There can be several shipping costs involved in this situation. To/from frame vendor. Do you try to recover shipping charges? With the high prices of shipping these days, I'm wondering if we should start doing this?
There can be several shipping costs involved in this situation. To/from frame vendor. Do you try to recover shipping charges? With the high prices of shipping these days, I'm wondering if we should start doing this?
What's broken, was the breakage "under warranty?" If so, fix it no charge to patient. If not, say the charges will be ...
Why do you offer a "warranty" or charge for a "warranty" if you are not going to honor it?
When you ship it back to mfg. Include it with something else for smaller shipping charges.
Remember that when you warranty something it's not the customer's fault that you cannot repair or replace in house.
Chip
I would say no, not with in the first year. Do your frames and lenses come with a one year warrenty? If so, then I would say those costs are yours to eat because of the warrenty. If shipping costs are higher than before, increase the price of each frame to cover the few that need to be replaced.
OK, lets rephrase the question..... The pt comes in, after 9 months of abusing his glasses. You look each other in the eye as he says I didn't do anything and winks. Its clear that he has abused them, it really doesn't fall in line with warranty parameters, but you know the manufacturer will take care of it. He's already gotten them under a VSP discount, and you've already hardly made any money on the frames. Your kind of guessing he wants to get a brand new pair of glasses and extend out his wear time until the next VSP cycle kicks in.
Simple answer, no. You know he abused them; he knows he abused them. Discounts aside, it's outside the warranty parameters. I'd call VSP and explain the situation and ask for their advice as well. You know this guy is going to call them to complain anyway. Fore-warned is fore-armed.
Welcome to the wonderful world of optical. In that case it's your call. Unfortunately that's about 30% all most warrenty replacements. It's the nature of the beast. What you could do is charge a 'service fee' and tell every patient about it at the time of sale, something like 20 bucks, and then wave the fee for those who have a legitimate defective frame/lens.
What I have done for years is, tell them that I will replace the "defective frame", and it will take about 5-6 days to arrive. If they need to expedite it, overnight or 2 day, they can pay 100% of the shipping. Over the years, not one complaint, and plenty round up the shipping, tell them $12, $20 comes down and they don't want change.
PS. I don't take VSP, so this is for my full retail customers, which is about 99% of my business.
I have heard of offices charging a "warranty fee" of $5.00 or so, mainly to cover the shipping. Most owners won't do that, in hopes of keeping a patient. If it's under warranty, replace it.
As far as abuse goes, the warranty is going to cover manufacturer's defects. Dropping them in a frying vat of grease, or letting a dog chew them to bits, or letting them fly out the window at highway speeds (all stories I have personally heard) is not the manufacturer's fault that it happened. I tell the patient I'll order them a new frame, but if the company determines that the breakage is not defective workmanship, I'll have to charge the patient in full. I also use this if people don't have all the parts of a broken frame (like, the temple broke off and they just threw it away). Without a whole frame, I'll charge for the missing part.
When the patient realizes they have to pay cash money out of their pockets for replacements, usually they take better care in the future. *shrug*
It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.
Shipping only......ya ain't working for nothin' to put it together, refit it for free, are ya? Talk about bending over..................
"I am sorry sir, but YOUR VISION PLAN does cover abuse/neglect under the frame warranty. If you want to call YOUR VISION PLAN and ask them maybe we can all work something out. "Originally Posted by AustinEyewear
VCP plan will cover and pay for shipping OR
they will agree with you that abuse/neglect is not covered just as you told the patient.
End of story.
Add $20 at sale to cover your cost. You can even give them the option. Just cover this eventuallity before it happens. Take care of your customers. You may find you need them someday.
If I don't want to replace it (irritating customer) and it's not a legitimate defect, I don't. Manufacturer warranties belong to the wholesale buyer (the ECP), not the retail customer. The ECP gets to decide what they want to offer to the customer.
Don't let the vision plan get between you and customer either. If they might call VSP, and when VSP calls you to broker the issue you know you will capitulate, just do it in the first place as a favor from you to the customer. Otherwise VSP looks like the hero and you look like a chump, when in reality we know the reverse is true. If you don't want to do it and say so and they threaten to call VSP, encourage them to. VSP will call (they always do) you can simply tell them "no, I won't provide that service." I've had to do so a couple times, and the VSP operator really doesn't know what to do after that. All they can do is recommend the customer go to another provider and possibly reinstate VSP benefits to compensate. You've lost the customer, but then you already effectively let them go once you take the hard line with complainers and abusers.
No you should have included that in your mark up. We save all our warranty work and send it end a few weeks before the billing cycle. With ups we pay 5 bucks per box. We also will exchange glasses even if your dog eats them...one time only with in a year if I have all the pieces.
