The Opticians

OK here we go for rant number one.  Last Thursday I was booked in to Boot's Opticians in Harrogate for my annual contact lens check.  They check my eyesight and keep showing me pictures of lovely Labradors in their guide dog catalogue which I will inevitably need at some point.

So, the appointment was for 9am and I turned up at 0855 hours and was told to sit and wait which I duly did.  There were about 5 staff milling around the reception desk and 0900hrs came and went.  Then, out pops an optician. Does she call my name for my appointment? No, she gathers the staff up and proceeds to deliver a sales review of the previous day and spell out what their targets are for that day.  As if that wasn't bad enough, the "team-talk" included this little gem - "yea, we had loads of kids in yesterday but we still managed a 73% conversion rate". Well, at that moment the penny dropped - I wasn't a "patient" or a client of 20 years with Boots, I was merely a factor in their conversion rate equation.  I assume from this that their "conversion rate" is the number of mugs who actually buy stuff divided by the number of unwitting members of the public who visit Boot's under the misapprehension that they give a shit about anyone's eyesight.

There then followed a review of the sales and the targets. If I was a Specsavers employee who had popped in to collect my prescription at the Pharmacy counter I'm sure I'd have loved to know what Boot's revenue targets were!

Anyway, at 0907hrs, after being in the store for a whole 12 minutes, I was finally ushered into the consulation room and seen by the optician who was delivering the motivational sales talk. Except that it wasn't motivational, it was delivered with all the feeling of someone who wanted to be an optician but had morphed into a sales person.

Needless to say I was not impressed by this and have now taken my business elsewhere - M Proctor is a fantastic local business which is who I've gone to now.  As well as me feeling like I'm not just someone in the "conversion rate" equation, they are considerably cheaper than Boot's so I think Boot's have unwittingly done me a favour.  I've written to Boot's head office and had a reply saying they will get the practice manager in Harrogate to investigate and get back to me; but isn't that like marking your own homework?  Surely he or she will have a vested interest in defending their staff?  Anyhow, we will see what develops.

This is why I've started the blog really - I just cannot see why in this economic climate, why this sort of thing happens and I feel compelled to share this sort of stuff.  To keep a customer of 20 years standing (or a customer of any kind) hanging around while they talk sales figures is deplorable and to me should have been done in private.  I've encountered this sort of thing before in hotels and restaurants where you can see their sales targets when the kitchen door opens.  I'm not naive enough to think most businesses don't have sales targets for they are an essential part of life for any organisation but I don't ever want to feel I'm part of them!

So, there we are, rant over - I will keep you posted on developments

Feel free to comment and add your own grumps. We're all in this together folks

Alan