Caselet : Advanced Bionics (AB)

You just joined the company called 'Advanced Bionics' who are world leaders in hearing
implants. Visit Advanced Bionics | The Cochlear Implant Technology Innovation Leader
- Cochlear Implants for Children and Adults

They are way ahead in technology, innovation and quality of sound compared to the
their competitor Cochlear. Yet Cochlear is more aggressive in the market and therefore
has highest market share in India.
For more information visit Cochlear Americas | Hear Now And Always | Cochlear
Implants

When you start interacting with doctors and patients (end users), you come across
following situations.

1. Field Staff (FS) explains in detail all the features of Advanced Bionics technology to the
professional or patient / family. Then they make a general statement that most of the
features what you have, competition also has it, there is not much difference? What to do
in such scenario?

VERBATIM FROM THE PATIENT/FAMILY: Even your competitors say that they have
automatic sound adjustment technology, waterproof processor, Bluetooth connectivity
and MRI compatible implant. They also say that their implant is more reliable that AB’s
and that AB has had so many product issues in the past.

2. Most of the clinicians are very neutral while recommending a CI even when they agree
that AB has a better product and technology but they don’t recommend to a family
straight away. How to handle this kind of clinicians and convince them to recommend
AB.

VERBATIM FROM THE SURGEON/AUDIOLOGIST: I like your product and

technology and service. But the patient and family has come asking for your competitor’s
implant. I don’t want to be seen as favouring one company over another. Also your
competitors have that single unit processor which appeals to the family and AB doesn’t
have it. If I aggressively push your product to the family and something goes wrong, I
will be held responsible by the family. I don’t want that risk. I really like to work with AB
but I am helpless when it comes to this situation.

3. How to Convince a customer who likes everything about a product and technology of
AB, but lacks only in one thing and for which customer is giving more importance (Eg.
Single unit Processor) and hence not opting for AB.

VERBATIM FROM THE SURGEON/AUDIOLOGIST: That single unit processor of your

competitors is making it very difficult for us to counsel for AB. You should tell your R&D
 people to make such a processor so that patients have the option. Many times the family
comes already convinced for the single unit processor after meeting other users of this
product & ask for it. They don’t want to listen to technological advantages of AB -they
just want the single unit processor as they maybe have a girl child and don’t want the
processor to be seen.

VERBATIM FROM THE PATIENT/FAMILY: After listening to details and advantages of

the AB implant, I really feel I should choose AB for my child. But that single unit
processor from Cochlear or Med EL looks so nice. It will be completely hidden by the
hair. Also my daughter won’t have to feel conscious while wearing it. Can you assure me
that AB will release a single unit processor sometime in the future? Can you give me
some kind of assurance in writing? If you can, then I will chose AB immediately.

4. Most of the Clinicians have objection with AB is that we are not much aggressive in
terms of Marketing as the competition is. How to handle this objection?

VERBATIM FROM THE SURGEON/AUDIOLOGIST:AB needs to be more aggressive in

marketing. Your competitors keep such a close track of the prospective lead and chase
the family by constantly calling them, doing home visits, sending them material,
arranging appointments for them with us etc. Also your competitors are so aggressive on
social media. They are always in the top searches in google. I see that AB has improved
in this regard compared to earlier, but het visibility to AB is so much lesser in the market
compared to Cochlear.

5. In case of Funded Implants, Trust/buyers will always try to reduce the price and have
more number of implants, saying they can give more Implants with the same amount and
more people will get benefit. In this situation we can’t match prices of competition and
hence lose that sale? Here the trust knows that AB Implant is better as compare to
competition. What can be done in such a situation?

VERBATIM FROM THE TRUSTEE: I have heard about AB’s technology being better
than Cochlear & Med EL. I also know that your service and support is much better. But
at the end of the day, we are a trust and are funding implants for poor families who cant
afford it. So we need to go for the cheapest option so that we can help more families.
Why don’t you give us some outdated/old implant of yours but at a cheaper price? We
don’t mind taking a product with a slightly lesser technology. You need to match the
price of your competitors.

