Question
Phonak's impressive presence at AAA this year has been the talk of the town. Can you shed some light on what the Phonak team presented?
Answer
I’m so glad you asked because Phonak showed up in a big way at this year’s AAA convention in Atlanta, Georgia. Phonak highlighted our pillars of Going Beyond in our booth space with many experiential opportunities and demonstrations on how we “Go Beyond.”
To represent our first pillar of Quality, we highlighted Phonak’s commitment to Reliability, showing off our Audéo Life devices taking a punishing assault by rain droplets and hanging out at the bottom of a water tank.
This illustrated what we’ve heard from patients wearing Audéo Life: “I dropped it in a muddy puddle and couldn’t find it for a week. When I found it, it worked perfectly fine!”
We also showed the receiver tests we perform as part of our 128 test battery for all Phonak on-ear solutions. In this area, customers could see and touch our new packaging for Audéo L-RT devices, improving their unboxing experience.
In our Expertise pillar section of the booth, customers could discuss practice services that can be tailored to meet the needs of their market and office ecology. Phonak’s Inner Circle partnership program provides resources, focus, and attention to help distinguish practices to stand out in their local market and was visited by many audiologists looking to grow their business.
Audiology also stood in the Expertise pillar and highlighted our Cognition program, an intriguing topic many audiologists are being asked about but don’t always know how to answer. Many HCPs left this booth area more confident about speaking to their patients, physicians, and the local community about this important topic.
In our Customer Experience pillar, students—the future of audiology—were encouraged to share their passion for this profession and invited to join our student events eLearn to Listen and Phonak U, and stay up-to-date with Phonak topics through the Student AuDience newsletter.
Government Services also held space within our Customer Experience pillar to discuss the Community Care Network, where providers are able to dispense life-changing solutions to our veterans.
Our portfolio was on full display in our Innovation pillar area to demonstrate that Phonak offers a solution for everybody along the hearing care continuum, from protection to detection to treatment.
For listening demonstrations, attendees were invited to join the Phonak Eras Tour, where they were brought through the history of Phonak’s approach to managing competing noise, hearing on-the-go, improving own voice production with SoundRecover2, our made-for-all approach to Universal Connectivity, and listened to a sneak peek at what the future of hearing aid technology might sound like.
Like the real Eras Tour, there were many outfit changes, dance parties, friendship bracelets, and an educational demonstration of our technology.
Roger technology was demonstrated both through the Eras tour and a Roger On station and we saw many delighted faces when they heard the Roger benefit: Adaptive, reducing listening effort, and bridging the communication gap of noise and distance.
Beyond our booth pillars, Phonak provided educational sessions on:
- Solutions for kids/young adults,
- Those with complex listening needs, and
- Product sessions on: Roger, Lyric, and Lumity
- Telehealth and the benefits it provides to all,
- Best practices learned through the ACHIEVE study, and
- AI technology for speech enhancement and denoising
These well-attended sessions supported the appetite for these topics and continue to inform Phonak to provide further educational opportunities.
The Future Forecast in the Hear-Tech Hub, always a crowd-pleaser featuring the Presidents and vice presidents of the “Big 6,” showcased Phonak’s commitment to audiology, the audiologist/HCP as the point of contact for prescription hearing aids, and the opportunities we have in the industry to support the profession and meet the future needs of our patients.
AAA is always an opportunity to catch up with old friends and colleagues, meet new professionals who share our passion for certain audiological or practical topics, nerd out on unique and emerging technologies, and grow your network in this industry that feels very small and broad. It is a reminder that we are all in this profession to improve our connections and foster connections with our patients and their social networks. I can’t wait to show up next year!
