With ALLLL the MedEl CI users out there, why.....

[Leblisa]

Why is this forum so quiet? 

 

So few people come here.  It's so much less dynamic than other CI forums.

 

What can we do to let more folks know it's here?

[Guest]

I've been researching CIs and I believe one of the issues is the market share.  Med-El is a privately-owned company, so they're under no obligation to share this information as Cochlear and AB are (they are publicly owned and I am in the U.S.).  In the U.S., Cochlear has about 60-65% of the market, so that leaves Med-El and AB with the rest.  It doesn't answer your question but if the market share is low, this would be a reason fewer people are here.

[Sid]

NOTE!

This is not my posting. Are we being hacked again?

Sid

[Adam]

Sid well at least you still exist. I guess I have been demoted.

[Adam]

 

I've been researching CIs and I believe one of the issues is the market share.  Med-El is a privately-owned company, so they're under no obligation to share this information as Cochlear and AB are (they are publicly owned and I am in the U.S.).  In the U.S., Cochlear has about 60-65% of the market, so that leaves Med-El and AB with the rest.  It doesn't answer your question but if the market share is low, this would be a reason fewer people are here.

THIS IS NOT MY POST!!!

 

PABLO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Matt]

 

 

I've been researching CIs and I believe one of the issues is the market share.  Med-El is a privately-owned company, so they're under no obligation to share this information as Cochlear and AB are (they are publicly owned and I am in the U.S.).  In the U.S., Cochlear has about 60-65% of the market, so that leaves Med-El and AB with the rest.  It doesn't answer your question but if the market share is low, this would be a reason fewer people are here.

THIS IS NOT MY POST!!!

 

PABLO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well that's a surprise, a post not belonging to Adam.

 

[Matt]

I have linked Hear Peers on a couple of FB things and encourage all the Med El users I meet in Sydney to join and participate.

[Adam]

Good on ya embassador Laxton!

[russboltz]

I'll be a bit more blunt about why I suspect this forum has so little activity, despite the quality of those who do post:

 

(1) It's an incredibly crappily designed site. You have to log in every time you visit (most sites say "Remember me"). It has a lousy set of choices for main forum areas, and should have far more to "guide" a user to optimum locations. It is generally difficult to use (the "tasteful" grey coloring makes my eyes water after a little use, when contrasting colors would make it work). There's more, but if Med-El gave a fig, they'd ask almost any 13 year old kid how to design it for USERS and not some effete jerk in an office 8,000 miles away at the Home Office.

 

(2) It gets somewhere between zero and minus numbers of promotion from Med-El. In my research on CIs, I never noticed it, and it's either not prominent or missing from Med-El websites, including Facebook. I only found out about it from my audiologist after I decided to use the Med-El implant. If Med-El had the brains of a sock puppet, they would be promoting this to the heavens as a marketing tool from customers.

 

(3) Related to (1) and (2), there is no evidence whatsoever that Med-El ever reads anything on here. I see no participation of any significance. Tjere's a whole lot of touchy-feely stuff on FaceBook, so someone (an intern? the owner's sister's daughter's best friend's aunt?) appears to know that there's an internet out there, even if it's not a very important thing to the Company.

 

There's an old saying in sales and marketing: "Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door." Coming from a sales and marketing family of peddlers for the last 75 years, let me assure you that's just bunk.  Med-El has a fantastic hardware product (if I didn't think so, I wouldn't have let a really great surgeon put it inside my head) but I've seen little evidence that the company does marketing that makes any sense. While I've seen a number of posts in this forum that their customer support is good, the company's lack of support for this forum to make it a quality location attractive to all Med-El users just means that it is going to be composed of the few people I've met here so far who are smart and helpful, and probably not much more.

 

Anyone who knows how to send this to Med-El is free to do so.

 

Rusty

[Leblisa]

Well, I wouldn't be so 'blunt' as you, Russ, but I do agree that the site is not nearly as user-friendly as its competitor's and it's too bad.

I understand MedEl doesn't allocate much money to marketing because they put their money into product development and let the product speak for itself, which is admirable (though very unAmerican).

