Uno studio sul comportamento del consumatore ipoacusico: possibili strategie per lo sviluppo del settore audioprotesico

It is esteemed that in Italy more than 7 million people suffered from hearing loss in 2008. Today this pathology affects one out of three 75 years-old persons. Hearing loss is related to isolation, loss of independence, physical decline, cognitive deterioration and depression. In addition, many researches showed that people tend to associate well-being to social relationships and with the absence of pathologies invalidating these relationships. Other studies highlighted that hearing loss is one of the sicknesses invalidating individuals’ relations. In spite of the availability of good-quality hearing aids, of the presence in the territory of qualifies professionals and of a Health Care System contribution to the hearing aid purchase, few hearing-impaired patients have recourse to hearing aids. It is esteemed that in 2008 only 200,000 patients bought one. In this scenario, development and growth possibilities of the companies of this sector are highly limited. Having said that, it was decided to study the reasons of this situation form a managerial point of view through a consumer behavior research. The research aims at empirically investigating the barriers patients face during the diagnostic process, and identifying patients’ needs and attitudes towards the product. The research deals with market study and development and its focus is the hearing aid sector, the intermediary between a real and potential demand and the industrial sector in which hearing aids producers work. In the hearing aid sector there is a confluence of commercial and health care problems and its key figure in the audiologist, who should work in team with many other subjects to treat hearing-impaired patients. It seems that no study has been conducted so far in Italy to investigate the patients behavior in relation to hearing aids. This explorative research tries to study patients’ needs, problems, expectations and attitudes towards hearing aids. The research was promoted through an advertisement on the a journal – L’Audioprotesista – published by the Italian Audiologist Association and delivered for free to audiologists, specialists and other hearing professionals. Two primary researches were conducted, a qualitative and a quantitative one. 7 focus groups with audiologists and 10 with patients were organized for the qualitative research from March to June 2009. In total 96 patients and 49 audiologists were recruited on the Italian territory. Interviews were recorded and transcripts were produced for every interview. The collected data were analyzed through the Grounded Theory, an inductive methodology (software NVivo 8.0). The quantitative research was conducted with 1075 patients, recruited tanks to the cooperation of the audiologists who read the advertisement and were available to take part into the project. These patients answered the questions of a questionnaire, made on the basis of the qualitative study results. The answers were analyzed with the software SPSS 13.0 Two critical point merged from the analysis: (a) the interruption in the diagnostic and fitting protocol; (b) the embarrassment of patients wearing a hearing aid. The first situation is due to the legislative limits, preventing hearing professional from a real cooperation. The embarrassment is caused by a ineffective hearing aids promotion. In fact, although patients agree on the product quality, it keeps being present a cultural barrier that can be overcome with targeted marketing actions, aiming at developing a positive word-of-mouth. On the basis of these considerations, three actions are desirable. First of all, the Italian Health Care System should create hearing loss centers of excellence, where audiologists and specialists can work in team. Secondly, the rules should be reassessed, in order to promote an effective cooperation among professionals. Thirdly, hearing aid manufacturers should be involved and make available marketing tools and their knowledge on the demand. In fact, the size of their business is much bigger than the one audiologists can count on and manufactures can look at the market from a wider perspective. In addition, in these companies there are professionals who are in possession of adequate marketing tools for a market segmentation and targeting and for a more successful product promotion.