continuing education

Taking the High Road: High-end Dispensing

How to set up and succeed in high-end dispensing, from A(spheric) to Z(yl). ECPs considering adding or opening a high-end retail component into their practices have many questions. What defines a premium pair of eyewear? What defines a high-end dispensary? How can you create a top-notch experience? And what makes a successful high-end practice truly successful?

It's best to start by defining what high-end means and how you want it to apply to your practice goals. Next, take basic steps, and then move on to intermediate, then advanced steps. Here are the high-end how-to's by category.

DEFINING HIGH-END: WHO DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GO UP?

While there is no set definition, most ECPs agree that a high-end product retails at $500 and higher. A high-end frame is always a brand name, and the lenses are usually a brand name as well. The brands are often recognized by the consumer at their first visit, and/or requested by consumers thereafter.

Most ECPs agree that a high-end practice encompasses three things: 1. Outstanding customer service, people skills, and product knowledge; 2. A high-end look with upscale, trendy décor and cutting-edge name brand products, and; 3. Skillful, unique sales and marketing plans and implementation.

By utilizing these steps, you can build a high-end practice, starting on a small scale by introducing an effective high-end section to your existing practice, and then ramping it up in stages to a large scale.

BASIC HIGH-END

The basic premise of high-end dispensing is always offering each patient not only eyecare and eyewear, but a total, unique experience. Upgrade your current dispensing operations by training and retraining all staff members and revamp core operations by bringing in high-end branded products.

TRAINING TECHNIQUES

Several manufacturers, wholesale laboratories, and major-and mid-sized optical retailers offer education leading to certification by the American Board of Opticianry. Certification gives staff members a core knowledge base and also vests staff members in the profession, ensuring longer, and more productive, employment. It gives employers a benchmark on how to hire, compensate, and retain staff.

Typically, ABOC opticians quickly attain management level positions.

Contact the American Board of Opticianry/National Contact Lens Examiners at 800-296-1379 or visit www.abo-ncle.org for more information on how to start an ABO certification program at your practice.

PREMIUM PRODUCT PROTOCOL

High-end practice staff should be up-to-date on current optical technologies including frame, lens, sunwear, and accessory products. Brand integrity, placement, and knowledge are also key components. While opticianry skills are the core of this knowledge, optical industry manufacturers, suppliers, and labs are essential sources for the specifics of the products you carry or plan to carry.

Product knowledge is paramount. Premium frames are created with meticulous care, and knowing what each frame is made of and how its components work allows dispensers to explain features and benefits to patients in a way that creates maximum value for the product. Likewise with today's complex spectacle lens products: Staff needs to know all the details of the products they dispense. This will enable everyone to recommend just the right products to patients.

CORE OPERATIONS

Start your high-end launch by addressing or readdressing your mission statement. Your practice mission statement should be short; for example: "Our vision is to enhance each patient's eyecare and eyewear experience to achieve outstanding vision and appearance." It's short enough to use in sales and marketing materials while getting the high-end message across.

Historically, vision care was focused on the medical aspects of achieving good vision. Fashion entered the mix in the early 1980s with a boom in high-fashion frames. Today, designer name brands are de rigueur. Now that the fashion aspect is well established, there is a swing back to the medical aspect of the patient's experience, emphasizing healthy eyes.

Understanding the complexities of premium products is key to selling success

Today's healthy sight focus puts emphasis on lenses as the essential component in a pair of glasses. This dispensing shift pays dividends by saving time on the floor with opticians who are able to more easily match the patient with the right frames for the right lenses. Recommending a stunning pair of lenses to accompany a frame goes smoothly and hand in hand when lenses are detailed first. Patients are energized when they are told that their lenses will look great in the frame, and that they will see more clearly than before due to the new lens technology now available. They can look at frames with pleasure and be more receptive to choosing a designer frame to accompany those technologically advanced lenses.

INTERMEDIATE HIGH-END

Intermediate high-end dispensing starts with incorporating all the basic steps with revamped sales, marketing, and customization operations. Tackle your practice look from an internal and external standpoint. Most high-end practices today have a honed-down, sleek look. Displays and lens demos are clean, neat, up-to-date, and selective. Imagine one stunning frame spotlighted in a window, or one featured lens design. Your high-end section should be understated with elegant display racks that stand out from the rest of your dispensary. The product display should not be crowded or "fussy."

SALES STRATEGIES

It pays to look outside the optical industry for high-end ideas. For example, some luxe practices handle frames only when wearing white gloves, while others show frames they recommend to each patient on velvet displays. Both techniques are used by jewelers. All high-end practices offer only the best first to every patient. This includes technologically advanced lenses and lens treatments and multiple pairs that answer individual visual needs, including sunwear and task-specific eyewear, such as for computer use.

If your practice takes third-party insurance, continue to offer the best first. Savvy practices present the options, then tell patients, based on their insurance plan, "Your insurance will pay X amount toward your eyewear, and your portion is Y amount." Or, if a customer calls with the question, "Do you take my insurance?" no matter what the insurance is, reply, "Yes, we take insurance." When the patient visits the office and presents their insurance form, match in dollars off what their insurance plan covers.

