Staff Management

Optician Management: Track and Measure Consistently

By Laurie L. Sorrenson, OD, FAAO

Your opticians are a key part of the patient experience–and a key part of your bottom line. It is your opticians who will reinforce your prescriptions and recommendations, and make the sale. Given the importance of these staff members, I don’t leave their performance to chance. I’ve learned over the years the value of close, consistent management.

Here are my top tips for ensuring a high-performing optical staff:

Track numbers in the optical. Track per optician, and report these numbers at least monthly. It’s amazing what happens when you track. And it’s also amazing what happens when you quit tracking! Knowing their performance isn’t being tracked, may consciously or unconsciously lead some opticians to fall down on the job.

Decide on specific metrics to track. For each optician, my practice currently tracks total dollars generated per day worked, along with total dollars per pair of lenses sold, total frames sold, frames per lenses sold, percentage of premium progressives sold and percentage of premium AR lenses sold.

Have in-depth monthly meetings with optical staff. I meet with just the optical team once a month to discuss efficiencies, billing and their sales numbers to figure out “best practices,” or, in other words, how we can fix optical sales problem areas, and do even better in areas where we are already excelling. Isolate at least one sales number to concentrate on for improvement each quarter.

Have quick optical staff weekly update meetings. We also have our optical team gather once a week for a 10-minute meeting just to discuss and report the one sales number we have decided to concentrate on for that quarter.

Audit eyeglasses billing and ordering. Set up a schedule to regularly audit your optical dispensary’s billing and ordering to make sure all are doing it correctly–and not leaving any money on the table.

Decide: Bonuses? Are they necessary? We don’t do bonuses except the occasional “unexpected” bonus. When an optician has a huge sale, or an optician had phenomenal monthly numbers, we may give them a $50 or $100 gift card.

Don’t let your opticians’ performance slip through the cracks–unless you also want your profitability to slip through the cracks, too.

Do you carefully track, and at least sometimes, reward opticians? How do you ensure a consistent, high level of optical staff performance?

Laurie L. Sorrenson, OD, FAAO, is president of Lakeline Vision Source in Austin, Texas. To contact her: sorrenson@att.net.

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