Building loyalty is key to retaining your most valuable patients. In February this year, CIBA VISION® held a series of six one-day conferences called “Maintaining the EDGE” across the UK and Ireland that centred on how to build patient loyalty. By educating eye care practitioners in delivering the quality of service necessary to maximise patient loyalty, CIBA VISION® can help practices face some of the toughest economic challenges some of us will have ever experienced. During these times, it can be more economical and efficient to retain existing high value patients, than to attract new patients.

Contact lens wearers are high value patients, worth three times as much in sales than a spectacle only wearer1. Yet, each year 12% of contact lens wearers lapse2 meaning a loss of practice revenue and patient lifestyle needs going unmet1. Moreover, the most common reason for why patients lapse contact lens wear is due to comfort issues2. Patients that are uncomfortable with their contact lens wear are not going to be happy and patient loyalty cannot be built from unhappy patients.

What is surprising is that consumer research shows that 56% of contact lens wearers do not even consult their eye care practitioner before lapsing2. So, how can we prevent patient from lapsing and have comfortable, happy and loyal contact lens wearers? We know that patients that change to different contact lens types or brands, experience 70% fewer problems related to comfort.

The key is to proactively upgrade patients to new generation contact lenses that will enhance comfort and grow your loyal patient base. Every aftercare appointment is a vital opportunity to discuss the comfort needs of all your patients and tailor your advice to meet their lifestyle requirements. It is important not to assume that everything is alright and offer your patients the opportunity to try new lenses even if they appear not to be experiencing any problems.

To help you upgrade patients, CIBA VISION® has produced a questionnaire for patients to complete before attending an aftercare appointment. The questionnaire asks a number of carefully designed questions to better understand the performance of their contact lenses based on a range of lifestyle needs. The practitioner can then review the results of the questionnaire in the consulting room and provide advice and recommendations closely tailored to the patients needs. The contact lens questionnaires are available to order free of charge from www.cibavisionacademy.co.uk.

By providing excellent customer service at every stage of the patient journey in your practice, including the aftercare appointment, patient comfort will be ensured. This will not only help retain loyal, high value patients, but also enhance your professional role and help generate long term business strength and profitability.

Later in the year, CIBA VISION® will hold another series of six one-day “Maintaining the EDGE” conferences and this time practitioners will have the opportunity to learn how to attract new patients to their practices. Go to www.cibavisionacademy.co.uk for more information on the conferences.

If you missed the opportunity to attend the first series of “Maintaining the EDGE” conferences, you still have the opportunity to take part in our post-event CET at www.cibavisionacademy.co.uk where there is a distance learning article and a video of the roadshow lectures, both worth 2 CET points each.