Mike Hale: You took over at CooperVision as the pandemic took hold last year, how did the company help its UK and Ireland clients and their patients during that time?
Doug Bairner: It was incredibly humbling to see how quickly everyone at CooperVision mobilised to work effectively from home and also to swiftly support customers. Our customer services team worked incredibly rapidly to ensure that patient deliveries were re-routed to their homes rather than to closed practices, expanding our service to cover the Republic of Ireland. We have seen an increase of 159% in the number of patients registered on VisionXtra, our direct to patient service, since the pandemic began and that is still sticking now as practices have realised the all-round convenience of delivering product direct to patients’ homes. Our professional services team had our online Learning Academy up and running within days of the first lockdown to help provide CET and training on topics ranging from Covid protocols to how to run remote aftercare effectively and latterly on embracing myopia control as a standard of care. CooperVision Learning Academy now has over 4,000 eye care professionals (ECPs) registered and over 6,000 modules have already been completed. Our sales teams worked hard to find ways of helping customers to retain patients who may have otherwise cancelled their subscriptions. Most importantly, our manufacturing, operations our manufacturing, operations, supply chain and distribution teams continued to deliver continuity of supply all through the darkest days of lockdowns. This ensured that not only did contact lens subscription revenues keep the financial lights on for many customers even when their doors were closed, but that frontline workers could continue to work, especially as many found their glasses fogging with prolonged mask wear.
MH: Having been in your role for over a year now, has anything surprised you about CooperVision or the UK and Ireland optics industry in general?
DB: Probably the biggest surprise is the level of untapped potential in the contact lens category. I knew it was the challenger category within optics, but I didn’t realise how much potential upside there is for optical retailers. We know that 38.1% of patients requiring vision correction are interested in wearing contact lenses, yet only 17.8% of them actually do. For someone used to having to fight for every consumer in the food, drink and consumer products world, it’s reassuring to know that customers are already sitting in practices’ chairs and want to be engaged on contact lenses. The challenge is how we make it easier for both patients and ECPs to go through that process, as it can feel like an overly onerous one on both sides. It’s great to see governing bodies clarifying that using remote methods are a valid way of conducting aftercare as a starting point, and we’re seeing some smart diary management approaches of combining sight tests and contact lens fits into one appointment rather than a stream of further appointments. The more we can do outside of the practice, the easier life will be within it. For me this is about looking at how we can gather more useful information before an appointment to identify and plan for a successful contact lens fit, then provide an effective and efficient appointment in practice. Aftercare, for me, starts literally the second after the successful fit. That means a calm, reassuring and unrushed application and removal teach, ideally followed in the days after by a quick phone call to see how you’re getting on with your new contact lenses. Manufacturers as well as ECPs and retailers need to put their best foot forward here too: resources like CooperVision’s MyLensLife and MyLensCoach are our way of helping to get new wearers settled in but I’m sure there’s more we can do to help.
MH: Given your wide-ranging experience, which of your previous roles or ventures have proved most useful in informing your approach at CooperVision?
DB: I’d say there were three experiences that are proving the most relevant. Firstly, from Procter & Gamble, where working in close partnership with retailers to unlock category potential from analysis and strategic planning through to the nuts and bolts of store operations was central to many of my roles. Secondly, working with challenger brands like Red Bull, Innocent and BrewDog really taught me how to problem solve and look for simple solutions where you may start by only seeing a lack of resources and lots of constraints. Finally, working in the field of agritech helped me to understand the role that technology can play in helping a whole industry to adapt to a new, more efficient world; but only if you make it simple, engaging and easy for the end user.
MH: The British Contact Lens Association (BCLA) held its conference virtually recently. What were your impressions of the event? Do you see virtual access continuing into the post-Covid age?
DB: The effectiveness of working and meeting remotely has surprised a lot of people, me included, over the last sixteen months. The BCLA did a fabulous job in bringing a much wider audience than would have been able to be together physically into a virtual space and engaging them with snappy, insightful sessions. It was incredible to see thousands of delegates from around the world gathered under one virtual roof. Where the virtual world doesn’t always work so well is in facilitating networking and in discovering new ideas by browsing event stands and talking to people that you wouldn’t ordinarily meet. I’m sure that we’ll quickly find a great blend of in-person and virtual experiences that allow that wider virtual access to continue and add back into that the things you get uniquely in the physical experience, as well as augmenting that in-person experience with new uses of technology too. I’m sure the next year or two will be an incredible learning curve of taking the best of the old and the best of the new and putting them together. Let’s see where it goes.
MH: Tell me about the CooperVision’s Prescribe Freedom campaign. How does it help UK and Ireland practitioners?
DB: Freedom is the word that we hear most when we survey contact lens wearers about what their contact lenses do for them. Freedom to go about their day-to-day lives without having to think too much about where their glasses are or whether they are steamed up in more recent times. Freedom to do the activities they love like sports or helping their children to learn to ride a bike. And also, for some people it is a sense of freedom to be 100% themselves, not feeling like they are hidden behind a metaphorical and literal barrier to their outside world. That’s really different to the words they use to describe their glasses, which are much more functional. Being fitted for contact lenses is a life changing experience for a lot of people, but we also know that it also comes with some trepidation. What surprised us is that the trepidation is often that they will be told that they aren’t suitable, or that the application and removal part of the fitting process will be painful or stressful. A big part of our job is to equip practitioners to deliver those fits effectively, empathetically, and successfully.
For UK practitioners, the vast majority of the time a contact lens fit comes on top of a spectacle sale and typically means tripling your revenue potential over a two year period, so if they can get it right they gain as well as the patient. We can help to guide those conversations, to help them to understand the questions that might identify a suitable contact lens wearer, like ‘What activities would you prefer not to wear spectacles to do?’. We can also help in working out how to get those contact lens fits efficiently through the chair and how to retain them immediately afterwards with resources like MyLensLife and MyLensCoach. When it comes to aftercare, patient communications and retention, we believe we’ve got lots to add to the thinking too.
MH: What is a challenger mindset and how does a company of CooperVision’s size maintain that attitude?
DB: CooperVision have always been a challenger in the contact lens market. We started off as a small player and don’t want to ever forget that hunger, humility and willingness to serve customers that it took to grow the business to where it is today. As we have grown, the things that we especially need to keep focus on are things like working with a continued sense of urgency and being brave enough to challenge the status quo and try something new where we feel we need to. It all really links back to our company values. At our core, CooperVision works to be a partner, to be dedicated, to be inventive and to be friendly. Having seen those values on display on a daily basis since I started working here, I can attest that those are much more than simply words on a website.
MH: Myopia management is very much at the forefront of eye care at the moment. Was that a factor in CooperVision’s recent acquisition of No 7 Contact Lenses?
DB: Absolutely. We have always had huge respect for the quality of both No 7’s range of myopia management lenses and also the quality of their people. Bringing those in to add to our portfolio is another statement of positive intent from CooperVision to make myopia management the standard of care for children with myopia. It’s our duty as an industry to get serious about addressing the progression of myopia, we simply can’t wait any longer. Myopia is a looming public health crisis that we have the tools in our hands to help avert, so let’s use them.