I hate to break it to you, but telling your patients that one lens is “better” than the other isn’t good enough. No matter how well you describe and invoke the experience of progressive lenses, if you or your patient has never worn them, then there’s no easy way of understanding them.
It’s time to stop relying on the old pen and paper method of explaining lenses; those tools are for Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, not eye care. Technology now allows patients to see how their new lenses will perform. We released the HOYA Vision Consultant Viewer — or HVC Viewer for short — as a way for patients to interact with their new lenses before they make a final decision through augmented reality.
Why You Need to Show, Not Tell
Trying to explain new coatings or lens styles to a patient is difficult, especially if they haven’t experienced certain features. Changing from single vision to progressive lenses isn’t something you can imagine very easily. Not only that, but many optometrists and opticians have never worn progressive lenses themselves, eliminating first-hand experience to share.
This leaves us with words like “better,” and drawing circles and hourglasses trying to explain how to use new lenses. Patients end up confused, which can hurt the growth of your practice. If you can show your patients how their new lenses behave, they won’t be left confused or uncertain, especially if they are deciding whether to spend more money on a premium pair of lenses.
Educate, Don’t Sell
When using experiential tools like the HVC Viewer, make a shift from selling lenses to educating patients. When patients are educated the conversation is flipped from, “What is this extra cost going to do for me?” to “I want that. How much would that cost?”
Educating patients helps them make their final decisions and allows you to be frank about their options. Tools like the HVC viewer application cannot be ignored as educational aids for your practice.
The HVC Viewer gives you the opportunity to compare lens design quality of your practice versus optical discounters. When a patient sees the difference between a premium design and a conventional all you have to say is, "These are the lenses our patients receive. These are what you get at other places, 5-to-10-year-old technology."
The HVC Viewer Application
The HVC Viewer application is an education tool that helps patients understand the feeling of their new lenses, an experience that blows them away. It is an augmented reality app for the iPad that allows patients to “test drive” different lens types in real life decisions before they make a final decision.
The HVC Viewer has five modules:
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Progressive Lenses — Demonstrate the difference in performance across the range of progressive designs, show how fields of view and distortion change, and adjust the power and add to the patient’s prescription.
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Single Vision Lenses — Demonstrate the difference between bi-aspherical, aspherical, and standard designs. Show patients how different distortion levels may affect visual and binocular perception as well as adjust the sphere, cyl and axis for a more precise experience.
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Indoor Lenses — Show the difference between standard reading lenses as compared to other premium indoor solutions in a variety of situations, such as computer lenses to combat CVS (Computer Vision Syndrome).
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Anti-Reflective Treatments — Easily show the increase in comfort from glare reduction, improved contrast and an increase in sharpness.
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Polarized Lenses — Show how polarization enhances comfort by increasing contrast and reducing glare.
Dedicate to Practice
After implementing a new tool like the HVC Viewer or Spectangle PRO, it’s vital that you and your entire team dedicate time to learn the tool through and through. Practice on other members of the team, play around.
There’s no quicker way to waste an investment than letting it gather dust on the shelf.
New Tools, New Opportunities
The time has come to use the new tools at your fingertips and stop only telling patients why they need a new feature, show them how it works. Alleviate their concerns, whether they come from a concern about price, or a lack of understanding.
Utilize the HVC Viewer App to grow your practice.