Playbook, optician
Answering how much a pair of glasses is going to cost
Customers ask for one price and there are three: the test, the frame and the lenses. Two of those are published and the third depends on a prescription that does not exist yet, which is the whole shape of this question.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for pricing questions holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- A pair of glasses is priced in two halves that combine, so a visitor asking one question needs two answers and the arithmetic that joins them.
- The lens half cannot be settled before the sight test, because whether a thinner lens is needed follows from the prescription rather than from preference.
- The test carries a third price with its own entitlement rules, so the total somebody pays is three published things rather than one.
- Coatings and lens upgrades are options rather than defaults, and quoting an all in figure without saying what sits inside it produces an argument at the till.
How it arrives
- how much are varifocals
- how much is a pair of glasses
- how much are thin lenses
- is the eye test included if i buy glasses
- how much extra is the anti glare coating
- can i just buy lenses for my own frames
What has to be indexed for this to work
| Frame price bands and what each contains | The bands rather than individual products, because bands age far better than a catalogue and answer the question just as well. |
|---|---|
| Lens prices by type and by thinness | Single vision, bifocal and varifocal, with the thinner options priced separately. Customers ask in outcomes and you price in options, so the mapping between the two is what the assistant needs. |
| Coating and option prices | Each as an addition with its own figure, so nothing appears to be included that is not. |
| Sight test fee and any entitlement scheme | The third price, plus your policy on glazing a customer's own frames, which is asked far more often than most practices expect. |
The reply
The price is made up of the frame and the lenses. Frames sit in bands and the ranges are on our pricing page [1], and lenses are priced by type, so a varifocal costs more than a single vision lens [2]. Whether you need a thinner lens depends on your prescription, and that is known after the sight test, which is why the final figure is confirmed at the dispensing appointment rather than before it.
It teaches the structure of the price before giving any numbers, because a customer who does not know the structure will misread whatever they are told. It then names the reason the second half is unknown, stated as a consequence of the prescription rather than dressed up as a sales step.
Where it stops
The trigger. The customer gives their prescription figures and asks what their lenses would come to, or asks whether they need thinner lenses.
I cannot work a price out from a prescription, and whether a thinner lens is needed is something the optician confirms. Bring the prescription in, or leave your name and an email and the team will go through it with you.
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 total up a specific pair for a specific prescription.
- Never say whether a customer needs a thinner lens or a particular coating.
- Never present a frame band price as the price of a finished pair.
- Never say a lens option will fix a problem the customer has described.
Questions
- Can it give a starting price for a complete pair?
- It can, if you publish one and it is genuinely complete. If your lowest advertised figure excludes lenses, saying so in the same sentence is what stops the number becoming a complaint.
- Why not let it add the frame and lens prices together?
- Because the lens half is not known. It can explain how the two combine, which is what the customer actually needs, without producing a total nobody can stand behind.
- What about second pair or bundle offers?
- Index the terms as written, including what the second pair may be chosen from. Bundles are where an approximate answer costs the most at the till.
Keep reading
- Everything for a opticianEye test prices, NHS entitlement, frame ranges and prescription rules are all answerable. Vision symptoms are not.
- Handling pricing questions in generalPublished price versus the price for this buyer. Bands, ranges and from pricing, and why a firm number for unscoped work is the damaging failure.
- Sorting out which optician appointment somebody actually needsAn opticians runs several appointment types and customers ask for all of them the same way. Telling them apart.
- Explaining what an opticians accepts towards a test or glassesOptical cover arrives as vouchers and entitlement rather than claims. What the assistant confirms and what it cannot.
- Answering whether a frame is in stock at an opticiansWhich brands an opticians carries is stable. Whether one frame is in the practice today is not. Separating the two.
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