A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than you love yourself.
~Josh Billings~
How are we defining a "warranty"? A warranty typically covers quality and manufacturing defects. We have told the customer that he is purchasing quality eyewear and so we stand behind our product by replacing anything that did not stand the test of quality. It's important to note two things when we discuss warranties and quality:
First, many frames will sit on a frameboard for up to a few years before being purchased. They have been picked up dozens of times, tried on, flexed, cleaned, etc. Many of these frames are to the point where they have as much wear as a used frame. Some of them have been downright abused. Therefore, in cases where the cause of the issue may or may not be related to the condition of the eyewear at the time of purchase, it's always important to give the customer the benefit of the doubt. It is very possible to open up your case and see a frame that has had the spring temple snapped. We should all be able to recognize the cracking that occurs in aspheric poly lens as a result of being edged as little too large and then flexed in the frame over a period of days to months.
In these cases, we should not subject a customer to additional charges. In fact, be grateful he broguht the issue to your attention and gave you the opportunity to correct it and show you truly care about doing the right thing.
Secondly, in the case of obvious customer accidents or abuse, this is not a warranty issue. Just be sure never to utter the words, "scratch proof" during the sale. Also, giving lessons in the proper care of eyewear during your dispense should be a habit. In these cases you should probably offer some type of "accident program" that discounts a replacement pair and covers your costs. Realistically, this going to require some flexiblility on your part. You should always make a habit of reviewing their past sales history. I mean, if they and their family have been buying from you for years then it's a great opportunity to reward their customer loyalty and recognize their value to your business.
In short, there really shouldn't be any set rules just a lot of good old fashioned common sense.
As stated above, it all depends on your pricing and bundling. We *never* charge for shipping. Period.
B
Do you then send the lenses and frames back to the manufacturers as "defective"?
They may also start to go to Costco, Walmart or online. Be careful.
B
Online is a legitimate threat/competitor, but in Oklahoma we don't have opticals in Walmart (we don't even have Costco here) or Sears or JC Penney, etc. And I usually do everything I can in the best interest of the patient, but if the frames are in 27 pieces because the dog chewed them (this happened here just a couple weeks ago), I can't justify "warrantying" that. The manufacturer won't buy it that it's a defective frame. So I have to charge sometimes. 8^/
It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.
hmmmmmm, in ANY OTHER industry, you would have to pay for parts or maybe labor and shipping if you need to return it to manufacturer. How did eyeglasses get excluded from this? I'm sure the online guys make you ship it back too.
For whatever reason, we aren't every other industry. We change nose pads and screws for 'free'. Adjustments for free. You can't compare us to any other industry because we are unique.
My tire shop checks my air pressure free and changes the valves stems free, missing caps free, maybe we can all aspire to be Tire Mechanics; in some states that would require additional basic education.
You can also not paint the entire eyecare business with the same brush. There are a lot of opticians who do charge for these services.
You may not charge but we do. If the spectacles were ordered through us, we provide all adjustments, nosepads, temple tips, etc for free (included in purchase price). We have had too many issues where the patient comes out and says, " I bought these at walmart, but I don't want to drive ALL THE WAY DOWN THERE for an adjustment". Meaning they have NO intention of coming here, just want to give their money to someone else, and get free service from us. Same thing w/ online...they claim you can get PDs and Adjustments for free....Does that mean someone else will pay for a portion of my employees time, or a portion of the overhead?
We charge for adjustments, nosepads, temple tips, replacement parts, emergency replacement parts, etc. ANy purchases made are kept on record and applied to any future purchases.
Haven't had a SINGLE complaint.
AA
This isn't true at all.
In this case you've got a clearly defined warranty provided by the patient's vision provider. When the patient chose your shop to use his benefits he also elected to play by their rules. VSP is pretty clear that they provide a 1 year warranty - THEY do, not you. If VSP chooses to honor that warranty through your office that's fine. But VSP needs to make that call. Shipping - that's part of the gig, deal with it.
- Wife's computer was under warranty through Best Buy. When it had a problem I took it in, they had to send it to the manufacturer and we got it back in a few weeks. No charges.
- We recently had to replace part of our carpet - a carpet with a 10 year stain warranty. Installer came out, measured what needed to be replaced and returned in a few weeks after the manufacturer sent the required piece.
- When my parent's car was recently taken in for warranty work (6 month old and already in the shop) the dealer didn't have the parts. My parents weren't charged shipping to have the parts brought in from the OEM.
Yes but go back to OP.....the frame was abused and broken. If you drive a car under warranty or own a PC under warranty and crash it (car) or drop it (PC) no way the warranty covers that stuff!
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