 

Oh well, its the forum we have and perhaps, over time, more MedEl users will participate.

[weimar]

I partially agree on the marketing aspect of HearPeers as I do believe that MedEl has made quite an effort to promote this website - I said partially though because I think that it should be brought more "front and center" in a way - maybe a handout at events or included in recipient packages so that newly implanted patients can get info to join.

 

My thought is that people don't really visit forums that often anyway so the viewership here on HearPeers is probably "just about right" if you factor the the number of MedEl recipients, etc. I used to visit car forums but even those have declined in viewership.  I'm proud of this website and don't agree with the suggestion that it is "crappy."  It is what you make of it and I've enjoyed it quite a bit.  Sure I'd like to see a lot more participation but it's certainly a safe place for anyone to go to and learn tips/tricks/info from real CI recipients and their family.  Give it time - the site is still in it's infancy and just needs a bit of time to grow.

[russboltz]

I'm not talking about people not visiting this website as much as I am about Med-Ed.

 

My post was about as blunt an attack as could be made against the Company's (lack of) support for this website as I can imagine, and there's been no response of any kind from anyone affiliated with Med-El. No private email saying, "Rusty, you're full of it," no posting here about "We love all of you and love hearing your imput" kind of go-away babble, and certainly nothing from anyone that says, "We hear your concerns and are working on them." In other words, the clear message that IS send it, "We at Med-El don't give a broken farthing about this site. We set it up. We love Facebook, sort of. Peace out."

 

And that's too bad, because - and I do marketing every day in my law practice - marketing isn't pretty pictures and nice videos and slogans and all that junk. It's saying, "You're our customer. We're here in as many ways as legitimately possible to support you, and we value feedback because it helps us improve our product." Nonsense about "we build a better product and research it a lot but we don't do 'marketing'" is just that: Nonsense.

 

I've gotten great support from the few that regularly are on this forum, but as I look at the "membership" list here, it's littered with people  that have 1 or 2 posts and then, probably from lack of encouragement by more people, they disappear.  I look at forums of other companies, and there is constant company awareness of what's being said, with intelligent and helpful input from people affiliated with the manufacturer. Here? Nada. Zip. Gar nichts.

 

I appreciate a LOT the advice I've gotten here, but there are a lot of things I wonder about, and I really regret that Med-El doesn't do things to make this a really useful site, such as make the forum architecture inviting and useful, encourage other customers to use it, and more. (Example: Is there a single freakin' professional - doctor, nurse, audiologist or their ilk - on here regularly? If you were one of them, wouldn't YOU want to at least "lurk" to get some ideas about where your business is going?

 

Sheesh.

 

So to those who have asked questions and to those who have answered them and to those who just share a piece of their life: THANKS. I just wished there were a few more of you, and more than that, I wish that Med-El wished there were more of you.

 

rusty

[Leblisa]

Chuckie,

 

I spend time on a CI forum, called Hearing Journey, sponsored by a different CI company and you should check it out for a week or so, just to see how much easier it is to navigate and how much busier it is.

 

[russboltz]

Lisa - You're 100% right. AND they don't care if you're from any other company, in terms of the manufacturer's comments. There are a LOT of people commenting, supporting, suggesting, and the company usually puts its own comments (apparently from staff who are assigned to review the site at least daily) almost immediately.

 

Why am I in THIS forum?

 

Because there are several really, really, REALLY thoughtful people, AND because I hope a little that Med-El will get its junk together. I'm sorry if I offend, but if Med-El is out there saying, "We're the best!" you don't expect another part of the company to be an indifferent bunch of slackers who don't really care about the customers.

 

rusty

[simekj]

I only joined this forum because I was implanted with Med-El.  My audiologist did not even recommend it to me I don't think.  Can't remember how I stumbled upon it.  I do remember being hesitant to join, prior to being implanted and still making my decision, as I thought it was only for people who had Med-El CIs.  This website is tedious to navigate.  I am assuming however, that as Med-El is largely European, they must have more lively non-English forums?

