I'm sure this has been discussed, but please let's do again.
I'm considering a nominal fee for the shipping/handling and time spent to process things like frame warranties and lens scratch warranties.
What says you?
I'm sure this has been discussed, but please let's do again.
I'm considering a nominal fee for the shipping/handling and time spent to process things like frame warranties and lens scratch warranties.
What says you?
I can't see anything wrong with charging a reasonable fee to cover shipping and handling. It should be reasonable and disclosed at time of purchase. A little sign over the cash register:
"We will be pleased to honor any warranty work for a small $10.00 (or whatever) shipping fee."
We don't charge extra when it is a non-insurance job. If there is any discount applied to the frame we charge $20 for one year.
Have I told you today how much I hate poly?
I'm considering a nominal fee for the shipping/handling and time spent ..............
Originally Posted by drk
At the gross profit any conventional optical retailer charges,and promises warranties of any kind, included in the selling price, shall not be allowed to make additional charges after the fact.
Should the Glasses have been sold at a net price of cost plus service and warranties, there is no objection to make extra charges if the customer has been advised of it at point of sale.
I'll let you know if I get any of those retail patients.At the gross profit any conventional optical retailer charges
Meanwhile, I'm getting a nice shaft on vision care plans.
I agree. If warranties are being abused, perhaps the practice policy itself is a little too lenient? (i.e. "unlimited")
The A/Rs and anti-scratch coatings I sell are 2year/2x terms from the lab. Quite generous, but doesn't set anyone up for abuse. Instead, the patient is incentivized to make an effort to take care of their specs over those two years. The number of patients who've used that second warranty over the past 5 years I could count on one hand with fingers to spare.
When they do actually need to invoke a warranty, they do so not having paid anything extra--which makes them feel much more validated in spending what they did at the time of purchase. That's worth more than the few processing bucks.
If warranty volumes were concerning me, I'd just raise sale prices before I'd charge for warranty processing. (But before I did that, I'd sure take a look to figure out what's driving warranties up: "kick me" store policies, overselling retail staff, lab issue, product issue?)
Last edited by Hayde; 01-19-2017 at 03:03 PM. Reason: spelling
We often charge a fee and most are used to them. This is especially true when the patient knows it's their fault.
It's really a must on managed care plans.
We usually charge a $15 to $25 fee for replacement warranties under "Shipping and Handling" or "restocking fee" or some other phrase to reimburse our time and expenses, minimal as they may be.
I don't feel comfortable doing this for our lens warranties, because I charge money and only sell premium ARs to begin with.
Frames on the other hand, have expensive shipping, small markup on the retail end and MVC reimbursements that often don't even cover the wholesale cost - for frames I am thinking about instituting such a fee.
The real issue sounds like you are not happy with your current business model; where you take orders for sub-par frames and lenses at an unprofitable price for a pre-pay plan that fills your chair. We don't take any insurance and really have almost zero warranties for frames or lenses. We look at an issue as an opportunity to look good; the only issue we ever have is AR falling off some transitions on men who wear them 24/7 in the Florida heat playing golf.
We sell frames that do not break but we also do the lab work; most frames break because the lenses where not installed properly. If it is done at the lab level then the frame is never subjected to crazy heat and bending to make it fit like when it had the demo lens.
Just another way of looking at why some optical's have re-do's and warranty issues. We pay for 100% of our re-makes and have for the past 10 years. This forced us to get better.
Agree Chris. Also, as most warranties are covered by the lab or frame vendor (including return shipping) it would seem like gauging to charge the patient a co-pay.
That said, IMHO warranties are caused by and fall into two categories - legitimate and abuse. The latter is not the fault of the seller or the manufacturer and any costs should always be passed along to the wearer.
Charge enough in the beginning that you are happy to perform whatever warranty services you offer as often as you offer. Don't offer "unlimited" redos unless you feel you made enough profit to justify replacing some guy's lenses every two months. Charging for warranty feels like discount optical stuff to me. The point of a copay or service fee is twofold: 1) recoup costs associated with doing the work, which I say should just be in the price already, and 2) discourage frivolous use of the service. I don't charge but don't want frivolous use either, so my warranty is 1 year 1 time complimentary, 50% replacements thereafter. Sometimes people come in with a minor cosmetic scratch and I say I'm happy to replace, but I can only do it 1 time free, would they rather save it for a vision-impairing scratch? Even if they don't accept I don't mind replacing, because I know I'm not doing it again for free.
