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By Susan Tarrant, Eyecare Business, May, 2014

IN A RECENT SURVEY BY EYECARE BUSINESS, MORE THAN TWO-THIRDS OF ECPS SAID THEY EXPECT THEIR SALES OF FREE-FORM LENSES TO INCREASE over the next year or so. And nearly half of them expect that increase to be between 11 to 25 percent. Those are great numbers, and are indicative of practitioners’ desire to serve their patients with the best that technology has to offer.

But in order to get in the free-form lens game, you’ve got to get patients on board. How?

TALK BENEFITS. Talk to patients about how free-form lenses can help them see with more clarity than conventional lenses.

DON’T OVERDO. Don’t get into the technical design of the multi-angled, diamond-tipped stylus that can cut hundreds of curves and surface the lens to within a hundredth of a diopter of accuracy and the software that can plot out backside or dual-side designs that compensate an Rx for base curve and position-of-wear. (If you got lost on that sentence, imagine how a patient would feel!).

WHAT TO SAY

“Backside surfacing technology, digital design, and free-form processing all mean nothing to the patient. That patient only understands how it will benefit him,” says Jen Cofield, ABOC, training and development coordinator for Signet Armorlite, Inc.

So that’s what you focus on. Need actual language to help you translate the technical into benefits? Here are some suggestions:

USE ANALOGIES. Start with, “Just like televisions and cell phones have advanced, so, too, has the technology behind the lens design” or a similar analogy.

STRESS MEANING. Don’t explain what the technology is, but rather what it means for the patient in front of you. For example:

“From left to right across the lens, you’ll see sharply. You’ll have much less of that squiggly distortion. You won’t have to point your nose to where you’re looking as much. You’ll have more comfortable vision throughout the day. And, it will be completely customized for your prescription and your frame.”

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