Seeing is believing

Needing to book the eyes of Onswitch junior in for their annual health check, we recently contacted our local independent optician. We like to support community-based businesses wherever possible, and so we rang to make an appointment. Obviously his education comes first, and so we were looking for an appointment after 5pm. Or any time on a Saturday. Or any day or time in the school holidays. We like to be flexible you see. You can imagine our response when we were told that “the person who does the sight tests does not work on Saturdays, and they finish at 4.30 in the week.” Which pretty much rules out the possibility not only of school children, but also of anyone with a job getting their eyes tested here. Resisting the urge to point out the flaws in this business model, we pressed on valiantly, asking for an appointment in the summer holidays perhaps? Except that with back-to-back staff holidays, once again there were no appointments available. We tried hard, we really did, but it proved impossible to make an appointment with said local optician. And of course we were able to book a sight test quickly and easily with a branch of a large optical chain in the same town. The moral of the story is clear. Just like the morals of most of our stories – so much so that even we’re starting to find the repetition a little tedious! Your business relies on seeing clients, so make it easy for them to see you. That’s all you have to do. Here endeth the lesson.