IcareLabs Blog

After more years than I would like to count of managing teams in both retail and wholesale environments I have learned one very important fact – I would be nothing without my staff. They have always been just as they are now, my greatest resource. A high-performing staff can make a business or practice great while a low-performing staff can kill one. Having a great team creates an atmosphere that is contagious. Your customers will want to be part of it and will continue to come back as a result of it.

It takes work to create good team driven employees that want to serve customers. It doesn’t happen by accident. You will need a focused, strategic, and consistent approach to develop a customer service minded team. Here are a few key factors that could help you develop a team that will represent your practice well while creating a loyal customer base through superior customer service.

Transitions in partnership with Younger Optics have just introduced a revolutionary new photochromic polarized product. By combining all of the benefits of the proven XTRActive Transition product with Polarization your patients now have a product that performs like no other.

One thing that isn't always at the top of everyone's list around the holidays is staying healthy. We are more focused on getting ready for the holidays and enjoying all the good cooking (myself included).

Is your practice encouraging employees to strive for healthy living instead of having that extra helping of mashed potatoes and gravy? Let's look at some easy ways to do just that along with numerous benefits that may surprise you.

Hoya Vision Care has just announced that they will be phasing out all of their traditional PALs starting on November 1, 2020. Their announcement mentioned the need for simplification in the offerings. This will have a direct impact on us as we will start seeing our ability to order the Hoya traditional progressive lenses go away sometime in Q4 of 2020.

The PracticePlus program can be your complete office solution for your patients. From help with your in-office displays to name brand lenses and no-glare coatings your patients will love.

The program also includes easy to achieve goals that provide lifetime rebates for your optical. Right now, you can even get double your money back through the end of 2020!

2020 has been a long year. Covid has kept most of us bottled up at home and cabin fever has become very real to many of us. The good news is that we have made it through the summer. Going outside is now bearable as temperatures start to drop across the USA. So why not get out of the house? Our mental health could use a change of scenery and there is no better time than fall to go out and enjoy the fresh air.

Here are 4 simple activities that could help you break out of the monotony of being cooped up indoors.

Selling is simply about having a conversation with a person and helping them improve their lives. What other industry offers a better life improvement than ours? A recent study showed that people prioritized their vision over any other part of their bodies. We would rather lose limbs than vision.

We get to help create better vision for our fellow human beings every day. There are not many better callings than what we get to do. It should be rewarding, easy, and stress-free but we all know it often isn’t. So what can we do to try and keep it simple and not lose the sale?

A few years back Essilor shook things up a bit when they released the Comfort 2. There was a bit of panic that they might have made changes to the #1 selling PAL in history that might have not worked. Years later we all know that the changes made to the Comfort not only worked but worked well.

Back then Essilor looked into the "visual needs" changes that had occurred over the previous 10-15 years. Through this research, Essilor was able to update to venerable Comfort design to meet the needs of our modern patients.

Well, they have done it again with the launch of the Varilux Comfort Max. As our lifestyles continue to change so do the needs of our presbyopic patients.

Customer experience has become a hot term in the retail world. There are many folks out there making a very good living helping businesses improve their overall customer experience for their customers.

With all of this, there are many who still confuse customer experience with customer service. In reality, customer service is just one part of the actual customer experience. There are 6 elements to creating a great customer experience.

In January of this year, I posted a blog hoping to draw your attention to 3 important drivers of your business to focus on in 2020. These were capture rate, retention, and increase your average sales price (ASP) per sale.

Who could have foreseen the events that have transpired in our world over the last 5 months? The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken all of us to the core. Most non-essentialbusinesses were closed down for some period of time; many for months.

The optical industry was hit as hard as any. Most offices closed to all but emergency services. Opticals were shuttered or left to just do repairs and adjustments. Overall the industry saw up to an 85% reduction in sales. We are coming back strong but still learning to live in the new normal. While we could debate whether all of this caution was warranted or not, the facts remain, we all lost sales. Increasing your optical capture rate has never been more important than now.