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I'm done with Costco

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Last week I went to my local Costco in Columbia, SC, arriving 10 minutes early for my appointment for an adjustment to the Philips 9040 hearing aids I had bought there 3 years earlier. I was assigned a specialist who I hadn’t been to before, even though I had been 5 or 6 times for follow up. I was generally happy with the other specialists on previous visits, although I was never fully satisfied with the adjustments they made.
The specialist was 5-10 minutes late in getting me into her office. She asked me what problem I was having and I told her I was getting whistling in my left ear. She inserted my hearing aids into the reader connected to her computer and it wasn’t working, so she had to go 2 offices away to another computer to adjust them, which took a few minutes. Long story short, her adjustment didn’t seem to help and I asked her to do more adjustment, which she refused. I then asked her about ordering new that had better background noise reduction. She then said my time was up and that I would have to come back to do anything else. When I protested about the time she spent on me, she was very rude and ordered me out of her office. It was 23 minutes after my scheduled appointment time. I left and talked to the supervisor about the issue and the supervisor explained that it takes 30 minutes to order new HAs and regarding further adjustment, the supervisor just said there wasn’t enough time. I will now go to a local audiologist through Soundly that I know will cost me double what Costco HAs cost, but am fed up with the rudeness and attitude of that Costco specialist.

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I’ve always been a proponent of Costco Ontario which, when I was graduating was staffed entirely by audiologists and was mandating speech in noise testing and and generally trying to promote good care.

There has been a recent change and my friends who have worked for Costco for a long time are jumping ship because of a dramatic uptick in sales targets and limitation of actual care/service. Patients are being denied appointments for aftercare, or offered imprecise remote hearing tests.

I’m sad for my friends having to give up their stability, but happy for them to follow their principles. It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the next few years.

Just based on what you wrote here, I would suggest you contact Costco Member Services at 1-800-774-2678 (available Mon–Fri, 5am–8pm PT) and tell them that you are not happy with the most recent service you received. (Read to them what you wrote here.) You certainly would like to know what happened with the Hearing Center customer service, which used to be good and now seems rushed and not what you are used to from Costco.

Edited

@user783 Thanks for posting that. In the six months I’ve been reading this forum, generally Costco has received more positive than negative comments. But your experience would sour me on them as well. Being rude and dismissive is not acceptable. I have not been to a Costco Hearing Center, but I was thinking that my next hearing aid would be purchased from them. If I’m treated the way you were they will not get my business.

Interesting that they are starting to leverage their market share by pushing certain sales volumes. I guess they know that at certain price points your alternative options are limited.

Got new Sennheiser Rise aids in March from Costco in North Riverside, IL. While the specialist was running a bit late, he did a great job measuring and fitting my aids, including allowing me enough time to tweak them with him. Of course, I was courteous even though they ran about 15 minutes late getting me in. I guess there are all sorts of people out there. Costco is known for its customer service so, as one other person pointed out, your best bet is to contact Costco corporate about the person who done you wrong (I am sensing an old fashioned country song here…)…

Edited
@user783 said:

I will now go to a local audiologist through Soundly that I know will cost me double what Costco HAs cost, but am fed up with the rudeness and attitude of that Costco specialist.

There are 6 Costcos in my area. I know which HAPs at each one do good fittings. Depending on what I need, I schedule with one of them unless the change is minor, like a volume correction. Over the years, only a few have quit the business or moved to other companies. The biggest issue is transferring to different stores that are outside of my area.

I’ve run into all the issues like appointments running late, etc. It’s just the way it is with busy hearing aid centers like Costo. The other day an audi left me sitting nearly an hour past my appointment time while he talked to a HA rep and then his wife. It didn’t bother him at all.

When I used to make an appointment at Costco, I detailed to them exactly what I needed done and how long I thought it would take. They scheduled different amounts of time based on my description. None of the Costco HAP ever threw me out of their office for taking too much time. And yeah, they’ve had computer problems sometimes.

