A patient sat down in the chair a few weeks ago, glanced across at the frame display, and asked me with a slightly nervous laugh, “So how hard are you going to push me to buy new glasses today?” She’d just read the news about optometry chains and their sales quotas, and she wanted to know where we stood.
Fair question. And an easy one to answer.
The Sydney Morning Herald ran a story recently about optometrists at some of the large corporate chains being pressured to hit sales targets. They were expected to turn appointments into same-day glasses sales, push premium add-ons, and, during the busiest weeks of the year, keep clinical appointments off the books so the registers kept ticking over. Reading it was uncomfortable. Most optometrists I know came into this work to look after people’s eyes, not to move stock.
At Viewpoint Optical, we’re independent. That word gets thrown around, so let me tell you what it actually means here. There’s no head office sending us a conversion rate to hit. No manager asks why someone left without buying frames. The one thing we pay attention to is whether the people who see us leave happy and seeing clearly and comfortably. That’s the whole scorecard.
So if you come in and your current glasses are still doing their job, I’ll tell you exactly that. If your prescription has barely moved, you’ll hear “these are fine, come back and see me next year,” not a reason to spend money you don’t need to. That approach suits us, too. We’re not after a quick sale. We’d much rather you’re still sitting in this chair in ten years, and bringing your kids along as well.
Taking the long view changes how a practice runs. A thorough eye test isn’t something you can rush. Checking a child for the early signs of short-sightedness, fitting them for myopia control, or taking a closer look at an eye that doesn’t feel quite right all take proper time, and we book enough of it. There are no “blackout periods” here where clinical concerns get shelved because it’s a busy sales month. If something needs looking at, we look at it. Simple as that.
None of this means we don’t sell glasses, of course. We do, and we’ve put together a range we’re proud of, from sensible everyday lenses through to Japanese handmade frames. The difference is the order of things. We work out what your eyes actually need first. The glasses come afterwards, and only if you want them.
If you’ve ever walked out of an eye appointment feeling like you’d just left a car yard, I understand the wariness completely. It really shouldn’t feel like that. An eye test is a health check first, and the person doing it should want nothing from you beyond knowing you can see clearly and your eyes are healthy.
If you’re in Hurstville or anywhere around the Georges River area and you’d like an eye test where nobody’s working to a quota, we’d be happy to look after you. You can book online whenever it suits, or call us on 02 8021 2298 and we’ll find a time that works.