Vision Express is out to Impress (Vision Express)

Member Name: shroud

Product:	Vision Express
Date:	16/05/07 (431 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: most modern and up to date eye exam and care available, excellent customer service, great with kids

Disadvantages: buying your glasses on the high street costs more than mail order, need to usually prebook exam

~~~~A bit about me~~~

This being a review about a personal health care service, I think it a bit fair to share what my needs are and why I am using such a service!

I was born with a double astigmatism. This was perfectly balanced, giving me no distortion of vision until I was 5 years old, at which time I suffered a sudden devastating change to my vision. I caught the chicken pox, and was duly kept in a darkened room without TV so as to not strain the eye muscles, as advised by the doctor, but unfortunately, it was no use. The virus migrated to the nerves in my eyes and spread, causing damage that resulted in my vision going from 20/20 to 20/40 in just 10 days (I had just had my annual eye test two weeks before I fell ill).

This of course, meant I had to wear glasses, and my parents instilled in me the need to always have regular check ups at a reputable optician. Being Army, we moved about a lot, so my parents used Pearl Vision Center as the high quality chain can be found in nearly every city in America. At 14 I had had enough of wearing just glasses, and my parents were persuaded to let me be evaluated for contact lenses. I was deemed suitable, and I continued using Pearl for my visual care needs until moving to the UK 10 years ago after my marriage.

Casting about for a similar sort of establishment, one name kept appearing in people’s personal recommendation, and with their plethora of outlets they seemed to be the perfect replacement. This place is known as Vision Express.


~~~~The Company~~~

Unlike Pearl Vision centre, Vision Express is a fairly young company. A subsidiary of its parent company, Grandvision, Vision Express opened its very first store in 1988. It was one of the new breed of stores offering spectacles in 1 hour, regardless of where the customer obtained the prescription. This allowed the young company to grab passing trade as well as grow its own customer base by booking in patients for eye exams. They further expanded their base by buying out the American Company LensCrafters UK stores. Today, Vision Express can be found in over 220 locations in the UK, as well as branches in Latvia and Lithuania. Some of the UK stores are joint ventures in which the Vision Express name is used in partnership, and those branches offer an overnight service for eyewear as opposed to one hour.

~~~The Service~~~
Before you can fill an eyewear prescription, the first step is getting one. To do so, you must see an optician. You can see any licensed optician you desire, but if booking one at Vision Express, there are three ways to do so. You can (a) walk in and speak to a receptionist who will book you at a convenient time, (b) ring the local store and speak to the receptionist over the phone in order to have her do the booking, or (c), visit the Vision Express website, click the link on the right that reads “book an eye exam”, and fill in the online form. The form is a very simple one and allows you to select your chosen outlet from a drop down menu, and request 3 preferred dates, and to mark if you prefer a morning or afternoon appointment. The receptionist will then contact you and confirm your chosen appointment. You do not get billed for the appointment until after you have seen the optician.

The day of your appointment, you walk in past the front where people are making glasses and helping fit customers, to where a receptionist is standing. If she is not there, you may have to wait for mere moments before she comes back by, as she usually has just gone to grab customer folders for the upcoming batch of appointments. She takes your name, let’s the computer know you have checked in and you then have a seat. There is water on hand and clean cups, as well as a coffee/cappuccino/hot chocolate/tea machine, so you can have a beverage while you wait if desired. There are also several magazines lying about. These all seem to be House Beautiful, She, good Housekeeping, and Saga no matter which outlet in the UK I have been to, but no matter, as I have never had to wait more than 10 minutes. If you have small children, the usual bead maze activity is there, and they do not mind you bringing your child with you into the exam room.

The first part of the exam takes place in a small room. There, you are asked to look into a binocular looking box type device. There they ask you to look for a red house, and when you see it, just look at it. This apparently allows them to see the shape of the eye and any discrepancies helping in diagnosis of eye disorders. The second part is my most hated, yet it is such a minor thing. The have you lean your head forward and rest it against the frame, chin steady, while they blow a puff of air against the eye. This is actually quite an important part, as I discovered 15 years ago. It is to check for glaucoma, which is a terrible degenerative eye disease. Left untreated, it is also quite painful, with enormous pressure from within. Persons over 35 are most at risk, and untreated it progresses to blindness. No one else in our family ever had the disease, but my 38 year old aunt went in one day for a routine eye check, and came out with further referrals for glaucoma. This goes to show that the risk factors are poorly understood, and may have NO familial bearing at all, so sit still, and let them blow that silly puff of air, it is merely startling, and not painful at all.

After this portion of the test, you wait a moment in the waiting area again for the actual optician to call you in. he takes you into the exam room, and has you gaze into a contraption that has a vaguely spectacle shaped piece attached to the swinging arm. There are various lenses he will flip through, and he will ask you to look at an eye chart, white, and green and red bi coloured, and shine a light in your eye and what not. If getting contact lenses, during this time he will also use the instruments to measure the diameter of your iris and other such necessary information to ensure lenses are exactly the right size so that they sit comfortably and safely.

If a prescription is needed, the doctor writes it out, and you are free to purchase from vision express, or take your prescription elsewhere. If purchasing contact lenses, you are taken to another area where an optician specialising in contact lenses will fit you with your lenses, and offer any needed advice. If they do not have your lenses in stock, they will order them for you and they will arrive within 24 hours, at which time you can arrange pick up. If desired, they also have one of the popular schemes whereby you pay a small monthly fee for your lenses by direct debit, and you get any needed solutions for free, free delivery of same by post (recently reduced to free from £1), and free eye exams twice a year so that after 6 months, you come in for a mini check up to ensure no problems are developing from lens wear. Under this scheme you also get a voucher worth £79 off any glasses frame in store. The company sells, and has the scheme in place for, branded and own branded daily, weekly, monthly, and non disposable contact lenses, in plain, tinted, or coloured, as well as being able to fit and sell the gas permeable and toric types less frequently worn

If getting your glasses there, it is definitely more expensive than going direct via the internet, but you get a wide range of choice, in a wide range of prices, and you get to try them on to see how you look, as well as handle the frames to check for sturdiness and comfort. You also get the convenience of having the glasses made there on the spot and wearable within an hour usually, unless at a joint venture store, in which case you still get your glasses by the next day rather than the 1-2 weeks if done by the cheaper internet mail order services. Of course, if you can wait the 1-2 weeks, you just have to decide how you wish to go about buying your actual glasses.

If you do not buy your glasses there, or opt for the contact lines scheme, you may have to pay for your exam. The fee varies by type of exam needed, location, and other offers, but is usually between £10-15. If you are under 16 or otherwise entitled to free eye exams on the NHS, then the exam is, of course, free.

