An optical dispensary in your optometric practice can assist in building revenue for your practice. However, you need more than just frames to run a successful optical dispensary; you need an optician. Unfortunately, along with other roles in your optometric practice, there can be a high turnover rate for opticians.
And, with the added pressure from online frame retailers disrupting your optical dispensing sales, how do you manage when you’re short an optician? This post offers a few options for managing your optical dispensary when you’re short an optician.
Managing Your Optical Dispensing Profits With Limited Staff
Cross Train Staff
Cross training staff members to learn new skills not only helps you fill your practice with knowledgeable employees in multiple areas of your practice, but it also makes it easier for you to manage your practice if a member of your staff is ill, on vacation, or leaves unexpectedly. Additionally, giving employees the chance to learn a new skill can also boost morale and decrease the chance of employee burn out.
Take The Lead
Sometimes, your optician is on vacation or is ill. Instead of needing to replace them, you just need someone to step in and take over the responsibilities while they are out. If your practice is short an optician, it could be a good time for you to jump in and not only be the OD, but also the optician. This could provide you with the opportunity to identify flaws in your process so you can better your practice and optical dispensing profits. When you’re short an optician, step up and fill in for a week to see where improvements are needed.
Professional Fill-ins
If you don’t have time to personally fill in for your optician while they are out, you might want to consider getting a professional fill-in to take over while your optician is out or while you’re finding a replacement. Fill-in opticians are a great option when you’re short staffed because they bring new energy to your practice and can give you an outside assessment of your practice and provide suggestions for improvement based on other fill-in experiences.
Discover more optical dispensing tips by downloading the, 4 Weeks to Bigger Profits in Your Optical Dispensary, ebook.
Originally published in August 2017