearing Aid Center of Virginia Beach. The seven-employee firm recently won a Better Business Bureau Quality Award in the small retailer category.
The Norfolk-based BBB's awards, modeled on the Malcolm Baldridge Award for well-run companies in the United States, are based on values such as leadership, customer satisfaction, planning and quality assurance.
Unlike sports cars or blue jeans, hearing aids are a necessity, even at retail prices ranging from $800 to $2,000. But the devices are readily available to customers from a variety of dealers.
Since retailers generally compete on service, value and the quality of the product, Harvey can pick and choose which element to focus on. ``You can't do all three without some cost attendant to it,'' she said.
And that's where the secret of her success rests. She figures she can do all three.
Hearing aids are expensive. Most customers aren't insured for such devices and usually pay out of pocket.
But there's enough mark-up in the price so the manufacturer can spend money on research to improve the quality and therefore the value. And there's enough margin in the price for Harvey to afford to emphasize service.
Beltone Hearing Aid Center operates a handful of satellite clinics in places such as senior citizen centers and nursing homes. Technicians assigned to each center stop in each week on a regular schedule and visit clients.
They'll tune up the hearing devices free for the life of the hearing aid.
After Price Club opened a discount hearing aid center in the early '90s, Harvey noticed her base of about 2,000 customers hardly was eroded. The discount center closed in less than a year.
``Our's is more like a doctor's office. You feel like you're among professionals. That's important to our patients,'' Harvey said. MEMO: BBB Quality Award winners include JL Associates (large service), Burrito
Haven (small service), Beach Ford (large retail), Morson Inc.
(manufacturing), 1st Fighter Wing (government).
by CNB