There have been a lot of changes in the Costco hearing aid departments over the last year or so. They no longer have dedicated support people answering phones, scheduling appointments, doing hearing aid cleanings and giving out domes. The HAPs are expected to do all that during the time when they don’t have any customers. That’s a really bad change.

Assistant VP, Paul DiCola, is the one making these changes. I don’t know how many of the changes are coming from the CEO or how many are on him alone.

On a cost benefit basis, I still think Costco is the best deal out there, but it’s slipped a little under DiCola.

@tenkan said:

Well same for any other clinic, no one’s perfect

I was thinking the same thing.

We’ve seen bad posts about Costco in the past. Sometimes it’s not the Costco fitter. Being nice can sure make a difference when it comes to these things.

I learned my lesson back in the KS10 days. After always seeing a particular person at Costco, I made an appointment and didn’t specify I wanted it to be with her. When I got there and realized it was a different person, I figured what the heck and went along with it. The different person managed to somehow fit KS10s so that they emphasized background noise and de-emphasized speech. After that I was careful to always say who I wanted an appointment with, and if it meant waiting a while longer for the appointment, so be it.

In reply to @portage

I highly recommend you phone your local Costco Hearing Center. You’re blessed to be in the Puget Sound region where there’s more Costco stores. If there’s an issue, take a leisurely drive to Bellingham Costco but phone the Hearing Center for an appointment, far ahead, in advance (the bookings are always heavy because they’re so popular and great): 360-715-3887. Request either: Julia or Landon (they’re both excellent). Consider the Jabra Enhance Pro 30 or Phillips 9050. I have Jabra E P Max (powerhouses, equivalent to Resound Enzo I A.

In reply to @Neville

One of the reasons that I gave up on my local Costco after six years was the constant churn in techs and audiologists. It got to the point where only the counter staff were familiar. The technical staff would usually have moved on after a year or so. Some were good. Some were inexperienced. And some were only rushed. In comparison, my current audiologist has, at times, spent as much as an hour and a half with me in one sitting.

Well I have to admit, this is the first time I’ve heard of an clinic that told someone who wanted to buy new HAs to hit the bricks because the sale would take too long! Perhaps this is because Costco makes so little on each sale, and knows their price is so good, that they are confident you’ll come back another time instead of going elsewhere…

@greg.smith said:

because Costco makes so little on each sale

Costco’s net cost for the themselves is around 50% of their selling price. The remaining 50% covers the overhead and labor. Because the hearing aid center is part of the warehouse, the allocated overhead is much less than that of a retail audi.

HAP’s at Costco make between $60 and $80k per year depending on how long they’ve worked at Costco and what state they live in. High cost of living areas like Cali pay more. They get Sunday overtime and semi-annual bonuses. Most leave a store because they’re transferring to another store closer to where they live. When a Costco HA passes their state license test, they have to take the open spots available, which may not be close to where they live.

Costco’s turnover is significantly lower than retail HA centers. They are paid a fixed salary and not a commission, so they don’t have pressure to upsell clients. A lot of retail HAP’s apply to Costco, but Costco prefers to hire long-term employees that have gone through their HAP apprenticeship. program.

In reply to @Elderly

Many are fortunate to have a Costco store close to you. Even better is multiple stores near you! Costco seems to only build stores in large cities. My closest Costco store is in another state with a 142 mile (228 km) round trip. My next store is 186 mile (299 km) round trip. I went to the 142 mile store in the next state and purchased Jabra Enhance Max aids. My was very nice and treated me well. I now have remote fitting turned on so I won’t have to make these long trips unless I have to. These are my second set of aids from Costco. My first set lasted me 11 years!

When I got my Philips 9040 3 years ago from Costco, my specialist told me Costco didn’t allow remote fitting adjustments. He also didn’t activate the Speech in Noise mode until I went back for another appointment after having problems with hearing in crowds and reading about the features the HAs had online.

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