The customer experience is essential to success, and there’s always potential for improvement—especially since many practice owners are more comfortable with the clinical aspect than the dispensing side of their eyecare business.
To help, EB sought out two eyecare professionals who are distinguished by their product prowess: Tom Wilk, OD, a well-known speaker who owns and operates two Mountain View Optometry locations in Calgary, Canada, and Susan Daly, head of optical products at IDOC, an alliance of independent-practice-owner optometrists based in Trumbull, CT. Here, they address several dispensary-related subjects.
Following Your Vision
→ MISSION. According to Dr. Wilk, “It’s good to have separate guiding principles—a mission and a vision—for your optical and then to make sure it’s aligned with your overall ones.”
→ COACH. “The retail side is very sophisticated, and you need to reverse-engineer what you’re trying to achieve,” says Dr. Wilk. After coaching staff on achieving positive patient outcomes, managers should celebrate staff members who are hitting key goals and continue to coach those who aren’t.
→ REVENUE. “There shouldn’t be a standard percentage that optical is expected to contribute,” Dr. Wilk shares. In practices that follow a more medical-focused model, optical may represent a smaller percentage of total income, but that doesn’t mean it lacks profitability.
→ HIRING. “When hiring for the dispensary, you need to decide if you want a salesperson, technician, or analyst,” Daly emphasizes. “Those are three different types of people.”
Role of the Owner OD
→ OVERSIGHT. “Often, the owner isn’t interested in the retail side and hands it off,” says Daly. However, this kind of system can work only with oversight and check-ins in place.
→ CHECK-INS. “Since optical usually generates around 40% of revenue, the OD/owner should dedicate at least one hour every other week with whoever is managing their optical,” explains Daly.
→ TRACKING. “The dispensary will only survive with the support of the optometrist, but it needs to be tracked separately,” shares Dr. Wilk. “Your two profit centers should operate distinctly.”
Centering on Sales
→ DRIVERS. “There needs to be guidelines, especially around buying and inventory management, as those are the key drivers of cash flow and profitability,” says Daly.
FRAME ANALYSIS
Dr. Wilk conducts a quarterly frame analysis by dividing product into top, middle, and bottom sellers.
“You should always challenge that bottom third and have regular team meetings. The problem could be placement, or perhaps it isn’t right for your practice. A quarterly analysis will tell you.
“After a year, you’ve had four quarterly opportunities to look at lines in the bottom third. If you’ve tried everything, then you need to decide if they should still have a spot.”
→ TIME. “The likelihood of an optician sitting for eight hours one day a week analyzing optical sales seems crazy, but that’s how much time it takes,” explains Daly.
→ METRICS. “Margins are going to be smaller in the optical, so you need to spend a lot of time analyzing metrics associated with it,” Dr. Wilk shares.
Product
→ COMMITMENT. Mountain View Optometry commits to a set number of pieces per year with vendors, and shares that the practice requires one year’s data to decide if they’ll change that number.
→ BOARD MANAGEMENT. “We rotate locations to give each line a chance,” shares Dr. Wilk. Staff should also be trained to avoid defaulting to their favorite frames or familiar vendors, encouraging them to explore the full assortment when assisting patients.
→ TRAINING. “We spend a lot of time training on lines, so if one isn’t performing, we ask the rep for more training so staff can tell the brand story,” says Dr. Wilk.
→ STORYTELLING. “It’s easier to love a frame when the customer learns its story, not just its material or how it’s made,” says Dr. Wilk.
→ BRANDS. “The average practice carries about 50 brands,” says Daly. A practical approach is to divide the number of frames your display space can accommodate by 24 or 36—the typical number of pieces that should represent a single brand on your board. “That will give you the range of brands you should carry.”
→ COLORS/STYLES. “The best practice is to carry two or three of the top-selling colors per style,” says Daly. “I rarely recommend showing just one color.”
Managing Inventory
→ ANALYSIS. “We do a quarterly analysis of our frame turn,” says Dr. Wilk. “The industry average is two to three times, but that will vary depending on your kind of practice.”
→ SCIENCE. “Make sure you have the science, not emotions, behind inventory management decisions,” warns Dr. Wilk. Rather than relying on a single person’s judgment, Dr. Wilk’s practice takes a collaborative approach, reviewing performance metrics as a team to reach informed decisions about what stays and what goes on the board.
That’s one of the fascinating and challenging things about success in the dispensary. It is part art—and part science.