K

[Adam]

just my 2 cents

does medel have a ways to go with this forum? you bet.

offering constructive criticism without calling names and calling a site crappy can go a long way. It's all in the deilivery. Granted you have some very valid points to which i fully agree with and some not so much.

Should there be more of a presence from Medel on this site? i would say yes for sure. Then again you get out of it what you put into it. granted healthy debate is good in improving some issues but bad mouthing the tool does not exactly go a long way in fixing the issue.

As far as the other forum, talk about medel a lot and see what that gets you. I was on that site ALOT when trying to decide what company to go with and the mood for sure changed when they found out i went with MEDEL.

[simekj]

Hear! Hear Adam! Tactfully and wisely said. 

[Sandy]

Absolutely agree Adam.

[Leblisa]

Very true, about HJ, Adam.  They are not welcoming of kudos about MedEl and I only go there for getting general info about CI's.  I only brought them up as an example of how a CI-related site can be made easier to navigate; it also happens to be more active.

 

My hospital will be offering Advanced Bionics CIs again (they'd stopped for several years due to unreliability issues) and AB contacted me to let me know I could reconsider which company to go with and I am sticking with MedEl.  I am confident they make a great product and I have a feeling I will love the Rondo.

 

Sorry if I brought bad feelings into the forum; that wasn't my intention and certainly wouldn't help to encourage greater participation here.

 

[Ivana Marinac]

Hello to all,

 

If I hadnt missed something only I am here from Europe. Although I am not from Austria (more southern type however) I can possible think they are more like working people than advertising.

Would that be better for them? Possibly yes, but I can not see why we are thinking about it because customers who get other product are also content, arent they?

 

Secondly, I would not say that Med-El is not investing into promotion - recently finished IFOS, international ENT congress was funded by Med-EL and Cochlear. Having in mind that Cochlear is much bigger company - this is great success for MED-EL that they can follow them. This means that they are investing into professionals to make higher penetrance at the market. For instance, I know for sure that Cochlear invest less in this area - more advertising. Although I am here little bit biased I would more to have good and constantly educated surgeon than paid adverts because this is what is real change: good implantation is fundamental for successful using of this kind of hearing gear.

 

On the other hand, yes I can agree with you that there are no staff on site but Adam made good point - when you have active participant from some side you can not have not-biased atmosphere. It is their job to care about their customers - of course, we shouldnt forget our human side and to help everybody but...This is not how the world function.

For instance, MED-EL is very active in my country but patients can not choose which device they want (only if we have some device device on-stock) - our national health insurance company has tender when company which can provide better price get it. I have read that all users in USA got some kind of opportunity to change their devices for - Rondos. We can only dream about it. You shouldnt forget stuff which you may not be conscious of.

 

So lets enjoy little bit of our freedom to think and comment.

[Ivana Marinac]

 

Very true, about HJ, Adam.  They are not welcoming of kudos about MedEl and I only go there for getting general info about CI's.  I only brought them up as an example of how a CI-related site can be made easier to navigate; it also happens to be more active.

 

My hospital will be offering Advanced Bionics CIs again (they'd stopped for several years due to unreliability issues) and AB contacted me to let me know I could reconsider which company to go with and I am sticking with MedEl.  I am confident they make a great product and I have a feeling I will love the Rondo.

 

Sorry if I brought bad feelings into the forum; that wasn't my intention and certainly wouldn't help to encourage greater participation here.

 

 

Lisa, if there is not good atmosphere for discussion, there would not be anything what we could appreciate.

 

[Adam]

Lisa, no bad feelings at all. bottom line is we are all in this together and any information on CI's that is neutral and can be shared with this community will only benefit all of us. I applaud your willingness to offer suggestions that might help your medel bionic buddies. I was just speaking from experience on the other site. Is everyone like that? not at all but there were a few bad apples that turned me off enough not to have visited in a long time. there are many sites out there that can offer good information to all of us that are not brand specific.

