Playbook, optician
Answering whether a frame is in stock at an opticians
Frames are the fastest ageing information in the practice. What holds steady is the ranges carried, the price bands and whether something can be ordered in, and those three answers cover most of what is really being asked.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for stock availability holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- Frames turn over constantly, so an individual frame is the piece of information most likely to be wrong and the one customers ask about most confidently.
- What does hold steady is the brands and ranges carried, the price bands and whether a frame can be ordered in, and those are the answers worth giving.
- Customers ask by a brand name they saw somewhere else, so the practice's own range list is the only thing that lets the assistant answer at all.
- Whether a frame will take a customer's lenses is a dispensing question rather than a stock question, and both usually arrive inside the same sentence.
How it arrives
- do you stock that brand
- have you got this frame in
- do you have frames for a narrow face
- can you order a frame in for me
- do you have childrens frames
- will my prescription work in a rimless frame
What has to be indexed for this to work
| Brands and ranges you carry, with price bands | The durable version of a frame catalogue. It answers the question without going stale every time a display is refreshed. |
|---|---|
| Whether frames can be ordered in | And roughly how that works, so a no about today becomes a maybe about next week rather than the end of the conversation. |
| Children's and specialist ranges | Including any funded range, since parents ask about these specifically and by a different name. |
| Your policy on glazing frames bought elsewhere | Whether you will fit lenses into a customer's own frame, and any condition attached. Asked often and answered inconsistently. |
The reply
We carry the brands listed on our eyewear page, and most ranges sit across several price bands [1]. I cannot see what is on the shelf today, so whether that particular frame is in the practice at the moment is worth a quick call. If it is not, frames from our ranges can usually be ordered in [2]. Whether a frame will work with your prescription is something the dispensing optician checks when you are in.
It gives the durable answer and marks the perishable one as a phone call rather than guessing at it. Ordering in turns a no into a maybe, which is the commercially useful move. The dispensing question hiding in the same message is separated out rather than answered by accident.
Where it stops
The trigger. The customer asks whether a frame will take their prescription, or asks about a frame they bought somewhere else.
Whether a frame suits a prescription is a question for the dispensing optician. Bring the frame or the prescription in, or leave your name and an email and the team will come back to 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 say a frame is in stock, held or reserved.
- Never say a frame will suit a customer's prescription or face.
- Never name a brand you do not carry as one you do.
- Never say how long an order will take unless your own page states it.
Questions
- Should we index the frame catalogue?
- Only if you genuinely maintain it. Stock moves faster than most catalogue pages, and an assistant describing a frame you no longer carry costs you a visit. Ranges and bands age far better.
- Can it connect to our stock system?
- No. It answers from the material you index and cannot look anything up in a live system, so anything that changes hourly should be described as a phone call.
- Is saying we can order it in worth the sentence?
- Almost always. It is the difference between a customer going elsewhere and a customer ringing you, and it is true of most ranges.
Keep reading
- Everything for a opticianEye test prices, NHS entitlement, frame ranges and prescription rules are all answerable. Vision symptoms are not.
- Handling stock availability in generalWhat an assistant can say about ranges, restock patterns and alternatives, and the damage one confident wrong stock answer does.
- Stopping the chat when somebody describes a change in their sightFlashes, floaters and a shadow across the sight need the practice today. Getting out of the way quickly and clearly.
- Which optician appointment is being moved, and does it need movingA sight test is a clinical slot and a collection is not a booking at all. Which optician appointments move, and on what notice.
- The door being open does not mean anybody can test your eyesThe shop trades all day and the test room runs a booked list. What to publish so nobody travels in on the wrong day.
Try it on your own material
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