Where listening is an important aid to hearing
With her new hearing business in Elmira, Charlene Bauer puts the emphasis on customer service
THE PROCESS OF FITTING someone with a hearing aid is quite involved. It’s seldom as straightforward as just fitting the right apparatus, but involves a range of services that help clients with hearing loss understand their condition and manage it effectively. Deciding to take a more holistic approach to the business, Charlene Bauer, a hearing instrument specialist, is starting her own solo venture in Elmira, Bauer Hearing.
“Of course a hearing aid is just that. It’s an aid for your hearing,” explains Bauer. For someone experiencing hearing loss, an aid can go a long way to helping improve clarity and audibility in day-today life, but the device is often really only part of the solution.
It’s in the name of her new business: Bauer Hearing Inc. Education and Treatment. Bauer says she not only sells hearing aids, but strives to help her clients with their hearing loss.
“One of the things I do is I educate people about their hearing loss, so that they understand it and can appreciate why it’s so important to get the brain active again.”
Bauer makes it a point of incorporating the education and treatment components right into her service, and at no extra charge. Rather, clients who are fitted with new hearing aids undergo several follow-up sessions that focus on rehabilitating those unused auditory muscles in the brain.
“I’ve even gone the extra due diligence to have a program called LACE (Language and Communication Enhancement) in the clinic for my clients,” says Bauer.
“It’s five different main tests so that clients can train their brain how to hear again. When clients haven’t been hearing for a while, their brain gets kind of lazy. So we want to help the brain rewire itself. It’s kind of learning how to listen again. Actually, it totally is,” she explains.
Clients commit to 11 follow-up sessions of halfan-hour each, included as part of the service.
“I don’t charge for any of my services – even wax removal, children’s testing, any of that stuff – because I think it’s so important.”
To Bauer, these vital services are part and parcel of what she does, and she is more than happy to offer them without charging extra. It’s a great way to ensure people are getting the absolute most out of their hearing aids, and it encourages clients to continue coming back to her business.
“People always say to me, ‘how can you do that?’” she says, but points out, “Other than time, it doesn’t cost me anything. I want to be the go-to-gal for getting people’s hearing aids to sound as great as they can.”
Bauer is keen to help people with their hearing aids when she thinks they will help, but she’s also mindful of her limitations as a hearing instrument specialist.
“I cannot ... do all hearing procedures. There’s a specialist for that called ear, nose and throat (ENT). We don’t do operations on the eardrum or on the ear bones. We don’t do cochlear implants. I can’t recommend them, I can only send them to the ENT.”
Bauer encourages everyone to come to her new
Besides creating nearly 280 new jobs in the community, the plant will require significant volumes of milk, which will support the growth of Ontario’s dairy cow and goat sectors.
Much of this success is related to the clean, green and pristine image that Canada projects. With increasing assertiveness, Ontario is trying to position itself as an environmental leader among others.
In some cases, farmers are taking the lead and creating their own culture to support sustainability, like the way they’ve teamed up with the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority to improve water quality in the region.
Such measures pay off when Asia takes a particular shine to Ontario products such as ginseng.
Ginseng is often thought of as an Asian product. But it turns out the kind grown in Ontario, Panaxquinquefolius, is highly regarded in Asia. In fact, export sales reached almost $240 million in 2016.
A representative from the Ontario ginseng industry is part of the current China mission. Remi Van DeSlyke of Kinglake Farms, a leading ginseng grower in the Simcoe area, says prospects are already looking good.
“We have a lot of interest with new and existing customers,” he said from China. “Our ginseng has a great reputation for high quality and we are well known as the ginseng of choice.”
The industry received a boost last week when Ottawa announced $420,000 in support for the Ontario Ginseng Growers Association (OGGA).
The sum is to be used to help create new markets, and to develop a social media and marketing campaign that highlights how to use ginseng in products such as soups, teas and cosmetics.
The association already takes measures to have a profile abroad, such as sponsoring dragon boat races in Hong Kong, and receiving an endorsement for ginseng smoothies in Taiwan from a well-known athlete there.
The federal support will help increase that presence. Lawrence MacAulay, federal minister of agriculture and agri-food, said Ottawa is making sure ginseng farmers can promote their products to consumers there.
“Ontario ginseng farmers produce the best quality ginseng in the world, and the market opportunities are only set to grow,” he says.
Growers are steadily coming on stream to help meet demand. Membership in the OGGA has steadily increased to 160 members, from 120 three years ago.
Van De Slyke says through social media, growers want to try to reach a younger audience, and promote health and wellness. They’ve been encouraged by their early online efforts, and with the new federal support, they’ll increase their presence.