Guide to Lens Demos
How demo units can help you present lens options
By Joseph L. Bruneni 

Consider how many lens options ought to be discussed with anyone purchasing eyewear, particularly those who want to know everything that's available to them. There are, in fact, more than a dozen basic options, including: A variety of lens materials, high index, poly, AR coatings, scratch coatings, aspheric designs, PAL designs, variable-focus computer lenses, cosmetic tints, sun tints, photochromic and polarized tints, and mirror coatings.

No dispenser has the time to explain and review every lens option with patients, and that's a dilemma that today's eyecare professionals face. And as consumer advertising increases, the challenge will be even tougher.

How do you expose patients to all their options in the limited time available following the exam? There's a simple answer. You do it by making sure you have graphic lens demonstration kits in the dispensing area.

To illustrate this, here's an exercise I use with optometry students. Pretending I am a patient, the student must explain aspherics to me verbally. After five minutes of a lengthy explanation that confuses even me, I bring out an aspheric demo kit with a frame that has an aspheric plus lens on one side and normal plus on the other. I ask another student to explain aspherics using the demo kit. If they remember what they were taught, the second student merely points to the lenses and says, "Which would you prefer, this lens or that one?"

New lens demo kits are constantly being introduced, so the following is not a complete listing. It does, however, illustrate some of what's available. When sales reps come in promoting a new lens, find out if a demo kit is available. Some laboratories also have demos.