Ideas You Can Use!
My friend Rick told me about a recent visit to his eye doctor. He has been going to the same doctor at the same office for nearly 20 years. He knows that our company provides eye care specialists with equipment and supplies that help save time and provide better patient care … but his question threw me for a loop.
Rick asked, “Do you provide any office décor items to help make the office pleasant and inviting for patients and staff?”
He told me that at this visit, for some reason, he paid more attention to the office décor. All he saw hanging on the walls – in the waiting room, in the treatment rooms, in the corridors, and in the eye drop waiting area, were posters from pharmaceutical companies. There were cross sections of the skull and eye orbits, eye muscles, blurred vision examples, charts showing the effect of glaucoma and macular degeneration, and so on. The print was pretty small – meaning you had to get awfully close if you wanted to try to read it. And the images, well, they were more intimidating than pleasant. He said they looked like surgical operations. Ugh!
Ironically, Rick mentioned, his doctor and his staff have never used one of those posters to explain eye conditions with him. He had never seen patients looking closely at the posters. And he hardly took note of them himself in all those years. His overall reaction was that the posters were not really attractive, informative, and made the office look too sterile, too “medical” and not very friendly.
He contrasted that office with his primary care doctor’s office where attractive artwork adorns the walls. Interesting travel scenes. Photos with children. Even some attractive wildlife photos of polar bears, underwater photos of fish and coral, and beautiful architectural photos.
We’re in the business of vision. Look at your office décor with the fresh eyes of a new patient arriving for the first time—and see if the visual message is cheery, warm, welcoming. Does your office look like a people friendly place? Have you looked critically at what is hanging on your walls? Could you make the surroundings nicer to see?
Do you think that we at Gulden should try to market office décor items that would help your patients see pleasant, beautiful images when they visit?
Tell me what you think.
Be visionary with Gulden!
Tom Cockley is president of Gulden Ophthalmics and the third generation of the over 70 year old visionary company that brings innovative, time-saving, utilitarian products to vision and health care professionals.
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