hearX Group
Salesforce customer since 2019
95 employees
95 employees
4.9
Star rating on Google from hundreds of customer reviews
HearX is making hearing health accessible for all with Salesforce.
You’re on a low income, and you think you might be losing your hearing – or worse, you know you’re losing it – and you need a solution. What do you do next?
Even if you’re lucky enough to live in a region with audiologists nearby, it will still cost you around $3-5,000 to purchase and maintain a hearing aid. For many, that’s a dealbreaker.
In Africa, 97% of those who require hearing aids can’t access them. South African-based hearing health solution provider hearX Group (hearX) is determined to change this – and not only in their home continent.
“There are 466 million people worldwide who suffer from disabling hearing loss,” explains Nic Klopper, CEO of hearX. “Our ultimate goal is to bring healthy hearing to all of them.”
To do that, hearX needs to help customers use its smartphone-situated hearing aids, every step of the way, wherever they live. And that’s why hearX needed Salesforce.
Even if you’re lucky enough to live in a region with audiologists nearby, it will still cost you around $3-5,000 to purchase and maintain a hearing aid. For many, that’s a dealbreaker.
In Africa, 97% of those who require hearing aids can’t access them. South African-based hearing health solution provider hearX Group (hearX) is determined to change this – and not only in their home continent.
“There are 466 million people worldwide who suffer from disabling hearing loss,” explains Nic Klopper, CEO of hearX. “Our ultimate goal is to bring healthy hearing to all of them.”
To do that, hearX needs to help customers use its smartphone-situated hearing aids, every step of the way, wherever they live. And that’s why hearX needed Salesforce.
An expansion from B2B to B2C to help more people.
Founded in 2016, hearX started out by providing clinical hearing health solutions to medical professionals. Working closely with audiologists gave the company a deep understanding of what a customer journey should ideally look like for a hearing aid consumer. But this ideal is inaccessible to most people.
“Hearing Care professionals provide a great service – but they’re expensive,” explains Klopper. “People who can’t afford a hearing care professional were resorting to purchasing low-end, cheap hearing amplifiers online. But these products had appalling customer support and return rates of over 50%.”
Realising there was a gap in the market for affordable but high-quality hearing solutions, hearX decided to launch a consumer division. This would sell and support hearX’s smartphone-based hearing aid, Lexie Hearing.
“Lexie’s success hinges entirely on customer support,” says Klopper. “We know if we can provide the same level of care (or better) than a hearing care professional, from the comfort of your home, at a fraction of the cost – that’s a winning formula.”
“Hearing Care professionals provide a great service – but they’re expensive,” explains Klopper. “People who can’t afford a hearing care professional were resorting to purchasing low-end, cheap hearing amplifiers online. But these products had appalling customer support and return rates of over 50%.”
Realising there was a gap in the market for affordable but high-quality hearing solutions, hearX decided to launch a consumer division. This would sell and support hearX’s smartphone-based hearing aid, Lexie Hearing.
“Lexie’s success hinges entirely on customer support,” says Klopper. “We know if we can provide the same level of care (or better) than a hearing care professional, from the comfort of your home, at a fraction of the cost – that’s a winning formula.”
A customisable, flexible and futureproof platform.
To complete that formula, hearX needed a tool to closely engage with Lexie customers – from the start of the sales cycle and throughout the post-sales support cycle. They opted for Salesforce, implementing and extensively customising Sales and Service Cloud.
“We need a holistic view of the customer,” says Klopper. “Which meant we needed a tool that was flexible enough to accommodate the tracking plug-ins we use to get a real-time view into how customers use Lexie. Tracking is key to our business: it’s what enables us to proactively support customers and keep return rates down.”
Salesforce makes the plug-ins accessible through one window, removing the need for agents to navigate through multiple systems – so agents can focus on the all-important customer experience.
Salesforce’s flexibility was key to hearX’s decision to implement it. Also key, as Seline Van Der Wat, COO of hearX Group says, was the futureproof nature of that flexibility.
“Anyone who works in tech knows the fear of an integration failing or falling away six months after you’ve worked so hard on getting it into the system,” says Van Der Wat. “But we knew that this was unlikely to happen with the world’s leading CRM!”
“We need a holistic view of the customer,” says Klopper. “Which meant we needed a tool that was flexible enough to accommodate the tracking plug-ins we use to get a real-time view into how customers use Lexie. Tracking is key to our business: it’s what enables us to proactively support customers and keep return rates down.”
Salesforce makes the plug-ins accessible through one window, removing the need for agents to navigate through multiple systems – so agents can focus on the all-important customer experience.
Salesforce’s flexibility was key to hearX’s decision to implement it. Also key, as Seline Van Der Wat, COO of hearX Group says, was the futureproof nature of that flexibility.
“Anyone who works in tech knows the fear of an integration failing or falling away six months after you’ve worked so hard on getting it into the system,” says Van Der Wat. “But we knew that this was unlikely to happen with the world’s leading CRM!”
An enhanced sales cycle.
hearX has integrated Sales Cloud with its Twilio telephony function, enabling its sales reps to access a holistic, 360-view of every customer from the moment they enter the CRM as a lead.
