Tag Archives: optician

Unravelling the Mystery of Sunwear

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By Dana Sacco

The funny thing about sunglasses is that they become part of our persona and allow us to project an image or style. Of course, sunglasses also protect our eyes and the delicate skin around them. Technologically advanced sun lenses provide crisp optics and enhance visual performance. It’s such a cliché – the guy on the beach admiring females passing by, with full confidence that his observations are shielded by a pair of dark sunglasses. Like all stereotypes it contains a modicum of truth. Yes, sunglasses protect us from harmful UV rays but they also add that layer of mystery.

So, it’s interesting to look at what motivates our clients and to understand the behavioural needs that drive their sunglass purchases. Opticians have a long-standing tradition in retail and an innate philosophy of customer-focused selling. They are trained to understand the lifestyle and needs of the customer and to provide the perfect eyewear solution for them.

Optical inventory selections are often driven by trends in the marketplace. Some opticians have a “golden gut” that lets them pair the perfect sunwear trend to the patient. Those opticians instinctively understand the key motivating behaviours of their customers and translate that “EQ” or emotional intelligence into the perfect sale.

An example is the “weekend warrior” who lives a sport-centred lifestyle. Many athletes have fiercely competitive natures. This assertiveness drives them to go to great lengths to get the newest style or technology to enhance their athletic performance. Any Oakley or adidas sunwear dealer has served a customer who knows all about the newest, “about-to-be-released” model. Just like a new golf club that will make their shots 20 yards longer, the sunglass is in hot demand.

Generally speaking, if a client pursues individual sports they may be less extroverted and will choose a more conservative style. Their more extroverted counterparts often choose team sports and identify with bold colours and distinctive designs.

An athlete who is a strong sequential processor, such as a long-distance marathon runner or golfer, displays core behaviours linked to repetitive tasks, which are sustained for long periods of time. These people are often quite happy to wear the same style for many years. Or, if they update their look, the next model will be quite similar to their last, as they may be reluctant to change.

A person who is hard-wired for urgency to achieve their goals, such as a beach volleyball player, whose sport has a very random changing pattern, will likely own multiple pairs of sunglasses to suit their mood and playing conditions. Sunwear models that offer choices of lens colours or a changeable palette in the frame design will appeal to their natures.

Identifying your athletic customers’ need for detail will also help the sales process. Those attracted to highly technical sports, such as road cycling and mountain biking, will often display a need to know all the technological aspects of their purchase and demand the same attention to detail as they would in purchasing their coveted bicycle.

The level of core behaviours, such as assertiveness, extroversion, sense of urgency and detail orientation, give the retailer a basic pattern to work with in the selling process. In behavioural science you must take account of individual personality, which is shaped by birth order, cultural context and other external experiential factors. However, some studies indicate that understanding core behaviours can give us insight into about 30 per cent of a person’s make-up and help predict behavioural outcomes with about 85 per cent accuracy.

As an optician, sunglasses represent the “fun” side of the eyecare business. Every client has unique needs and it’s not necessarily the activity that drives their final purchase decision. Each customer presents a new mystery for the optician to solve and a new opportunity to establish a valuable long-term relationship.

Can You Talk Technology?

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Can You Talk Technology?
By Brian P. Dunleavy

Optical shop owner Steven Levy believes he has an advantage when it comes to understanding lens technology. His three-location business inToronto—LF Optical and LF Warehouse – began as an eyeglass-processing laboratory.

“The LF in the name originally meant ‘Lenses First,” he explains.

Even so, it hasn’t been easy for Levy and his staff of seven opticians to stay up-to-date on the latest in spectacle lens design. “Think about how it is when you buy a TV now,” notes Levy, who is not an optical practitioner but has been in the business for more than 20 years. “Three months later, if you walk up to the counter in the store with the same TV, the clerk laughs at you. It’s almost the same way with lens technology.”

Indeed, the past decade has seen a baffling array of technical enhancements in eyeglass lenses, from free-form progressives to digital single-vision. Keeping current can be a full-time job and it doesn’t help that lenses often take a backseat in optical shops to high-fashion frames, or that optometrists have taken an increasing interest in ocular biology and disease.

“Your garden-variety optometrist has not kept up well with new lens technology,” says Dr. B. Ralph Chou, MSc, OD, FAAO, an associate professor in the School of Optometry at the University of Waterloo and a practicing optometrist for more than 30 years.

Adds Madelaine Petrin, RO, an optician and professor in the opticianry program at Toronto’s Seneca College, “Our graduates know the latest lens technologies. For how long? That depends on where they work.”

Educators like Petrin and Chou feel strongly that eyecare practitioners – be they opticians in optical shops or optometrists with optical retail businesses in their practices – must improve their working knowledge of optics technology to ensure they offer their patients and customers the best eyeglass products available. According to Dr. Chou, studies have found that 50 to 60 per cent of optometrists’ income is derived from eyeglass sales, so they, “need to know how to hang glass because that’s where the money is.”

“Without a doubt, patients are more concerned about the ‘label’ on their frames than the actual lenses they house – or at least they are when they enter our clinics,” adds Dr. Alan R. Boyco, OD, owner of Image Optometry, a 14-location chain of optometry clinics in B.C. “But we’ve learned over the years that while a designer frame will elicit a lot of compliments for the patient, a ‘designer’ lens will generate a lot of new patients for our clinics.”

So how can eyecare practitioners stay informed on new lens technology? Continuing education meetings and courses for both opticians and optometrists are an excellent source of information on eyeglass lens designs. Both Boyco and Levy suggest having those who attend such programs share what they’ve learned with their colleagues in the optical shop or optometry practice through in-office workshops. Similarly, sending shop or practice representatives to local, regional or national conferences can help. Lens manufacturers are usually well represented at such events and more than willing to share information on their products. Once again, attendees can come back with knowledge to share with colleagues. Finally, lens-processing laboratories are also excellent sources of information on lens designs; lab personnel have hands-on knowledge of how new designs affect optics.

Above all, it doesn’t matter how you learn, just that you learn. It can make a difference in how your patients see, and whether they come back to you in the future.

“I want to offer our clients the best products available,” Levy says. “If they leave wearing nice frames, friends will ask, ‘Hey, where did you get those?’ If they leave wearing lenses with good optics, they will see better and tell their friends and family how knowledgeable our staff is. It is just good business.”