Every optical makes the decision on what products to sell and at what price point. But too few spend the time and energy to narrow the focus for the patient. Keeping it simple often provides the path to least resistance in the sale. Let me explain…
In all the years I have been managing optical shops, I have never seen an infusion of new products to market from various suppliers like we have seen in the past 4 years. There are standard progressives, premium progressives, short corridor progressives, digital wave front technology progressives, coatings for anti-glare, anti-fog, and anti-scratch, there are multitudes of new transition/photchromics, a blending of photochromics with polarization, driving glasses, computer glasses, occupational glasses, etc etc etc. For our industry…the explosion in new offerings is fantastic but also very confusing and it requires a significant effort on the part of the optician to ingest all the options and properly understand them in order to sell them. Since we are the experts in this business, can you imagine what it must be like for the customer who does not live this environment every day like you do? Absolutely impossible to digest.
OPTICAL DISPENSARY MANAGEMENT RECOMMENDATION – Tiered lens strategy
First off, you need to continue the strategy of taking the consultative position in the sale. Ask questions about how your customer uses their eyes, what they like and dislike about their current pair of glasses, what their hobbies are and what are the lighting conditions like in the various places they spend most of their time. Once you have developed their needs…then focus on refining the options in a tiered way. Provide them 3 lens options max. A good better best strategy each with a focus that delivers on the patients self professed need. Dont attempt to sell the lightest lenses on the market if the patient has not expressed an issue with the weight of their current glasses. And dont attempt to sell task specific glasses like computer glasses if the patient has not expressed that they spend hours per day on the computer. A successful optical shop strategy is built around providing obvious value to the customer in the form of glasses that fill their unique needs and then keep the options to a minimum that provide the least degree of confusion for your customer. When you introduce too many options, you create a barrier to the sale through confusion which is unneccessary and a certain way to lose a sale.
Keep it simple….fulfill a patients need…become a problem solver….and you will be rewarded with a happy customer and expanding profits!
