Megan, an optician in Dr. Jackson’s office (left as you look at photo) with Raquel, a technician. They stand in front of the flat-screen TV at Jackson Eye that shows off frame and sunwear styles, encouraging patient inquiries.
Creating a sales-friendly optical shop.
By Shyesha Kincy
July 10, 2024
Capturing optical sales requires a patient experience that is smooth, enjoyable and efficient. Here are the key characteristics of our optical dispensary that have resulted in consistently impressive yearly sales growth since our cold-start practice opened in 2015.
No Empty Slots on Frame Board
As practice manager, I run a monthly sales report of how many frames were sold, and which ones need to be reordered. Like clockwork, on the third Thursday of every month, I reorder the frames that were sold, so no empty slots appear for our patients when they are browsing.
Editor’s Note: Some offices may need to reorder as frequently as every week.
We keep 500-600 frames on our board at any given time. We position ourselves as a high-end, luxury optical with frames starting at $400 and going up to around $800. The frames that are sold most often in our office are in the $500-$600 range.
I put myself on a strict frame reordering schedule after I noticed the negative impact empty slots make on patients’ likelihood of buying. Empty slots tend to discourage patients from browsing and trying on the surrounding frames that remain on the board. When our board looks full, it gives patients more incentive to browse all of our offerings.
A full board also just looks better aesthetically. I never want a patient to leave because they “didn’t see anything.”
Flat Screen TV on Frame Board
When our patients see our board full of frames they also see a flat-screen television that is on mute with rotating images of our doctor, Danielle Jackson, OD, and staff wearing some of the same frames they see on the board. People will often say, “I want the same glasses the doctor is wearing!”
On National Sunglasses Day, our team takes selfies wearing the sunwear on our board. Those selfies then appear on the loop playing on the TV. Patients frequently see those photos, and say, “I didn’t even think of buying sunglasses, but I like those!”
The TV cost us around $200 with a $30-$40 charge to get it mounted above our board. The content that plays in a loop consists of photos we take ourselves, so there is no ongoing cost. There is a USB port in back of the TV. We upload our photos to a USB drive and insert it into that port, and those photos appear on the TV screen.
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Calm, Clean, Efficient Atmosphere, No Walk-Ins
Our office is by appointment-only. Having no walk-ins helps us stay on schedule and keeps the hustle and bustle to a minimum. It allows Dr. Jackson and our team to feel we have time to sit down and speak with each patient, rather than keeping our eye on the clock, racing to see the next person.
We also don’t allow people to come in off the street just to browse our frames. Access to our office requires an appointment.
We have music that is upbeat, but not too loud, playing in the background and use a clean linen scent spray.
Everything is clean, thanks to our weekly cleaning service. It costs us $100+ per week, but we feel it’s well worth the expense. Patients seem better relaxed and more comfortable when they enter an office that is super-clean and tidy. We never have frames or other items scattered on our counters.
When we pull frames from our board for patients to try on, we place them on velvet-lined display trays.
No Surprises
Our patients know before they come in what their insurance will cover and how much their co-pays will be. We try our best to be as transparent as possible with no hidden fees or surprises at check-out. For example, we use Paradeyem, a software that allows us to give our patients fast and accurate price quotes about the eyewear or contact lenses they selected.
In addition, we just started using Optify to allow our patients to browse our optical offerings before they get here. We finally decided to invest in this type of optical showroom technology because we had so many patients asking to view our frames before their appointment. Since we’re appointment-only, we didn’t have the time to make appointments solely for frame browsing.
Our patients arrive ready for their appointments with no dread of unwelcome surprises at checkout and high hopes for finding a frame they love on our board.
Shyesha Kincy is the practice manager for Jackson Eye in Fairburn, Ga. To contact her: skincy@drjacksoneye.com