NOTE: AB cannot distribute old technology at cheaper prices in the Indian market. We
don’t have that option

6. Objection handling with a family specifically

 AB has had the maximum number of voluntary recalls & field-corrective action in the CI
industry. Professionals are convinced about the credibility of AB. However, the
competition seeds the minds of the families of the CI candidates about the recent Version
1 implant issue and that AB implants are not reliable. AB field staff when given the
opportunity are able to meet the families and try to convince them about the reliability of
the Version 2 of the implant. Yet, some families feel scared, try to change the decision
after hearing about it from the competition, question the professional
(Surgeon/Audiologist) etc.
What to do in such a situation to win the trust and showcase our impeccable reliability for
the best-ever reliable CI (Version-2) made by AB itself.

VERBATIM FROM THE PATIENT/FAMILY:I am worried about the fact that AB has had
more product recalls compared to the other companies. I understand that you did it in
the best interest of the patient/family etc. But I am yet worried about if this issue will
happen with my child. Can you assure me in writing that your new Version 2 implant will
never have an issue?

7. Another negative seed by the competitor is about the a 12M$ fine paid by AB LLC to the
Dept. of Justice lawsuit on an RF (Radio frequency) emissions claim. Although this claim
was on older generation products and has nothing to do with the newer products, yet the
competition informs the families that it is a dangerous information hid by AB in the past
and the accessories for the same model of processors are in the market even today. Even
existing AB-users feel threatened hearing this.

VERBATIM FROM THE PATIENT/FAMILY: We heard from your competitor that AB

was fined by dept of justice in the US for hiding important information and for trying to
cheat the system. This is worrying to me if I have to choose AB for my child. I also met
another user of AB who was worried after reading about this information whether
support to his daughter’s product will be stopped by AB because of this fine/lawsuit. Why
did AB hide this information and end up getting fined? It is quite shameful.

8. Issue related to product obsolescence. AB has sent out information repeatedly to

hospitals, centres and professionals over the last 2 years that certain old products will be
getting obsoleted from April 1 2023 onwards and that users of this product will have to
upgrade their product. As we don’t have access to every patient’s personal contact
information + we have more 7000 users, it is impossible for us to contact every user
separately to inform the about this obsolescence. SO we rely on the centres to cascade
this info to their patients. Many times this has not happened and we (field staff and back
office customer service staff) have to deal with an irate family who supposedly didn’t
know about this issue. AT this stage, AB cant be blaming the centre in front of the family
as this could create issues in the relationship between AB and the professionals who run
that centre.
 VERBATIM FROM THE FAMILY: I wasn’t aware that AB will be stopping service to my
child’s product. My centre didn’t inform me about it. When I went to them, they told me to
contact you. How can you expect me to suddenly come up with 5 lakhs at such short notice?
Do you want my child to become deaf again because we cant pay for an upgrade
immediately? I don’t care how-you have to continue supporting my child’s older product
with spares or else I will go to the media and sue you. This is blackmail.

9. AR issues. AB is quite strict with monitoring of AR. Although credit periods & limits are
set in agreement with the centres, they don’t respect it most of the time. Despite pressure
from HQ, we in the local team give the centre additional leeway beyond agreed credit
periods. Our competitors are very relaxed when it comes to AR handling while we don’t
have that leeway from HQ. Hence the centres complain that AB is always chasing them
for payment while the competition is not.

VERBATIM FROM THE SURGEON/AUDIOLOGIST: You AB guys are so stuck up when it

comes to payment. I’m not running away with your money. You guys keep chasing us so many
times for the payment. Look at your competitors-they tell us to pay them whenever we want. They
never chase us for payment. In fact we need to call them many times and inform them to come
and collect their money. It’s stressful working with AB because of this. You are a difficult
company to work with. You don’t understand things from our perspective. You need to be more
flexible.

10. Compassion vs Business. Although every employee in the company is working for the
ultimate success of AB, yet, it is inevitable that each individual is looking at the business
through their individual lenses. As an example: for a sales and clinical person, as they are
in closer connect with the user, they tend to be more compassionate in their approach and
expect the company to make certain allowances such as be more flexible with warranty
policies so that the family doesn’t have to pay if their warranty has expired just recently.
For a finance person on the other hand, being flexible in such matters means sacrificing
revenue which isn’t right from a business perspective. So there’s often a tug of war in
such cases.

VERBATIM BETWEEN EMPLOYEES: Clinical person to finance person: The warranty has
expired since only 1 week. We should make this exception and not charge the patient. Otherwise
the centre will get upset at me and we may not get more orders. I’m sure we can make an
exception this one time.

Finance person to clinical person: This is not correct. If we make this exception once, some
other person from another region will ask us to make this exception again for their customer. AB
loses business if we do this. I cannot approve this.

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public domain.