Mark Hinton, well-known eye care retail advisor and coach, is presenting two sessions at the SNAPP Las Vegas Meeting: 8 Proven Strategies That Increase Optical Capture and SunSense. Both are designed to help Pearle Licensed Operators see an immediate impact on patient satisfaction and sales.
 Mark Hinton
“I’m in the trenches,” says Hinton, noting that his experience in his Asheville, North Carolina, practice where he partners with an OD proves that these strategies work. Among the guidance he will provide at the SNAPP meeting is to focus on consistent communication throughout the office. “If we change the way we communicate to focus on the why instead of the what, patients will take our advice—and capture rates and revenues go up,” he says.
But it’s not always easy to be on the same page. For example, he walks through what a patient might hear about sunwear. Here’s how it might sound if the doctor, scribes and opticians are not on the same page.
Doctor: “I recommend that you have good protection from the sun with quality sunglasses.”
Optical staff: “Were you interested in sunglasses? They’re 50% off.”
“It’s easy to see how this conversation occurs,” Hinton says. “Some doctors are hesitant to make it sound like they’re selling. And optical staff members are focusing on the financial transaction, not the impact of a lifetime of healthy vision.”
Here’s how he advises that the same conversation can have much more impact.
Doctor: “I want to be sure you are reducing the risk of vision loss from sun damage, so I’m prescribing sunwear.”
Optical staff: “I’ll make sure to fill your prescription to reduce your risk of vision loss from sun damage.”
See the difference? “People do buy with emotion, but they justify their purchases with reason and logic. So that has to be sound. When doctors talk about prescribing rather than recommending, and when staff embraces the idea that sun damage is a risk factor in developing vision-threatening diseases, the conversation is very different,” he says.
The lens pharmacy
In fact, Hinton wants to change the way that doctors view the optical. “We talk about the optical as being the retail sales environment. I’d like them to think about it as a ‘lens pharmacy.’ It’s part of the entire patient experience,” he says. By coordinating the language and focusing on the why, eye care practices will experience fewer patients who ask for their prescription so that they can shop around.
He compares it to patients going to the dentist for an exam and cleaning and then saying that they’ll go and get their fillings done in a less expensive place. “When we do it the right way, it’s not about sales or selling eyeglasses. The right process will bring the money,” he says.
Practice staff should be prepared for ways to help patients acquire the eyewear they need—and that’s not discounting their option. Remember the dentistry example; dentists (and many eye care practices) quickly explain financing options such as CareCredit, for example, that can help put the needed services within financial reach.
In addition to talking about how tweaks to the patient journey can improve a practice’s financial and metric gains, he will also provide attendees at the meeting with a timeline and guidance for implementation.
Hinton is in high demand because his presentations are practical and he is accessible to focus with individual office teams. The results for practices that have put these strategies into play add up quickly. In fact, practices typically see an average increase of $100 revenue per exam within two-to-four weeks following implementation.
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