Introduction

Miracle-Ear Case Study

Since 1948, Miracle-Ear has been connecting people to the world of sound around them. As hearing aids have evolved over time, Miracle-Ear has remained one of the most respected brands in the industry, with more than 1,500 locally owned and operated hearing aid centers.

When Kyle Biernbaum joined Miracle-Ear of St. Louis as Marketing Director, he was charged with spearheading the company's growth while maintaining high service standards. He developed marketing strategies to connect with people across different communities in the region to generate appointments for the company's hearing solution providers and drive growth.

"We needed to meet people where they were in their hearing loss journey," Kyle said. "That part of my role — helping people restore relationships with loved ones by using hearing aids — was incredibly fulfilling. The operations phase — managing a high volume of phone calls, scheduling appointments, meeting customer service demands, and understanding the data — was very challenging."

The pandemic created staffing issues that made it even more difficult to manage growth. At the time, Miracle-Ear was fielding thousands of calls as the number of locations increased from seven to 20. People were calling to schedule initial consultations and follow-up hearing exams, or to simply ask questions about Miracle-Ear products and services.

"Front-office assistants already had enough on their plate helping people who walked through the door, processing insurance verifications, and managing schedules," Kyle said. "When we hit 20 locations, phone calls became disruptions to their productivity. It was difficult for them to answer phones and service clients in a succinct, consistent way that would improve success rates. We needed a streamlined, scalable system to maximize efficiency and growth and maintain patient satisfaction."

Snapscale Provides Centralized, Scalable Staffing Solution and Actionable Data Insights

Miracle-Ear of St. Louis enrolled in snapscale's HIPAA-compliant healthcare virtual assistant program. Snapscale virtual assistants took over the time-consuming tasks of answering phone calls, scheduling appointments, and managing customer service inquiries, allowing the in-office staff to focus on providing personalized care to patients.

Centralizing and integrating the call center process was critical to success. Rather than operating in siloes, virtual assistants became an extension of Miracle-Ear's in-house team.

With snapscale, anyone answering phones completes the same training, uses the same HIPAA-compliant system, and follows the same process as part of one cohesive team, regardless of physical location. Leadership began hosting virtual meetings with all team members, from St. Louis to the Philippines, to discuss goals, challenges, and wins.

"From leadership's perspective, the level of quality control was huge," Kyle said. "We had everyone in the same system, so training, coaching, and onboarding were simple. Syncing up helped us keep the team focused on common goals and allowed us to scale pretty seamlessly."

Fast growth and exceptional service were the top priorities. In addition to healthcare virtual assistant services, snapscale provided various data, such as call compliance and scoring, to inform decision-making. For example, Miracle-Ear leadership could see how many appointments each individual was scheduling, how much time they were spending on the phone, and other valuable metrics.

"As a marketing leader, you're constantly analyzing data and making decisions, but you only have so many hours in a day," Kyle said. "We were struggling with onboarding the right number of team members in-house, but this solution allowed us to match our growth needs. Snapscale built out datasets and set up dashboards with data from different systems, which painted a clearer picture and gave us better insights to make confident decisions."

Results: Rapid, Sustainable Growth and Positive Customer Experiences

Implementation of snapscale's virtual assistant and data management services has contributed to meaningful, measurable improvements in Miracle-Ear operations, almost overnight. Improvements include but are not limited to:

These improvements have enabled Miracle-Ear to meet growth objectives while improving customer service instead of compromising quality. More than a vendor, snapscale has become a trusted strategic partner and a valuable resource of both knowledge and staffing.

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