Hearing Loss? Denial Doesn’t Work. Trust Me.

Well done AARP in providing advice about hearing loss and well done in engaging Katherine Bouton to write the blog.

My hearing is definitely in decline and I can identify with so much that Katherine writes. These tips for making it easier to engage somebody with hearing loss are great. 

If you want more insights into the issues of hearing loss I cannot praise Katherine Bouton's book enough. Great title: Shouting Won't Help.

When I talk with clients about how hearing loss is something that needs to be taken into account in many of the customer touchpoints you can see they have never thought about what it means to spend you life saying 'pardon me' or 'sorry can say that again'.

Let me give you a real life example.

One of our clients is a hotel group that takes customer service very seriously and they are good at it. Better than most. But their reception staff are often women (harder to hear their voices), they are often non-English speaking (so they tend to be less confident with their voice projection) and the reception areas are often very noisy. Add all of these factors together and it creates one hell of a communications problem. 

What is so annoying is that it is a problem that can be rectified without additional cost. It is not that the staff are being awkward, but nobody has ever explained to them what it is like not hearing what they say.

So well done AARP, the more people that understand the issues of hearing loss the better for us all. Dick Stroud