I’m still working full time so January is when my benefits renew and I look forward to it every year, as I get a chance to re-invent how I present myself to the world by picking out my new glasses.
I’m old enough now that I don’t fret even a little about wearing them. They are a necessary accessory to my life and improve it enormously, but they are also one of the only intentional acknowledgements of fashion I make. Who will I be this year? Nerd chic, Hollywood agent, academic, corporate titan? All of those choices and more are up on the wall at my glasses store, and it’s all up to me. It’s an annual coming out party, a statement of how I see myself in a moment of time. Sort of an ocular version of “This is a sample of my handwriting now.” An evolution of self.
Some years it takes hours to choose them, and other years there is an instant connection, a sudden recognition of “me” when I slip on that one magic pair. This year it was very easy, as I went in “with a vision” and ran right into a couple of pairs that fit the bill. I usually get two pair to have an option to my look. If it’s good enough for Meryl it’s good enough for me.
Last year I got two pair that were very different to give me two different looks to suit my mood. This year they were more similar as I had certain things I had learned from the year before and had a better sense of the me I was trying to present, mostly choosing a difference in color.
That’s the good stuff. The process itself, however, leaves much to be desired.
My experiences at the glasses stores have been fairly consistently negative. The number of options available to the consumer are vast, and the usefulness of these options can be debated, but what has been repeated in my dealing with the retailing of good vision has been poor quality control and worse sales practices.
Let me share two specific examples that still make me a very wary customer whenever I go in one of these retailers. I will intentionally be avoiding the term “opticians” when speaking of the customer service representatives at the glasses store, as it provides a cover of medical legitimacy that they have not earned in my experience. They are commissioned sales people that are trying to extract money from your wallet, justifying options that you may have no use for to increase the ticket for gain, pure and simple.
About five years ago I went into a major chain store and ordered my glasses. I wear progressive lenses and when my glasses arrived I picked them up and it quickly became apparent that they had not filled the prescription properly as reading was a near impossibility. At first they suggested I keep them, as I simply needed to get used to the new ones and that this was normal. It wasn’t normal. They had screwed up and I had my ophthalmologist test the glasses to confirm this. When confronted with this the glasses store assured me they would remake them and as compensation they would upgrade my lenses to Varilux, an upgrade progressive lens with a good, if expensive, reputation. The fix was done and they were fine the rest of the year.
The next year I was ready for my new pair and I was inquiring about the cost of Varilux lenses as I had been satisfied with my glasses the previous year. Upon evaluation of the glasses I was now replacing, it was discovered that they were not Varilux lenses at all. They were the basic progressive lenses that represented no upgrade of any kind. I had been boldly lied to by an unethical salesperson.
That taught me a couple of things. I had been happy with my glasses the previous year and so, at least for me, many of the options I was being offered were utterly useless for me to be satisfied, and secondly, these people helping me were not to be trusted. My radar needed to be up when I went in these stores. These were not the next step in the medical evaluation of my eyesight. They were a separate thing, a retail establishment in a for-profit business using white jackets as camouflage.
This year that awareness became very useful. I chose the frames I wanted and then sat down with the salesperson to evaluate what my part of the purchase would be after the application of my insurance benefit. After a long period of apparently arduous calculations, he turned a very complex form around to me in a 6 point font with a big $360 circled at the bottom. As I focused on the details of the form, I found several options that had been automatically added to my purchase but not disclosed in any way, including $39/pair for an extended warranty. As I started to point these out the ethically challenged salesperson said that he had just put it in the computer and this is what the insurance company would cover.
I walked out.
I went to two other retailers and could not find any frames that met the criteria I had as well as the first ones did, so I went back, worked with a different person and carefully excised the useless crap that had been packed onto my purchase and got my two pair for $230, all in. From $360.
A little over a week later, my glasses arrived. Instead of the two unique pairs I had ordered, they had made two pair of the same glasses. Identical. To their credit they immediately affirmed the gaff and got the change processed, but it was another example of the inability of these retailers to handle the basics of their business.
I am completely satisfied with the first pair and as of this writing am still waiting on the second. They are pretty basic. They have anti-scratch and anti-glare coatings, which are basically standard everywhere you go. Upgrades to both of these are offered and I have found no use for either. If you are a first time buyer I suggest getting the basics and wear them for a year. If you are happy with that year’s performance, you have no need to upgrade. If you have specific challenges that year you will know what to concentrate on as far as the available add-ons are concerned and which to ignore. Do not depend on the valuable advice of the vision professional you are working with. You may not get any. If you find an ethical assistant to your glasses purchase, don’t go anywhere else. My experience is they are few and far between.
If you are in this business and find my evaluation offensive, rest assured it is a result of decades of purchases and the overwhelming consistency of these kinds of sales tactics and quality control. Let the buyer beware.
As in so many things, the fun and excitement of the purchase provides a perfect opportunity for people to be taken advantage of. Seniors often feel overwhelmed by complexity, often introduced intentionally to confuse. The original offer my salesperson presented me was very complex and the font tiny, making evaluating it a force of will. I had been prepared for this by years of dealing with this three-card monte approach to customer service. If you are not, it is easy to be abused.
With that said, do your homework, be alert, bring someone with you if you need to, be a cynic about this until someone has proven themselves to you. If and when they do, honor them with your business. They have earned it.
Then raise the curtain on the annually re-invented new you.