Annoyed with Boots opticians, are they a franchise?

Running_Horse

If you really want to complain, then ask why spectacles are used to subsidise the sight test fee. If you want cheaper glasses, be prepared to pay more to see a qualified optician. Or you could just go to Specsavers.

nedmundo

Nice one RH!

Problem is that the NHS pays us a paltry £19.32 and we are not allowed to charge any top ups. We can charge properly for private eye exams, but when most of our patients are NHS, it has little influence. Personally, I feel it is unfair to ask private patients to pay significantly more to subsidise the NHS one - effectively another stealth tax.

suitablysceptical

Cross subsidy applies to almost all retail businesses, whether it be supermarkets selling cheap bread to get people in the door for the opportunity to sell them more premum products or advertising sale items in the hope that consumers will also purchase some products at full retail,I am always surprised that people think that this concept solely exists in Opticians. It may be more apparent as we sell less products, eye tests, glasses, contact lenses. RH your comment is spot on but not appropriate to be asked at a store level, if you are familiar with the industry then you know that such decision can not be made on an indvidual store level, that is a question for the government and will always be driven by the fees that the NHS pay to opticians(or lack thereof as pointed out by nedmundo). But the fact that Boots sell complete glasses for £25 means if someone wants to opt out of cross subsidising they can.

I was asked once by a customer whether I would price match an internet quote, my response was simple, if we were having this conversation in a warehouse on some industrial estate then I would consider it, but we are in a high street location, and I employ professional staff,who's opinion and advise he was seeking, so the answer would have to be no.

asea

If your friend is so capable, surely she should be making the complaint & not you? Would she not be offended at you stepping in to complain when she is quite capable of doing it herself?

Running_Horse

asea wrote: »

If your friend is so capable, surely she should be making the complaint & not you? Would she not be offended at you stepping in to complain when she is quite capable of doing it herself?

Rather a good point. If I were a store manager receiving such a complaint, I would want to find out what my paying customer thought, and why someone else was speaking on their behalf.

Also, the stores where I worked encouraged the optician to tell staff what the patient needed, to ensure a smooth handover. The optician recommended glasses for distance and reading, so the staff member followed this advice until the patient decided to ignore the optician's medical opinion. Hardly the actions of someone unable to speak for herself.

Errata

I'm not sure what the problem is. My local Boots opticians has frames out on display and priced - isn't this the policy in all of them ?

Llamados

Should have gone to Specsavers!

oystercatcher

I use a local independent optician, the glasses are much more reasonably priced than the multinationals , the staff extremely experienced. I can walk in at any time to have my specs adjusted or repaired.
One time I went in for a repair and the optician said he'd broken them accidently and glued them up and I was given a free replacement. Well I wouldn't have known the broken ones had a problem and carried on using them as well for the next year as I preferred them to the replacement.

Oh and they always offer the lowest price specs first.

My problem is when I'm trying on new glasses I can't see the price as they don't have the right lenses in. If I like them I have to take them off, put old glasses on and look at the price !!

OC