Opticians and hearing centres: the check-up nobody books

A customer spent eight hundred euros on varifocals eighteen months ago and hasn't been back since. Nothing is wrong: the glasses work, and when something works nobody thinks about their optician. What he doesn't know is that his prescription may have shifted, that the frame is still under legal warranty, and that the bridge rubbing his nose — which he's been putting up with for months — takes five free minutes to adjust. What you don't know is that he's sitting in your practice software, in a record nobody has opened since the day of the sale.

This is for opticians and hearing centres, whether you run one shop or five. By the end you'll know which lists have been asleep in your system, which one pays off soonest, and how to send a reminder that doesn't read like a sales push.

Four lists you already have and never look at

Your practice software stores far more than you use. Without buying anything new, there are at least four lists in there:

1. Overdue check-ups. Customers whose last eye test or audiogram is more than twelve or twenty-four months old, depending on your policy and their age.
2. Live warranties. Anything sold in the last three years, with the exact date of collection.
3. Unfinished fittings. Hearing aids handed over that never came back for the adjustment appointment, or glasses collected and never brought in for the fine-tuning.
4. Consumables that have run out. Solution, monthly lens boxes, batteries, wax filters — products with a repurchase date you can work out on your fingers.

None of these exists as a screen. They're scattered across date fields that are genuinely there but that nobody cross-references. Pulling them out is an afternoon's work: export to a spreadsheet, filter on last-visit date and purchase date, and you've turned a silent database into four columns.

Before you message anyone, sit with them. The first time there are always surprises: people who bought three times and haven't shown up in four years, and a solid pile of records with no mobile number or no consent to write. That clean-up decides whether the rest is worth anything.

The three-year warranty is a perfect excuse

Here's a detail almost no optician makes use of. Since 1 January 2022, the legal warranty on consumer goods in Spain has run for three years rather than two, and manufacturers must keep spare parts available for ten years instead of five (Ministry of Consumer Affairs announcement). The window in which the burden of proof sits with the seller was extended too: during it, the customer only has to show the product isn't as agreed, not that the fault was there on day one.

Translated to your counter: a frame sold in 2024 is still covered into 2027, and most customers never consider it because "warranties are two years" is what everyone believes. A message saying your glasses are under warranty until November — if the arm is loose or the bridge pinches, bring them in and we'll take a look does three jobs at once. It's compliant, it heads off an awkward complaint six months from now, and it gets someone through your door. People who come in to have an arm tightened often leave with a check-up booked.

One caveat worth being clear about before you send anything: the warranty covers lack of conformity, not normal wear or the drop onto the bathroom floor. If your message promises more than the law requires, someone will hold you to it with the message in their hand. Be specific and boring: until this date, for manufacturing defects, bring them in and we'll look.

Optics and audiology run on different clocks

It's tempting to build one reminder for the whole business. Bad idea — the two sides move at opposite speeds.

In optics the cycle is long and quiet. Two or three years pass between one pair and the next, and the real trigger isn't the calendar but the symptom: reading the phone at night is harder, driving in rain is worse, headaches by late afternoon. A flat "time for your check-up" performs so-so. One that names the symptom performs considerably better, because the customer recognises themselves before they think about the cost.

In audiology it's the reverse: the critical window is the first few weeks. A badly fitted hearing aid ends up in a drawer, and someone whose aid lives in a drawer never comes back, never recommends you, and tells anyone who asks. Follow-up there isn't marketing, it's part of the service: at two weeks, at one month, at three months. Then the maintenance — filters, cleaning, annual review — which is what keeps both the device and the relationship alive.

If you only automate one thing, automate follow-up on newly fitted hearing aids. It's the shortest list, the most urgent, and the one that shows up in word of mouth.

What a reminder sounds like when it isn't an advert

A good reminder recalls a specific fact, proposes something concrete, and leaves an easy way out. A bad one says "we miss you" and offers 20% off.

Hi Marta, it's Carlos from Ribera Opticians. Your last eye test was October 2024, so you're due a check-up. It's free and takes about 20 minutes. I've got Thursday at 11:00 or Saturday at 10:30. If you'd rather wait, just say and I'll get back to you in six months.

Notice what's not in it: no discount, no invented urgency, not a word about new glasses. What is in it: the real date of the last visit, what it costs (nothing), how long it takes, two concrete slots, and explicit permission to say no. That last part is what stops people muting your number.

An AI agent on WhatsApp can run all of this: check every morning who has entered each list, write using that person's own details, offer slots that actually exist in your diary, and confirm the appointment. What it must never do is interpret an audiogram or answer "is it normal that things look blurry at night?". That goes to a clinician, no exceptions.

When you're better off saying nothing

There are four cases where an automated reminder is worse than silence:

• Any clinical symptom. If someone replies about floaters, flashes, pain or sudden hearing loss, that isn't an appointment in a fortnight. It's a referral, and a human writes it.
• Older customers who don't use messaging. A large share of an audiology list is over seventy-five. WhatsApp there ends up on a son's phone or nowhere at all. That group gets a phone call, and the system should flag them rather than message them like everyone else.
• Open complaints. If there's a return or a grievance in progress, a cheerful check-up reminder is petrol on a fire. Off the list until it's resolved.
• Anyone who already said no. A no is permanent, not a six-month pause. If the same reminder lands again in spring, they'll block you, and fairly.

And a point about data that matters more here than in most businesses: prescriptions and audiograms are health data. The message doesn't need to mention any diagnosis or any result. "You're due a check-up" is enough, and it exposes nothing on a screen that anyone picking up that phone can read. Less detail is better.

Start with one quarter, not the whole database

The classic mistake is firing the campaign at three thousand contacts on day one. If something is off — stale dates, old mobile numbers, a tone that isn't yours — you find out three thousand times, with no way back.

Take a quarter: customers whose check-up fell due between January and March, say. Send, measure how many reply and how many actually turn up (not the same number), fix the wording, then widen. Within four weeks you'll know whether the overdue-check-up list beats the warranty list, and you'll keep running only what works in your shop rather than what works in an article.

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If this sounds like a job that's been on the "when we get a minute" list for two years, our AI receptionist goes through those lists every morning, writes in your tone and books the appointment in your diary. You approve the exceptions; it handles the rest.