In addition to being more likely to wear plano sunglasses and OTC reading glasses, refractive surgery / LASIK patients were also more likely to have purchased plano sunglasses and/or OTC readers during the 12-month period ending March 2011, according to The Vision Council’s VisionWatch Eyewear Habits of Refractive Surgery/LASIK Patients report. During this period of time, surgery patients bought 5.17 million pairs of plano sunglasses and 1.71 million
pairs of OTC readers.
How pro-active are you and your staff in making recommendations to patients? Let’s start with a foundation principle–do you believe that every patient that goes outdoors should have outdoor eyeglasses? If the answer is yes, then are you making sunglass recommendations to every patient? Notice in the Vision Council’s report: refractive surgery patients are more likely to purchase new sunglasses. Did they purchase them from you? If not, here are three action steps you can take.
1. Recommend sunglasses to every patient.
2. Make sure you have at least 20 percent of your frame board in sunglasses so that patients feel they can find what they want in your practice.
3. Create packages which include sunglasses (e.g.: contact lenses and sunglasses, refractive surgery and sunglasses).
We are the lens specialists. Patients should be buying their sunglasses from us. Let’s create an environment where that happens.
