Is the clinking of dishes in the restaurant too loud, or just right? Can you hear a conversation in the front seat of the car if you’re in the back?

The system can simulate 1,000 environments, said Michael Andreozzi, president of Beltone New England. And because hearing is like a fingerprint, he said – each person’s is different – hearing aids are tuned and adjusted to fit individual patients’ needs.

Andreozzi has been in the hearing-aid business since the early 1980s – first with his father, who owned the Community Hearing Aid Centers, then, after buying the family business in 2002, as a Beltone partner.

In four years, the company has grown from seven stores in Rhode Island to more than 50 stores in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maine, Florida and New York. The number of employees has grown from 12 to about 140.

Today, Andreozzi’s company is the largest dealer of Beltone hearing aids and devices in the United States. Barbara VanSomeren, vice president of marketing for Beltone, based in Glenview, Ill., said Andreozzi’s leadership has made the company stand out.

“He’s very motivated,” she said. “He has a culture of teamwork there and he really empowers his people to be part of his team to help the company grow.”

About 50 percent of the New England company’s growth has come from acquisitions of existing hearing-aid facilities, Andreozzi said. In most cases, those stores were renovated to give them a more modern look. And they were outfitted with surround sound and video otiscopes connected to a computer monitor that allows patients to see inside their own ears.

Asked why the focus on technology, he said it’s because he thinks “patients today expect more from you.” As baby boomers age, more and more could need hearing assistance and they are more familiar with technology than previous generations.

Beltone New England is also aggressively marketing to a younger population, younger than the usual 60 and older crowd, said Andreozzi, and it is reaching out to the Spanish and Portuguese markets with new advertisements in those languages.

“No one was dominating the New England hearing-aid market,” said Andreozzi. “It is more densely populated with seniors than most people would think.”

Andreozzi said he chose to partner with Beltone because it was “the most recognized name” in the industry. He wanted a brand name to ignite an expansion. The effort has worked so well, he said, that he moved all administrative offices to a new office in Warwick last month to keep up with the growth. “We didn’t have enough space for training.”

A demographic analysis was conducted to determine the location of half of the Beltone New England stores opened during the expansion, he said. The analysis found retail sites in strip malls because parking is essential to Beltone customers.

One strong market, Andreozzi said, has been Maine, where many people have industrial-related hearing loss. People who used to work in the paper and weaving mills and were exposed to loud noise without protection are now getting hearing aids.

In addition, Andreozzi said finding the “right people” was essential to facilitating growth. He said he went mostly on “gut” feelings about candidates and looked for a sense of passion, caring and nurturing.

“I’m a huge communicator,” he said, adding that he sends out weekly newsletters to all 140 employees giving updates on new products, new technology, profiles of employees, etc.

Andreozzi also encourages off-site meetings so employees can “get to know each other differently,” he said. “We definitely do dinner on a regular basis and only bring up business 20 percent of the dinner.”

On a more professional level, he organizes monthly meetings for the hearing practitioners who work with patients. And all employees gather once per quarter for a detailed meeting day “so that everybody has a pulse on what’s going on.”

An intranet system allows employees to provide comments about the company in the form of blogs, feedback forms and a virtual suggestion box. “Some of the best ideas come from new people,” he said. Beltone New England also conducts internal and external focus groups to determine what patient and employee expectations are and whether they’re being met.

As for the future, Andreozzi said there could be more stores opening, but they would have to be in strategic locations.

He’s also excited about launching new products, such as form-fitting wireless headset attachments for cell phones and custom earplugs for an iPod, in addition to sound-enhancing devices for cell phone users.

“The hearing-aid business traditionally for years has been a boring old business,” he said. “We’ve made it exciting.”

By Natalie Myers
http://www.pbn.com/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/121317