Specsavers latest tactic to get customers is using iPads extensively instore for everything from customer selfies to delicate lens measurements. I went hands on… eyes-on, I guess… to see how it all works.
Lead image: Specsavers
Getting your eyes checked isn’t highly up there on the list of medically uncomfortable practices — nowhere near the pain of a dentist’s visit for example — but it’s still something that most of us would rather avoid, if only because the prospect of your eyesight getting worse isn’t something we’re mostly comfortable with. Staring at lines of text or bright lights for some time is also a touch difficult, and then there’s the issues of choosing frames and lenses to suit both your style and budget.
I’ve worn glasses since I was thirteen years old, and I think I’ve only been through about four pairs of specs in that time, which says something about my non-adherence to fashion, and how much I don’t much like getting my eyes tested per se. Getting older is something we’ve all got to face, however, and with it the prospect of worsening eyesight, even if you did start out with perfect vision.
Eye tests aren’t an area that I’d traditionally considered a “tech” area to speak of, and I’m someone who’s worn glasses for the best part of the last three decades, with just intermittent dips into wearing contact lenses. Specsavers’ latest foray into customer acquisition has a distinctly technological bent to it, however, as it’s making extensive use of tablets to assist in both lens creation and spectacle choice. The company invited me along for a run with the technology, which they’ve had implemented, so representatives told me, since mid-year.
As with any set of specs creation, the first step is an eye exam. It’s been a while since my last eye exam, largely because I was mostly happy with where my prescription sat. Even this has taken on a more technology-centric edge, with a lot more robotic eye checking going on, alongside the usual puffs of air into the eye and alignment tests that anyone who’s ever had an eye test would be familiar with. Although one of the machines taking pictures of my eyeballs did bear a striking resemblance to the Turret Drones from Portal. If it had spoken, I would have started running.
Also, clearly, I need a LOT more sleep.
Post eye-exam, and you hit your first bit of tablet-related innovation, albeit in a way that’s rather obvious on examination. Choosing specs is a very personal thing, but all too often you’re left choosing a set based on what you can see in a mirror in-store with the wrong specification lenses — if there are lenses at all — in front of your face. There are still mirrors to be seen, but you can also take up to four shots of your face with wall mounted tablets. That’s right — Specsavers is using selfies to sell spectacles, because you can take a shot wearing specs and then look at it through your older specs to get the fine detail down pat. If nothing else, it’s the one and possibly only time where I’ll say that tablet photography is a good thing.
That’s a simple step that just about anyone could do — you could always use your own smartphone to take a selfie anyway — but where it gets a tad more complex is with what Specsavers call the “Virtual Dispensing Tool Box”, an iPad-based app that uses a reference photo of your face to determine key metrics for lenses put into the frame of your choice. Specsavers claims that it’s particularly useful for those with multifocal lenses (I don’t fit into that group), as you can measure and more accurately fit the right frames to the right multifocal type.
Actually getting measured involves getting up and comfortable with FReD. Not that Fred’s the name of your dispensing optometrist. Instead, it’s the Frame Reference Device, a small scaffold that sits on top of your chosen frames that gives the software the necessary reference points to calculate the optimal prescription for lenses — or at least that’s the claim that Specsavers makes. Because the FReD device gives specific height and depth markers to the way your face sits with your chosen frames on them, it can then calculate the optimal prescription to a level of detail that would be tough with traditional measuring implements.
Because I’m curious about this kind of thing, I did ask what would happen if there was a massive app crash or power cut or similar. Apparently as they’re all trained in the older school methods, they’d still be able to run stores sans FReD and the Virtual Dispensing ToolBox old school side if there was a temporary blip in the system.
What the ToolBox does do well aside from measurement is engage you with the process. Sure, you do look a little like you’ve fallen off the set of A Clockwork Orange while you’re wearing FReD — although he’s lightweight and entirely painless — but it’s a good way to have an idea, even if the science is a little beyond you, about what goes into the preparation of glasses. It’s the application of technology that should lead to both better glasses and happier customers, because you’re more of an involved customer. Smart stuff given how particularly prevalent technology, and especially tablets are these days.
Chatting to the instore staff, they were quite positive about the use of tablets and FReD, noting that once customers got over the curiosity hurdle of wearing extra facial furniture, they were much more engaged with finding out the specifics of their new glasses prior to actually getting them.
Will tech like this get an avowed technology nut like myself to take more frequent eye examinations? Probably not, but the reality there is that my own advancing age means that it’s a step I’ll have to undertake more frequently anyway — and at least there’ll be some interesting tech there to admire when I do so.
Ethical Disclaimer: As making up a set of spectacles is part of the experience, that’s what Specsavers did in my case. You may make your judgements about my objectivity now.