~~~My personal experience~~~

I have been a happy customer ever since my very first visit a decade ago. I have used three different outlets in various parts of the UK, due to moving and other circumstances, and have found the staff to be unerringly polite, helpful, and extremely professional. I was always put at ease immediately, received a through exam, and have never had any issue with wrong prescriptions, or any other similar trouble. Likewise, my contact lens service has been impeccable. I was wearing the normal replace once a year sort as I had been for over 15 years, but when asked about dry eyes, mentioned I did often have to use lubricating drops. My eyes are naturally a bit dry, but my antihistamines for my seasonal allergies make them a bit drier. The optician suggested I go for weekly disposables at that point, due to higher water content, and gave me a pair to try out for that day. I was told as I was on the scheme, I could try those, and if I liked them, she would order those for me. If I preferred my normal type, she would have those sent to my home without delay. The same happened again when I decided to go for the convenience of daily disposables. High water content, no cleaning, but 9 pairs short for a full month’s use without a slightly higher charge if I wanted a full month's complement. This was fine by me to be 9 pairs short, as I now tend to have several days where I just wear my glasses about the house, no longer being the overly worried about looks teenage I was so many years ago, and happy with my appearance!

So, fantastic service, at the time of exam and fitting. How about at time of delivery? I have in all the ten years of being on the service, only had to ring ONCE to ask where my lenses were. This was last year, and we had just moved house. The day I rang to inform them of the change of address, they took my details as usual. Unfortunately, they suffered a crash, and lost some of the updated data. My change of address was one, and they posted them to my old address. Upon discovering the error, they sent me new lenses by overnight courier at no extra charge. My old landlord did, however, decide to forward me the lenses they had sent, and when I rang them about this, I was told to keep them as it would be a hassle for them to re-enter them into the system and it was their fault anyway-. How’s that for service!

Nor has it been just me that has been happy with them. My daughter is 5, and until this year, has seen an optician at the hospital to check her vision as she has inherited the perfectly balanced double astigmatism. This year, due to her age, I was able to book her in at our much more convenient to get to branch of Vision express. My daughter was a bit nervous, not having been in the non children’s clinic exam room before in the chair, but she was made to feel most at ease. She was made comfortable, and by the end of it, was rather disappointed to not get glasses. And when we had lunch out after, kept telling me how funny the jokes the staff told her were, and about the funny little house picture.

An additional little piece of customer service they provide that is quite handy is that when you are about a month ahead of being due for you next eye check, they send you a card through the post to let you know. You can then arrange your visit with them, or if you prefer to use another company, make other arrangements without too much time passing between exams. Granted, I always book with them, as I have the subscription service, but I find it very helpful as I have enough time to order my other obligations about arrange my appointment without any stress.

~~~My Verdict~~~
Being very happy with the quality of service and goods, and the extreme professionalism of the staff, I see no reason for me to change to other opticians until they give me cause to be disappointed. Equally adept at dealing with children as well as adults, this is a family oriented and service driven company that takes the hassle out of eye care. So next time you are needing the services of an optician, or buy glasses or contacts, come in off the high street, and into Vision Express.

Summary: A no hassle customer service driven and family oriented firm