I’ve been working at for Thrive for nearly two years now, and being recently out of college, find myself frequently answering the question, “What are you doing for work?” When I answer this question and explain what we do and with whom we work, I get a response fairly frequently that makes me cringe a little… something along the lines of, “I can’t remember the last time I went to the eye doctor.” I should also clarify that the people responding this way almost always belong to a similar demographic, specifically young and with no prescription/correction for heir vision. Regardless, it got me thinking about this age class of patients in our practices, and how great and important an opportunity they present.
With that in mind, I put together a quick but helpful questionnaire, and spent the past couple weeks sending and collecting responses from many twenty-something year old connections to better grasp the opportunity of this demographic, as well as identify strategies to make the most of it. So let’s dive in!
32 percent of those surveyed have not had an eye exam in the last three years. Three years! This reveals a few very important things right off the bat, nothing more so than the fact that they’re completely uneducated on the difference between vision and future of vision, and therefore don’t perceive the value of our offering. They’re of the understanding that, as long as they’re seeing fine, there’s no reason to go to an eye doctor. After all, you just go to the eye doctor if you need glasses or contacts, right? (My bones and joints feel good, and I’m certainly not making appointments with the Orthopedic Surgeon!) We know this conclusion is way off, but if they’ve never been taught otherwise, we certainly can’t blame them for thinking this way. In case that’s not evidence enough, I specifically asked whether they had ever been educated on the difference between vision and future of vision. Any guesses? 75 percent NO! I also specifically asked whether they thought an annual eye exam was important. 30 percent NO! So, here lies our first major opportunity, which we’ll revisit later. (By the way, let’s remember that ALL of these “twenty-somethings” visit the dentist regularly, so it’s not that they can’t get it if someone teaches them! And having teeth is great, but certainly not as great as seeing!)
For those who required some sort of visual correction, I also asked some questions focused specifically on their product preferences and purchasing behaviors. Of those who require some sort of correction, 50 percent use both glasses and contacts, and 86 percent answered YES to the question “if you knew buying glasses and/or contacts from your eye doctor would provide a significantly better experience than buying online or elsewhere, would you be willing to spend more money for the product(s)?” 86 percent YES!
To further understand what goes into this decision-making process, participants were asked to rank in order of importance 6 considerations of a purchase decision: Quality, Customer Service/Experience, Price, Warranty, Return Policy, and Reviews/Feedback from Other Customers. Results? 82 percent PUT QUALITY FIRST, and not a single participant had it outside of their top three considerations. Customer Service/Experience was the second most significant consideration, with 75 percent of participants having it ranked as first or second in importance. Price was third, with 62 percent of participants having it ranked as first or second in importance. Tom has many times written about similar surveys to broader age coverage, and this is remarkably similar.
That said, these are twenty-somethings. Not forty-somethings or fifty-somethings or sixty-somethings. People who are just getting started in their adult lives and careers, and likely don’t have a whole lot of extra funds. Many of these people also have never been taught how valuable you are in their lives, and a third of them haven’t had eye exam in the last 3 years. Some of them never! Regardless, they are overwhelmingly willing to pay more for a better product, and a better, more personalized experience, which you provide better than anyone else. This is GREAT NEWS!
So, now that we’ve seen some data, let’s draw some conclusions accordingly and identify our biggest opportunities with these twenty-somethings and air out some ideas to capitalize on them.
Our first, and likely biggest opportunity with the twenty-somethings is getting them in the door in the first place! Remember that a third of this demographic hasn’t had an eye exam in three years, and nearly a third don’t think it’s important/necessary. But how do we do this? How do we get these patients through the door if they’re not coming through the door already?
A first strategy here is to make real sure we educate our current patients who are not quite yet twenty-somethings, and their parents as well. Patients fourteen to eighteen are only a few short years from being twenty-somethings, but very likely still have a parent looking after their health and affairs, driving them to your office, making appointments for them, paying their bills, etc. Because it’s mom or dad making the decisions and likely spending the money, it’s tempting to focus the educational efforts on them, and to some extent we absolutely should. Don’t forget, however, to put those efforts into the patient themselves, as well, so two or three years down the road when they’re making their own money and their own decisions, they’ll be calling you to make their own appointments. If we make them patients now, we can make them patients for life.
This is also a perfect time to remember the power and importance of pre-appointing. If in your recall efforts you can call them and tell them, “YOU HAVE an appointment on X date” rather than, “you’re due for an appointment on X date,” it’s way more likely they’ll respond positively (in the nicest way possible, this generation very much still needs to be told what to do!). Let’s also not forget the power of continuing to educate the parents! Even if they’re no longer making the appointments, they likely still carry a lot of weight in helping their kids make decisions. So, remember to spend some time during mom or dad’s appointment talking about the importance of their kid or kids making sure they get in for their exams too, even if they’re seeing fine. Doing so will very likely be followed by a phone call from mom or dad to child saying, “when was your last eye appointment? Make sure you call Dr. Johnson and get one set up!”
Our next major opportunity with the twenty-somethings is making a significant effort to teach them the difference between vision and FUTURE of vision. Remember, 75 percent of thetwenty-somethings have never been taught the difference! Therefore, to a huge majority of these consumers, “eyecare” means getting glasses or contacts. Well, what if they don’t need glasses or contacts? Or what if their current glasses are still working fine? It’s not only beneficial to the well-being of the practice, but our job as providers, to ensure they know that when they come see you, we’re looking for and addressing WAY more than simply whether or not they need a new pair of glasses or contacts. You know exactly at and for what we’re looking, comparing this year-over-year, etc., so tell them and make sure they know! Teach them what to value, what’s important, and they will value it for the rest of their lives!
Also, Remember the statistic about Customer Service/Experience in making a consumptive decision: It’s a top two consideration for 75 percent of them! Spending meaningful time with these consumers and teaching them something rather than just checking their eyes is very significant to the twenty-somethings, which is a huge advantage to those of us in private practice!
Although there are A TON of conclusions we can draw and strategies to implement on this topic, the last topic we’ll focus on here is not to overlook the twenty-somethings in your optical. Even though they may be on a bit tighter budget than your forty or fifty-somethings, they are more than willing to spend money on quality products and for great service. This is also totally reliant on your patient education, but a different kind than we discussed above. We must also remember our education (as we’ve discussed in previous posts) about the difference in a prescription for glasses or contacts and a prescription for medication. User experience will be completely different depending on where they choose to fill a lens Rx, and their absolute best user experience is going to come from filling it with you.
Remember our findings here: 86 percent said they would buy their glasses or contacts in-house if they knew doing so would provide a significantly better experience than buying online or elsewhere. 82 percent of participants had quality as their number one consideration when making a purchase decision, followed closely by customer service/experience, price coming third. As long as they’ve been educated, your twenty-somethings can and will be very active and fruitful customers of your practice, not just patients!