“Because we do various levels of marketing, we get leads from many different sources,” says Klopper. “Sales Cloud enables us to keep track of where every lead has come from, and to easily identify where a lead is in the sales cycle.”
The sales team can now speak to customers knowing how many times they’ve interacted with hearX, and with an understanding of the customer’s motivation and state of mind – invaluable when dealing with a sensitive subject like hearing loss.
Sales Cloud also helps hearX train sales reps and promote best practice. For example, reps can see the best way to talk through a customer’s loss and sympathise with them, before transitioning into sales talk.
“Because we do various levels of marketing, we get leads from many different sources,” says Klopper. “Sales Cloud enables us to keep track of where every lead has come from, and to easily identify where a lead is in the sales cycle.”
The sales team can now speak to customers knowing how many times they’ve interacted with hearX, and with an understanding of the customer’s motivation and state of mind – invaluable when dealing with a sensitive subject like hearing loss.
Sales Cloud also helps hearX train sales reps and promote best practice. For example, reps can see the best way to talk through a customer’s loss and sympathise with them, before transitioning into sales talk.
Enriched support that keeps customers happy.
“Our service provision is at the very core of what we do,” says Van Der Wat. “After all, it’s one thing to get people to buy a product – and a totally different thing to get them to use it.”
Service Cloud is proving instrumental in helping hearX’s highly trained contact centre agents to ensure customers use hearX’s products properly. And that’s both on a daily basis, and in accordance with the specific retention path they’re on.
“When a customer contacts us, a full profile opens up in Salesforce,” explains Van Der Wat. “Our agents can then make amendments to the customer’s hearing aid. And when the customer next calls up, the agent can see what was changed in the last session.”
Service Cloud is proving instrumental in helping hearX’s highly trained contact centre agents to ensure customers use hearX’s products properly. And that’s both on a daily basis, and in accordance with the specific retention path they’re on.
“When a customer contacts us, a full profile opens up in Salesforce,” explains Van Der Wat. “Our agents can then make amendments to the customer’s hearing aid. And when the customer next calls up, the agent can see what was changed in the last session.”
Automation guides best practice.
Agents get additional guidance from next-best-action prompts created by hearX in Process Builder. And each prompt is based on the most effective action for a specific type of customer at specific points along the journey – all based on Salesforce reporting.
“Process Builder is a secret weapon for us,” says Van Der Wat. “We’ve used it to build automated decision trees at every stage of the customer journey. For example, if a customer rates our app’s sound quality as three out of five or below, Salesforce automatically tasks an agent with following up with that customer within 24 hours.”
For hearX’s customers, automating best practices has led to a spectacular level of service.
“Customers say they’ve never experienced support like it,” says Klopper. “We’ve reduced return rates to one unprecedented in the industry.”
And it isn’t just customers who are happy. The company’s contact centre agents love it, too.
“Call centre agents historically have a built-in mistrust for call centre tech,” says Van Der Wat. “But our agents really trust Salesforce to guide them towards taking the best next action. They view it as the golden source of truth.”
“Process Builder is a secret weapon for us,” says Van Der Wat. “We’ve used it to build automated decision trees at every stage of the customer journey. For example, if a customer rates our app’s sound quality as three out of five or below, Salesforce automatically tasks an agent with following up with that customer within 24 hours.”
For hearX’s customers, automating best practices has led to a spectacular level of service.
“Customers say they’ve never experienced support like it,” says Klopper. “We’ve reduced return rates to one unprecedented in the industry.”
And it isn’t just customers who are happy. The company’s contact centre agents love it, too.
“Call centre agents historically have a built-in mistrust for call centre tech,” says Van Der Wat. “But our agents really trust Salesforce to guide them towards taking the best next action. They view it as the golden source of truth.”
Empowering a global expansion.
hearX has recently implemented Marketing Cloud, with Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, Social Studio and Advertising Studio. Marketing Cloud will let hearX gather leads from across its channels and campaigns in one place, and to rapidly segment and analyse that data to guide the decisions of its marketing and sales teams.
“We’ve historically segmented marketing data in a manual, labour-intensive way,” says Klopper. “The automation that Marketing Cloud brings will hopefully simplify things for the marketing team, freeing up resources.”
“It will also help us really dig into how our ads are resonating with different demographics. And that’ll help us attract, engage and retain more people who need our help.”
The future looks bright for hearX: the company is rapidly expanding across Africa and beyond – with the flexible, scalable CRM platform it needs to support this growth and sustain an overarching holistic view of every territory.
And that means that the future also looks brighter for the tens of millions worldwide who are suffering hearing loss – and will soon have an answer on what to do next.
“We’ve historically segmented marketing data in a manual, labour-intensive way,” says Klopper. “The automation that Marketing Cloud brings will hopefully simplify things for the marketing team, freeing up resources.”
“It will also help us really dig into how our ads are resonating with different demographics. And that’ll help us attract, engage and retain more people who need our help.”
The future looks bright for hearX: the company is rapidly expanding across Africa and beyond – with the flexible, scalable CRM platform it needs to support this growth and sustain an overarching holistic view of every territory.
And that means that the future also looks brighter for the tens of millions worldwide who are suffering hearing loss – and will soon have an answer on what to do next.
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