How to handle complaints about contact lenses

During my three-year involvement with the Optical Consumer Complaints Service (OCCS) I have often reflected on the relatively low level of complaints passing over my desk that relate to contact lens wear. Indeed when reporting on annual statistics I have often mentioned this as the most surprising element in the data.

Given there are some four million contact lens wearers in the UK, the fact that the OCCS only dealt with 54 contact lens issues last year – from a total of almost 1,000 complaints – is a remarkable statistic (OCCS Annual report 2015-16). Bearing in mind many of these complaints relate to ‘transactional’ issues around direct debit payments, delivery times, and a number of queries involved the provision of a contact lens specification and the definition of when fitting is completed, this low level of complaints is a huge compliment to the profession – or is it?