Posts tagged with "Customers"

On the eve of independent's 130th anniversary, OT's Chris Donkin spoke to Conlons MD John Welsby about the importance of staff motivation and loyalty in a successful business

SO THE old adage goes 'those who play together stay together' and that is cetainly something being embraced by North West chain Conlons which arranges annual awards events, staff outings and, most of all, encourages a culture of appreciating all members of staff.

Currently employing in the region of 160 staff across 17 sites in north west England, souht east Scotland and North Wales - the company prides itself on staff loyalty, as MD John Welsby (pictured, right centre) says "The business is all about the staff, it's as simple as that.

"Customers of Conlons want to come in and see the same person time and time again and if we can encourage our staff to stay with us, be loyal and do a good job that's brilliant.

"It's our staff that really set us apart. It's our goal to be able to keep good staff as long as we can because I believe (patient) retention comes from loyalty."

To recognize the importance of staff retention the firm organises an annual awards gala dinner evening which gives out, among other 'excellence' awards, recognition for service of 20, 25, 30 and 35 years.

Mr Welsby believes that one of the reasons staff stay at the business for so long is because they are made to feel valued with incentives and rewards.

"We appreciate our staff - I personally know every member of staff by their first name and they call me by my first name, we had a bit of culture change at Conlons probably about 15 years ago where we changed the style of management - it's much more open (management) now.

"The business is all about the staff, it's as simple as that"

"Motivated staff are such an important part of our business, and we like to reward them; we have various sales competitions on at the moment. Their reward is usually something like a branch meal out.

"Then once a year we have our conference, with activities which they can choose on the first afternoon - last year some went to Airkix (a body flying experience), on the field there was left-hand steer buggies and tank driving. Jacuzzis, treatment and golf were also available.

"They (the staff) really appreciate it as a little reward for doing well."

Moving on up

As well as the rewards, he also advocates the culture where the management are approachable and friendly, and there is clear career progression available to staff from front-line to senior optometrists.

"It's very difficult being in your ivory tower like I am understanding what motivates the staff but I'd like to think that they feel part of this family firm. I'd like to think that they could just pick up the 'phone to me at any time, which a lot of them do, and say 'John I think this need changing' or whatever. We've got 160 staff. It's a lot of staff, it's not a lot of staff if you know what i mean. It's easily manageable in the small units they are in.

"My history goes from being the branch manager in our Liverpool practice and I then got co-opted into doing some advertising, followed by operations manager, eventually managing director. A lot of my team have followed a similar path.

"It helps staff to see people go all the way through. I think it's very important and there are'nt many people who we've had to recuit in. We've always had a career progression so the people that have trained with us have always been able to go on to do dispensing optics or go on to do optometry."

Shared goals

Marketing themselves as a family opticians, having been in the Liverpool area since 1882 and still being run by members of the same family, the firm has spent many years trying to become integrated in each of the communities it serves.

"We have things like sponsorship for kids football teams (above) and bowls teams happening at the moment, as well as a lot of work for local charities. We really try to integrate with the towns.

"Opticians need to branch out and do other things"

"Recently we've also been doing school visits. Getting into the junior schools is quite easy, we use a presentation and some goodie bags. Someone will go to talk to the kids about eye care, sometimes its the optometrist, sometimes the support staff. It's become so popular that now schools are starting to contact us because they've heard about it and value what we are doing."

To get the youngsters even more involved the school goodie bags contain a colouring competition, which children and their parents can submit to a Conlons practice.

Continuing with the competition theme, to celebrate the group's 130th birthday, branches of the independent have recently launched a hunt for their region's oldest pair of glasses with a prize of a bottle of champagne and a VIP appointment for a designer sunglasses fitting.

He adds that there will also be a number of local charity events held for the anniversary.

"We start on April 21 with our '130 challenge' for North West Cancer Research and we will be cycling 40 miles and walking up a two and a half thousand foot hill, and cycling back. The challenge, is for people to raise £130 each.

"Later in the year we'll be doing the Northern or Lake District cycling challenge as well as our search for the oldest pair of glasses in each of our branches."

Being different

In recent years Conlons has attempted to diversify its offering to ensure it is delivering what patients want, both in terms of frame ranges and other product and services.

