My Phonak hearing aids and the little microphone you can buy as an extra, have both been superb. The little mic. has been life-changing. It can't make much difference if you're in a packed pub with background music but for e.g. a table in a cafe or restaurant it makes all the difference between going and not going. Expensive at over £1,000 but worth it to me.
However my one big gripe is their repairs service. The hearing aids are returned to the manufacturer and they say it will take 5-10 working days. I feel that having spent over £3,000 for the hearing aids, they should offer something better than this, especially when people are so very dependent on their hearing aids.
I was particularly anxious to get mine back in time for my holiday and when we got to day 9, I tried to ring the Leeds branch to see if they'd arrived yet. Only to be told by a recorded voice "We are very busy and can't answer the phone. Please try later". No offer to ring me back. I then rang their Head Office who at first just said "It's standard practice. There's nothing we can do". However I persisted and finally they sent an e-mail to the Leeds branch to see if there was a set I could borrow if mine were not back. It was very frustrating not to be able to get an answer from Leeds. Finally I did manage to get through to Leeds and they were back. So I had gone through a lot of unnecessary stress and had to be really persistent when all the time they were sitting there in the Leeds branch. Stressful and upsetting.
Before going to collect them, I rang the Leeds branch to ask if there would be anyone available to do the BlueTooth connections to my mobile phone and the little mic. but I was told no, because they had "back to back appointments all day". Very disappointing. However when I got there, Eustace said that he would fit me in between appointments. I had to wait for half an hour but he quickly did both connections for me. Thanks so much Eustace. So a stressful experience but he saved the day.