3 Crucial Ways You Get Greater Value at the Optique Store
People have said it for years, and it still is true: The best price is usually NOT the best value. And that’s PARTICULARLY true of your eyes and the care they receive from your optometrist.
A few months ago, we shared with you why ordering cheap contact lenses or eyeglasses online can be flat-out dangerous. (See our blog post “5 Dangerous Myths about Purchasing Eyewear Online.”)
Now, we want to spotlight 3 key reasons why coming to our Optique store near Vanderbilt University in Nashville offers crucial benefits you simply can’t enjoy anywhere else.
Benefit from the Attentive Care of
World-Class Optometric Professionals
You come to an eye care facility like Optique because you want to see better. So what will you see at Optique? Nothing but doctors and staff members who, quite literally, have received the highest-level optometric training in the world. For example, our office manager, Randy, is dual-certified as an ophthalmic medical technician AND master optician. Fewer than 10 people in the entire U.S. have achieved that certification—the highest-level training in the field.
We hired Randy because we were very intentional about offering our patients and customers “nothing but the best.” Toward that end, I personally have worked very hard to offer those seeking my care the best-value service. I am now a diplomate in Cornea, Contact Lenses, and Refractive Technology of the American Academy of Optometry. To receive that designation, I went through a 5-year review process that included a grueling series of written, practical, and live-patient examinations by my peers. There are only about 120 such diplomates worldwide, and I am the only one in Tennessee who has achieved the milestone.
Technologies Available Virtually Nowhere Else
Another all-important benefit we offer you, the patient, is the ability to tap into cutting-edge optometric advances BEFORE they are available to virtually anyone else. Because of our standing in the field, our patients enjoy an experience not available elsewhere in the South. Working with us, they are able to participate in the piloting of new contact-lens-and-eyeglass-related technologies that have not yet hit the general market. So as technology advances, they are both affecting and benefiting from that technological advancement.
Here are 3 specific examples of this:
First … Optique is now using a type of scleral lens not yet available on the market, which offers distinct advantages over previous lenses of its type. It is far superior to any other on the market.
Second … we have just completed recruiting for a clinical study that will assess new daily, disposable contact lenses. These lenses have proven to offer a huge advantage over other contacts.
Third … Optique is one of only three practices in the entire world involved in specific new research pertaining to hybrid lenses. Because of this and our partnership with a leading lens manufacturer, we can offer the patient/customer an all-new scenario: If Optique can design it, the company we’re affiliated with can produce it. So the patient can get contact lenses meeting their exact needs, through never-before-dreamed-of precision.
The Highest-Quality Designer Frames
So if you’re keeping track, we’ve now covered 2 distinct ways that you receive greater value at Optique: Your vision needs are entrusted to doctors and staff members with unmatched training … and you benefit from eyecare-related technologies available virtually nowhere else.
Now, let’s focus on a 3rd way you benefit—eyeglass frames. Stated quite simply, at our Optique store you have access to frames simply not available at other facilities, including those fitted with state-of-the-art specialty lenses.
At Optique, we don’t peddle cheap Chinese eye wear, like online services do. We offer nothing but the highest-quality designer frames. Here is Nashville, we service many musicians and others, from every walk of life—all of whom have distinct personalities and fashion desires. If you’re like them, you want something really special. As one of our staff members recently put it, “You can buy toilet paper or auto parts online. But when it comes to fashion accessories such as eyeglass frames—something that’s part of you, that you wear every day—our customers see great value in looking really good.”
A Final Thought . . .
My wife—Dr. Michele Sonsino—and I care passionately about our patients and customers, and our conversations frequently drift to them. The other day, Michele made some excellent points, which I want to share with you. They’re all about the value we want to offer—from service to technology to designer frames.
“If you think about it,” Michele said, “not everyone needs to go to Optique. It may be odd for me to say that, but it’s true. If you’re going to Costco or Walmart and are truly satisfied, perhaps that’s right for you. At the end of the day, we want to see patients who truly need and value the distinct services we offer.”
Michele went on. “That’s why we, for example, don’t book patients every 15 minutes, like others do. We want to offer more attentive, thoughtful, person-to-person care. We don’t want our patients to feel they’re being ‘herded’ through our facility.”
I would add one final thought … something that occurs to me as I ponder Optique and the value we work so hard to offer you each time you need us:
If you’re not satisfied with average eye care … if you’re looking for something better … and if the solution is there … we will find it.
More About Dr. Jeffrey Sonsino
Dr. Sonsino is a diplomate in the Cornea, Contact Lenses, and Refractive Technologies section of the American Academy of Optometry (AAO). He is also chairman of the American Optometric Association’s (AOA) Council on Cornea and Contact Lenses, a fellow of the Scleral Lens Education Society, and is on the advisory board of the GPLI. He is a consultant or advisor to Alcon, Optovue, SynergEyes, and Visionary Optics, and recently was awarded the Practitioner of the Year by the GPLI.