"Why are we different?" he asks. "On products what we try and do is stock a range of frames. Let's say Prada. You won't have just two Prada frames in our shop, you'll have a range of Prada on the display. There'll be 20 or so, which we think people want to see. If you're a Prada wearer you don't want to choose from two you want to choose from a range.

"All of our branches pre-test which is usually a fundus camera, some branches do tonometry, they all do field, but we now also have 'hear check screeners'. It's a screening that takes 30 seconds on each ear and if a patient fails to meet the requirements they would be booked in for a full test. It's a quick and easy screening device to prompt people in the right direction.

"People trust us, our patient loyalty is great, so we're in the ideal position to help. People are nervous about hearing care but when patients come to us they are already trusting us with the eye care part, so why wouldn't they trust us to do the hearing part?"

• Conlons was formed in 1882 and is currently on a mission to find out if it is the oldest practice in the country still in the hands of the original family. It is appealing for any other contenders to step forward and refute the claim. If your practice is older and still in the hands of the original family, email chrisdonkin@optometry.co.uk

Ian Hechle, Branch Manager at Conlons in Barrow talks of his travels…

We are excited to announce that we have just launched a fantastic new scheme where we are hoping to send almost £150,000 worth of glasses to Africa in time for Christmas. We are doing this by teaming up with our customers and for every pair of spectacles they buy they receive two free pairs. One pair is donated to helping improve eye care in Africa and the other is for the customer to keep. Customers will fill in a card with their name and a short message which they will put in the box of the glasses that are sent to Ghana.

Eye Aid Africa is a specialist charity that has been set up by a team of medical and eye care professionals to make a difference to eye care in some of the poorer areas of Ghana.  About 2.6 million people in West Africa are blind, but about three quarters could have their sight saved with the right medical help. The provision of health care in Ghana is poor, compounded by in a lot of cases by an inability to pay for what little services are available.  

Ian says: "To help the charity further I flew out to Ghana on  Saturday 23rd October with a team of 10 which included another key member of our staff from Conlons – Alice Joyce. We took 1800 pairs of glasses that Conlons had also donated and collected, and during the one week trip our team performed more than 1,000 eye tests. On Sunday we set out the church hall with the the glasses that we had collected (old and used pairs). The patients started queuing at about 4.00 a.m. on the Monday morning and we arrived at 8.00a.m to begin work and carried on to about 5.30 p.m. with a short break for lunch at 1.00 p.m.It was fairly manic and we dispensed 227 glasses the first day. By the end of Tuesday it was clear we would run out of glasses & had to buy in a load of ready readers and low minus glasses. This exercise was repeated Thursday & Friday and by the time we finished on Friday we had prescribed and dispensed almost 1500 pairs of glasses. There were several magic moments;one student who had never had her eyes tested was prescribed by Alice as -3.25 R&,L, her face lit up with a grin from ear to ear when we gave her the exact rx. Another girl had broken her -10.00 glasses we supplied her with Conlon frames & hi-index Shamir lenses (glazed by the Conlon glazing team) to her exact Prescription">prescription, a very happy lass. There was a crane driver (with no glasses) & with uncorrected v/a of 6/36 we got him to 6/6. A taxi driver with similar uncorrected v/a’s we got to 6/5. There were countless patients who could read for the first time. A very rewarding experience. Whilst we were busy, the consultants (Mark & Patrick) and the ophthalmic nurses (Barbara & Cynthia) were performing about 20 cataract operations per day. I had the privilege to witness one operation at close quarters in the theatre.I hope this begins a long association for Conlons & Eyeaid"

Runcorn & Widnes World Series - 13th February 2010

Three generations of a Widnes family celebrated the success of a long established optician this week.

Conlons marked its 63rd year in the town by donating more than £1,500 to Widnes charities.

Lesley Blackburn, aged 44, of Lindisfarne Court, her mum Marilyn Higginson, aged 63, of Spinney Avenue and her nan Dolly Higginson, aged 82, of Coronation Drive, are their longest serving customers.

Dolly, a customer for 63 years, said: "The staff are so helpful and always remember me when I walk through the door.

"It is a very personal service."

Conlons now employs seven staff and organised various events including parachute jumps and white water rafting to raise money for charity.