Remember that all patients have particular lifestyle and visual requirements. Get to know the patients and their lifestyles through observation, questions, and conversation. This takes time. That's what high-end dispensing is about…taking time, gathering information, and addressing all the visual and aesthetic details with every patient.

MARKETING MUSTS

By now, your marketing materials are customized to carry the unique look and message of your practice. Ramp up your marketing efforts with a bigger budget and incorporate local advertising. Write the managing editors of area publications and offer your services as a health and/or technology resource. Editors look for fresh sources and copy, and are likely to reply to your call, query, or story.

Here are some topics to consider: The many aspects of healthy sight; frame brands, fashion, and construction; and lens technology. Many savvy ECPs have transformed a press connection into writing regular columns for their local newspaper, and the exposure has garnered them new patients. This approach can also work with local radio and TV.

Consider quarterly newsletters as part of your mailing regimen. A marketing company can help put together your newsletter for a nominal fee. You can also utilize staff members for content. A typical newsletter may feature the latest frame and lens fashions and technologies, new products and people, and patient testimonials.

A more cost-effective approach is to utilize the practice website, with email newsletters to targeted patient groups on a monthly or quarterly basis. Also, be sure to utilize an on-hold message system to tell callers about your best frames and high-tech lenses.

TWEAK THE WEAK

If something isn't working, assess it, learn from the mistake, and dump it. This includes ineffective ad campaigns, nonselling frame lines (have a sale and bring in another line), even nonperforming employees. The rule of thumb is to run ads at least three times, carry a frame line at least six months, and give the employee three reviews before jettisoning them.

Ask trusted patients for opinions and advice. Consider creating a practice advisory board made up of staff members and even some patients, who meet once a year or every six months to discuss ways the practice could improve. Then take action on at least their top three recommendations.

CUSTOMIZATION NATION

Uniqueness, individualization, and customization are the keys to a high-end practice. Each patient wants individual attention, service, and products; and he or she needs to understand that each pair of eyewear is customized especially for them. This bears repeating, as many patients take vision care and eyewear for granted, rather than as an accessory that can not only help them look good, but see to their best ability: a notable, special combination of fashion and function.

An in-house lab can help cut lab costs while enhancing your practice's ability to create unique eyewear faster. With the continuing popularity of rimless, patients can help design their own lens shapes for a truly one-of-a-kind look. Edge tinting to match frame colors can create a unique look, as well as custom tints. Both are ways of individualizing eyewear.

Consider taking giant steps in your practice sales strategy and offer only high-end lens products. For example, several successful practices have eliminated standard plastic lenses from their repertoire, and only offer polycarbonate on up to ultra high-index lens styles. Others offer only AR lenses.

ADVANCED HIGH-END

Advanced high-end dispensing takes your practice all the way to the top by building on the basic and intermediate steps and adding finely tuned details.

Practice Personality: Going 100 percent high-end starts with a total overhaul of the practice. Foremost, pull your sales and marketing efforts through the entire practice by remodeling. This can be as simple as painting to match your marketing materials on up to installing new frame display cabinets or an interactive virtual dispensing system.

Your entire practice should look the high-end part. Furniture should be sleek, modern, and well cared for, with art instead of posters on the walls. Magazines in the waiting room should all be current and fashion-orientated (i.e., InStyle, Vogue, and GQ). Displays should be uncluttered and sparkling. A rule of thumb is to hand-dust every week. Offices and back room should carry an upscale message, with clutter at bay and records attractively filed.

Get Out There: Get out there in all different ways; make yourself, your staff, and your practice visible to the community with personal appearances.

Partner with retailers and service companies; for example, small high-end men's or women's clothing boutiques, beauty salons, and spas, by holding joint "pamper me" day events, wine tastings, or other events to draw in new clients.

Attend area technology shows. Eyewear is technology after all, and if you can't see computer screens clearly, then the end-use technology can be more frustrating than fantastic.

Attend sports (i.e., surf, hunting, boating) shows, where eyewear technology for better sports performance is a key message and the contacts you make may be not only patients, but also sports-related businesses that you can partner with.

Join organizations with a vision message, such as the local chapter of Prevent Blindness, or with a broader community message, like Rotary or the Chamber of Commerce. Actively participate on boards and at events, where you'll typically meet professionals who appreciate upscale eyewear and can afford multiple pairs for multiple functions. Get involved in areas you enjoy, and encourage your staff to do the same, so you'll all get the most out of your social and business interactions.

Above all, be sure to have plenty of business cards with you every time, everywhere. If you want to take the interaction further, offer a percentage off eyewear or other perk and write it on the back of your card, signing your name. And one more tip: You're a high-end practice, so always look the part.

Visit nearby stores and small businesses to introduce yourself. Drive in a five-mile radius around your practice to see what's changed recently and drop in to talk with business owners. Get out of your optical mindset and think outside the box. That's acting like an entrepreneur, and that's how many high-end clients achieved their status at the beginning or the relaunch of their careers, too.