[Adam]

Ok so i just yped a rather lengthy reply only to lose it. I will try to get as close as i can.

first, Along with each one of the companies that sells CI's also comes a little flavor of the country in which it is based. I totally appreciate the more technical stance on research and development that MEDEL has taken. Each comapny has its own flavor. What I do appreciate is the fact that Medel is making huge strides in the direction of trying to build that sense of family and communitty both with major changes to the website as well as launching Hearpeers. I think all the companies had growing pains in the early stages as we are going through now with hearpeers. I can say it has come a LOONG way from when it started when I just had to check it one a week or so. I do see it improving and although i have not met any of you guys, consider you my freinds and family. I do wish Medel could hold a hearing celebration convention evey few years similar to a competitor does as i would love to meet many if not all of you.  I consider myself lucky to be involvled in some of the growth of the website as well as hearpeers from the early stages. Will there be growing pains along the way? thats a big yes but i try to look forward to what HP can becaome and the impact it can have on MANY folks who all will be at some poijnt where we have all been. what a privelege it is to be able to make that journey just a little easier for somebody who is just now. heading down that path.

Please remember to respectfully submit any ideas you might have to help this community grow and let more people know of the amazing implants and technology that MEDEL offers.

[Guest]

Hi Russ,

 

I work for MED-EL and do check over the forums but my perspective as an employee is not really the reason people come to the HearPeers site. We very greatly appreciate everything that is contributed to the site by users and candidates. This includes the technical questions, parent/patient/candidate concerns, tips and tricks for using CI's, and the laid back conversations between friends. The site is just a year old as of this past Friday and has grown a lot since then. I hope you'll stick with us as we continue to gain in active users and involvement on HearPeers.

 

I won't get into the design aspects of the site (although we have approximately the same level of color to grey as Facebook) since I am not the webmaster or designer. I can, however, speak to the promotional side of things. Since we launched HearPeers at HLAA last year: all current patients have been informed of the site, we have an icon link on the top right of every page of medel.com, we include a flyer about HearPeers for every candidate we send materials to, and the site is highlighted at the back of our most requested candidate brochures. HearPeers information is also given to all new patients at activation.

 

We are committed to growing HearPeers and getting more people involved. The comments posted here (good and bad) help us improve and your feedback has been forwarded to the webmaster and to marketing.

 

Thanks!

 

-Charles

 

 

I'll be a bit more blunt about why I suspect this forum has so little activity, despite the quality of those who do post:

 

(1) It's an incredibly crappily designed site. You have to log in every time you visit (most sites say "Remember me"). It has a lousy set of choices for main forum areas, and should have far more to "guide" a user to optimum locations. It is generally difficult to use (the "tasteful" grey coloring makes my eyes water after a little use, when contrasting colors would make it work). There's more, but if Med-El gave a fig, they'd ask almost any 13 year old kid how to design it for USERS and not some effete jerk in an office 8,000 miles away at the Home Office.

 

(2) It gets somewhere between zero and minus numbers of promotion from Med-El. In my research on CIs, I never noticed it, and it's either not prominent or missing from Med-El websites, including Facebook. I only found out about it from my audiologist after I decided to use the Med-El implant. If Med-El had the brains of a sock puppet, they would be promoting this to the heavens as a marketing tool from customers.

 

(3) Related to (1) and (2), there is no evidence whatsoever that Med-El ever reads anything on here. I see no participation of any significance. Tjere's a whole lot of touchy-feely stuff on FaceBook, so someone (an intern? the owner's sister's daughter's best friend's aunt?) appears to know that there's an internet out there, even if it's not a very important thing to the Company.

 

There's an old saying in sales and marketing: "Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door." Coming from a sales and marketing family of peddlers for the last 75 years, let me assure you that's just bunk.  Med-El has a fantastic hardware product (if I didn't think so, I wouldn't have let a really great surgeon put it inside my head) but I've seen little evidence that the company does marketing that makes any sense. While I've seen a number of posts in this forum that their customer support is good, the company's lack of support for this forum to make it a quality location attractive to all Med-El users just means that it is going to be composed of the few people I've met here so far who are smart and helpful, and probably not much more.

 

Anyone who knows how to send this to Med-El is free to do so.

 

Rusty

 

[Leblisa]

I plan to be a participating member of the MedEl/HearPeers 'family' for a long time to come!