Playbook, optician
Sorting a complaint into the clinical half and the retail half
The complaint that arrives most often here sits across both halves at once: I cannot see properly out of these. It may be the prescription, it may be how the lenses were fitted into the frame, and until somebody has rechecked both, nothing can honestly be said about either.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for complaints holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- A sight test is carried out by a clinician on a professional register, so a complaint about the test itself has a route above the practice, while a complaint about a frame or a fitting does not.
- The commonest complaint here belongs cleanly to neither half, because not being able to see out of new glasses is a recheck of the prescription and a recheck of the fitting before it is a complaint about anything at all.
- Spectacles were made to order against a prescription, so the complaint is usually a request for a remake rather than for money back, and offering the wrong one of those first makes the conversation considerably worse.
- Where the test was funded under a public scheme the onward route can differ from a private one, so the two have to be written down separately rather than described as a single procedure.
How it arrives
- i cant see properly out of my new glasses
- who do i complain to about an eye test
- my varifocals have never been right
- the lenses came back scratched
- i was not told the coating was extra
- can i have a copy of your complaints procedure
What has to be indexed for this to work
| Your written complaints procedure with stages and timescales | Who receives a complaint, how long each stage takes and who signs the reply. Publish the version you would hand across the counter, because a customer can ask for it. |
|---|---|
| The recheck route, written before the complaint route | That somebody not getting on with new spectacles is seen again, that the prescription and the fitting are both checked, and what it costs, which is usually nothing. Most of these messages end here. |
| The onward route, funded and private kept apart | Where a complaint goes once the practice stage is finished, and how that differs depending on how the test was paid for. Merged into one paragraph it sends somebody to the wrong place and costs them weeks. |
| Who reviews a complaint about the test itself | The named role, a registered clinician rather than the shop manager. Naming them is what makes the handover read as an escalation instead of a deflection. |
The reply
I am sorry these are not working for you, and I want it to reach the right person rather than stop with me. When somebody is not getting on with new spectacles the first step is a recheck: the prescription is checked again and the fitting is checked in the frame, and our page sets out how that works [1]. Anything about the sight test itself is looked at by a registered clinician rather than by the shop [2]. Leave me your name, an email, roughly when you collected them and what you are seeing, and it goes to the practice today.
It offers the recheck before the procedure, because a recheck is what most of these people actually want and it usually costs nothing. It says not one word about why the glasses are wrong, which is the sentence a practice would later have to account for. And it collects the collection date, which reception needs before anybody can find the job.
Where it stops
The trigger. Every complaint, and immediately on any mention of a solicitor, a regulator, a professional register or a review.
This needs a person at the practice rather than me. Leave your name, an email and what has happened, and the practice manager will pick it up and tell you what happens next.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never say whether a prescription was right or wrong, because that is a clinical judgement about a test.
- Never attribute the problem to the laboratory, the frame, the lens supplier or a named member of staff.
- Never offer a remake, a refund or a free recheck unless your published material already commits to it.
- Never discourage somebody from using the onward route, or imply it is unnecessary.
Questions
- Should it try to work out what is wrong with the glasses?
- Not a sentence of it. A cited quotation from a lens page in reply to somebody who cannot see is the most inflammatory answer available, because it proves nobody read the message.
- Is offering the recheck first just delaying the complaint?
- It is the step the practice would take anyway, and a fair share of these turn out to be a fitting that has slipped or a prescription worth a second look. Saying so early is what stops a fixable problem hardening into a formal complaint.
- Does the funded and private distinction really matter?
- It decides where an unresolved complaint goes next. One merged procedure means the assistant quotes the wrong onward route to somebody who then waits on the wrong doorstep.
Keep reading
- Everything for a opticianEye test prices, NHS entitlement, frame ranges and prescription rules are all answerable. Vision symptoms are not.
- Handling complaints in generalThe job is to route, not to resolve. Acknowledge without conceding, name the escalation route, and get it to a person fast.
- Setting expectations before a first sight testHow long it runs, why it is a health check too, what the extra screening costs, and why choosing frames is a second half hour.
- Reading frame measurements out without choosing a frame for anybodyThe three numbers printed inside the side, why a bridge fits or slides, and the frame a strong prescription rules out.
- Which broken glasses can be sorted while somebody waitsMost optician repairs are a two minute job at the counter. Some are not, and some frames are no longer made.
Try it on your own material
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