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Preparing for your meeting will help you to consolidate and organise any thoughts regarding your scheme, as well as anticipate any objections that could be encountered. A logical, structured meeting programme might include:
- Why we need to change - changes to the Opticians' Act, as well as the need to retain and gain contact lens wearers
- What we intend to do - make a clearer distinction between professional fees and product costs by introducing a professional fee-based plan for contact lens wearers/spectacle wearers
- How it will be done - discuss face-to-face communication, letters, leaflets, emails to communicate the new scheme
- When it will commence - launch date
- Who will be involved, before, during and after launch - clarify who will do what.
A couple of very useful resources are available to help your team to understand the benefits of change and to motivate them behind the scheme. Two presentations can be downloaded free from the CIBA Vision website that you may wish to show to your team. The presentations by Gary Gerber and Potters Bar Eye Care Centre (www.cibavisionacademy.co.uk/business/fees/part1.shtml) will help everyone understand that change is possible, as well as learn from a real practice's experiences when implementing their fee-based scheme.
To underline the importance of the new scheme, and make the meeting memorable, it is worth holding the meeting away from the practice and perhaps providing dinner as well. During the meeting encourage all views and feelings to be aired. Specific issues and anticipated objections should be noted. Do not feel you have to find answers to all of them immediately and if any team members have another view it should be listened to. A subsequent, less formal meeting, prior to launch will be helpful in handling any anticipated patient objections.
The second meeting can be considered as a launch meeting where all materials required will be available. Specific scenarios can be discussed and appropriate ways to handle them agreed. These scenarios could include how to handle new contact lens patients, existing contact lens patients, infrequent contact lens wearers. Other scenarios, if launching a scheme for spectacle wearers, could include private patients, patients entitled to NHS-funded eye examination or patients with vouchers for eyewear. The next stage will provide suggested ways to handle these scenarios based on the experience of other practices.
Your CIBA Vision business development manager may be able to provide some additional support at this stage, so it would be worth contacting them.
Between the meetings it will be helpful to keep the team up to date with how preparation for the scheme is going. This should help to keep enthusiasm levels building through to the launch and beyond.
Staff incentive schemes
If you want to get your scheme off to a flying start and ensure all staff are behind it from day one, you may find it helpful to offer some form of monthly incentive scheme based on the number of patients signed up to the scheme. This can encourage the team to introduce patients to the scheme before they get to the consulting room and reduce the time the optometrist/contact lens optician spends explaining the scheme to every patient they see. This can make a great difference, especially when launching a scheme for spectacle wearers.
Some practices have offered bottles of wine, others Marks & Spencer vouchers, maybe for just the first three or six months after launch. By the end of this period all staff should be quite confident handling enquiries, objections and introducing your scheme to anyone. Alternatively, you may find it more successful to put aside up to £2 for each patient signed up into a fund that can be used for the whole team to go out and have a meal or an evening out together. This can be a great team-building opportunity. However, the greatest incentive of all will often be a graph on the wall in a staff area showing the number of patients signed up or introduced to the scheme by each staff member.
Communication materials
It is important to support the launch of any new pricing structure with a suitable brochure explaining the main benefits. This will be useful for both patients and practice staff alike, as well as providing your scheme with greater credibility. A practice brochure template is available that can be modified to suit your requirements. (This can be found at www.cibavisionacademy.co.uk/business/fees/downloads.shtml)
The aim of a brochure should be to explain how the scheme works, emphasise the patient benefits and provide a written price quotation.
An easy to understand, well laid out price list, with all the contact lens products supplied by your practice, along with scheme prices will also be invaluable. It should also show the percentage discount off the 'full' price and some have found it useful to include existing prices, so that current wearers can be shown how much less they will pay for their lenses in the future. Of course, there will always be those who do not wish to pay by direct debit or a year's aftercare in advance and therefore will not be entitled to these new lower prices. Some practices charge these people the same for their lenses as they used to, as well as the full fee for each aftercare appointment, eye examination and so on. They will not be entitled to any of the other benefits of the scheme either.
Next month, we will consider the content of these materials in more detail and how to communicate the benefits to your patients. The full professional fees journey planner can be found at www.cibavisionacademy.co.uk/business/fees/intro.shtml
? Martin Russ is a director of TMR, a consultancy that provides business services for optical practices