Did you know you can have new lenses put into a used pair of glasses? Having had the most random jobs really has a huge advantage, namely that you learn the most useful things that many people just don’t know. Working at an optician for a year and a half taught me a lot, of which the above lesson is one. So prescription glasses can also be reused, as long as they’re still in good condition of course. So do you have a nice frame lying around but it’s no longer the right prescription? Take it to a good optician and they can refurbish the glasses for you and put new lenses in.
Other lessons I’ve learned?
- Do you have glasses lying around that you don’t want to wear anymore or broken glasses? You can donate those at a good optician who can then reuse the parts or the glasses are donated to a charity where they can be used again by people who don’t have access to good eye care.
- Glasses can really often still be repaired. So bent, broken, scratched glasses aren’t immediately ready for the trash. Go with them to a good optician. Often it’s a job of no more than a minute!
- Most people who have to start wearing glasses at a later age really struggle with their first pair of glasses. Not so much that their vision is deteriorating but that it does something to your appearance. I found it the most fun challenge to find glasses for these people that really suited them. Glasses that look good can actually be a really great accessory.
- An eye test can really mean so much more for people who are older. For them, their vision quality can influence keeping or losing their driver’s license. For an optician it’s a simple; “sorry your vision has deteriorated further, unfortunate”. But for a customer that can mean they lose their freedom. A customer like this needs a bit more care than the minimum.
- That good service is really many times more important than a good product for most people. You can easily buy nice glasses online and with some effort and luck even make sure you know for certain that they look good and fit well. But the service of a human being is super valuable. As a salesperson you look at style with them, you can make suggestions someone hadn’t thought of yet (“well, if you hadn’t given me this I would never have known this suits me”), you can provide extra mental support, you might be someone’s only contact that day/week/month, you can think along about solutions people haven’t come up with themselves yet.
- A simple personal greeting and an “I’m a bit busy right now but I’ll be with you as soon as possible” can make the difference between an angry customer and an ambassador for your store.
- Most (not all!) people appreciate a personal approach much more than formality. A: “heyyy, how are you?! Back for new lenses again?!” really wins over: “good afternoon sir, how may I help you?”.
All in all, many useful lessons learned! Hopefully you got something out of it too!