If it's gouging to charge the customer for a redo, then my lab shouldn't charge me for the redo, I'm the customer. Even if there are no shipping costs (there are for frame vendors, both shipping the replacement out and the defective back), there are labor costs for doing the work, and financial costs of paying for the new lenses or frames and waiting for (hopeful) credit. These are professional services and customers ought to pay for them, whether up front or at time of service.
I agree with you 100% Dan, but what about managed care plans? It is impossible to charge enough to include shipping charges for frames with those...
I don't think this is my experience, usually shipping is only covered one way with frame warranties, I may be wrong but I really feel like that is the case, and with 2 ground costing what it does (and that being what emergency warranties often require) its hard to absorb that...
I haven't decided to start charging this though, just mulling it over
We have been thinking about the same thing. We are leaning towards a service fee for managed care plans but not towards private pay patients.
You are not required, even by managed care plans, to offer any warranties or even honor manufacturer warranties. You choose to, and you can charge for it if you like, up front or at time of service. You don't need to give managed care customers (or anyone, for that matter) warranties, and you may sell the warranty service to them for additional fee. If they decline you are free to decline any service in the future if you don't want to do it. Or if you are so afraid of losing those managed care customers you are barely making a pittance on in the first place by refusing to fix their glasses because they refused the warranty, offer them a for example a $20 warranty at time of purchase which gives them a free replacement in case of defect, or if declined a $75 replacement at time of incident. That way you don't have to flat refuse them, but you certainly don't have to do anything for free.
Danliv has thought this through.
You guys are nice, my boss has a standard $50 charge for "warranty" replacement, unless it can easily be shown it was a frame defect/lens defect from when it was made.
If it's abuse then it's not a warranty. That's an oxymoron.
We warranty our frame and lenses for 1 year, one time replacement. Patients know this up front. Also, we added an additional $10 onto our frames just to cover the cost of shipping.
Caroline, L.O.
If you suffer from severe nonlinear waterfowl issues, you don't have your ducks in a row.
Sweet. A plain and simple policy. You don't get screwed and the customer don't get screwed. Everyone is happy.
And from there we tip toe in the vague grey world of warranties against breakage from "normal" wear and tear. I pick my frames with durability/cost to patient ratio in mind. I expect them to hold up, though I have been known to honor warranties on abuse if the patient is nice.
I guess I'm way too nice. Here I have a woman coming in later today who is a habitual abuser and its been my niceness over the last 3 years that is the reason I have to deal with this nonsense in a few hours, though I want my clients and patients to feel a sense of security if they buy glasses from us, that they shouldn't just fall apart.
Up here in Canada, vendors cover it both ways. It all reflects in the selling price.
Let's just say the average IQ of people has been on the decrease for some time now and its never their fault. "I'm not sure what happened". Riiiiiight.
We charge $10 per. We explain at the time of purchase that we do not charge extra for the warranty up front and only a $10 fee per use to help cover shipping, etc. We also give them a warranty card with their glasses that states the same thing. In the rare instance there is a manufacturer defect like a bad solder joint on a metal frame we wave the fee. Patients seem to be happy with the policy. It's been in effect for over 5 years.
Its been a little over a year since we started charging a $10 service fee for lens scratch warranties. We inform patients at the time of purchase and the majority of people have found it to be reasonable. We have a 1 year warranty on all frames except close-outs and replace them free of charge if they havent been abused.
It not only reflects in the selling price it heavily reflects in the wholesale purchasing price.
Frame importers up their wholesale selling price by ...xxx.%'s,
I would not even give that figure. They cover the cost of replacement at point of sale to the optician and prey every day that the frames sold will hold up to the maximum.
You would probably have the surprise of a lifetime if you would make a purchase without any warranty, except the manufacturers standard one, that covers manufacturing defects.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks