Nothing is complete these days without a backstory but there appears a growing trend for the story to overpower the facts or facts selected to back up the story.
Retail optics has always enjoyed an unusual position as a hybrid business. Traditionally that was a medical consultation with a retail ending. Today that consultation can include a wide range of procedures while the retail ending has moved on from simple function into fashion and aspiration.
Hyperbole has always had a home in the world of style where perception is reality. I don’t think many people in high end optical practice would argue that when it comes to fashion, style and design it’s all about selling the dream. The recent Mido exhibition is a great example of this but, even in fashion, delve a little deeper and there is technology, craftsmanship, novel materials and great design to shore the backstory up.
This week we see yet another dispensing optician sanctioned by the GOC for allegedly over-stating medical claims for procedures offered in practice. Last year DOs were rounded on for claims made about the benefits of blue light blocking lenses.
Backstories are good. They win over hearts and minds and engage patients in eye care. They move customers into better products and make them feel good about coming into practice. But it’s a relationship of trust. As optical practices move into other areas, such as dry eye, imaging and nutrition, the profession is starting to ask itself where the facts end and the backstory begins.
As optics grapples with the issues raised by the digital world, an ageing population and looks to new fields such as myopia control, it has to have the trust of the public. To do that it has to be able to trust itself first.