An interaction of Sathish, a first time spectacle user, with an optician, after selecting a frame.
Optician: Based on your lifestyle and prescription, you should take photochromatic lenses with hard-multi coat (HMC).
Sathish: What’s that? What is photochromatic and hard multi coat?
Optician: Photochromatic lenses turn dark - like Sunglass - when you are outdoors and will provide you comfort and protection from UV light. HMC is an antireflection coating and EMI which will help you to see clearly indoors.
Sathish : I am even more confused, What is EMI? Can you show me that?
Optician: EMI is electromagnetic interference. Since you use laptop, this coating will protect your eyes from harmful emissions from the screen.
Sathish: Oh… I see! How much will it cost?
Optician: Lenses will cost you around Rs.5600/-.
Sathish: Sounds very expensive! Do all lenses cost so much in other shops too? My friend purchased a new pair of spectacle for only Rs.2000/-!
Optician: Yes Sir. The price will be in the range of Rs.5500 to 6000/-. Cheaper lenses may not have the above mentioned properties.
Sathish: So, how does one know what properties the lens has?
Optician: Sorry sir! I will not be able to demonstrate this to you.
Sathish: I see!
38% of Indian population (456 million) need primary eye care intervention and require vision correction and eyeglasses have served as one of the oldest vision correction aids, since the 13th Century.
While there has been much advancement in lens products, coatings and technology, there has always been a need to differentiate between features of different lenses, such as hard coating, anti-reflection coating, UV protection, EMI, photochromatic, blue filter, etc. Eyewear industry in India is unorganized and fragmented, leading to a lack of transparency on features, benefits and price. This does not match and what they get in return.
Titan Eyeplus realised that there exists an opportunity to come out with a device on the lines of Tanishq “Karatmeter” (machine to test gold purity in a non-destructive manner) to showcase the properties of lenses and coatings to customers at the point of delivery.
The team took on a challenge to develop a low cost, portable and accurate instrument to demonstrate lens features at the point of sale. The Lens Analyser Version 1 was developed, prototyped and piloted for one year before being launched in the market.
The Lens Analyser has been well received by both store staff and customers. 89% of customers have found it useful to make an informed decision and 90% of store staff have found it to be an effective sales tool to exhibit transparency, which has led to higher C-SAT scores on value for money.
Lessons Learned
- Customer centricity helps in building and growing the brand
- To make an informed choice, customer should be able to check various features and benefits of the product that they are paying for
- Trust and Transparency are key factors during transaction
- Modern technologies and advancements should be enablers to solve pain points of customers