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Dr. Lee Gelman, OD, (l) and optician James Lloyd (r) in their new store, Visionary Optics, with frame stylist Caroline Cooney. The Manhattan-based practice incorporates elements of the Zeiss Experience. 
Visionary Optics, a new optical boutique located in New York’s trendy Chelsea neighborhood, stands out in more ways than one. Situated in a narrow storefront next to a gourmet pet food store on busy Seventh Ave., the compact shop attracts discriminating eyeglass wearers and curious passersby alike with its sleek, contemporary décor and eyecatching window displays.

Yet Visionary Optics is not just another pretty face on the city’s optical landscape. It is one of the first eyecare practices in the U.S. to implement the Zeiss Experience, a global program that Carl Zeiss Vision describes as “an integrated system for increasing premium product sales, bringing in new patients and providing a compelling in-office experience that will increase patient loyalty.”

   
Visionary Optics’ dispensary is characterized by a clean, futuristic look that reflects the Zeiss design influence. A Zeiss i.Terminal sits in the middle of the room.  Visionary Optics’ display window attracts savvy eyeglass wearers and curious passersby. 
What makes the Zeiss Experience unique is a co-branding approach that combines the famed Zeiss brand with the practice’s brand. This is accomplished through the use of Zeiss’s proprietary diagnostic instruments and dispensing system, stylized practice furnishings and targeted patient communication tools.

“Our goal is to help eyecare practices provide the best vision experience to their patients,” explained Claude Lebeeuw, vice president of marketing for Carl Zeiss Vision. “That means providing the best in lenses and coatings, but it also means helping practices educate their patients so they understand the importance of choosing the best. Zeiss Experience provides simple tools to capture key information about patients and to show them how customized lenses, premium AR and other options can enhance their visual lives. When these tools are combined with i.Scription and i.Terminal, which also have powerful patient demonstration tools, practices can create a new and different in-office experience. This experience engages the patient more, feels more sophisticated than the usual eye appointment, and reinforces the fact that the patient is getting the best care and the best eyeglass lenses.

“We can also work with practices to integrate Zeiss design elements into their décor,” Lebeeuw continued. “This links the practice’s brand with the Zeiss brand, which stands for precision optics, to create something more powerful than either alone.”

The Zeiss Experience consists of three integrated elements that can be tailored to meet the practice’s specific needs: Zeiss Analysis, Zeiss Practice Furnishings and Zeiss Marketing Tools.

 
Zeiss Analysis allows the ECP to capture key data about patients’ eyewear needs and wants. Using the Personal Profile Booklet, an ECP can assess the patient’s vision problems and show them how their vision can be improved with Zeiss lenses. In the waiting room, an interactive demo provides information about the patient’s lens options. Additional information may also be presented in a video format using the Zeiss Cinemizer, a goggle-like electronic viewing device.

During the eye exam, the ECP uses i.Scription by Zeiss, a new technology for measuring, designing and dispensing eyeglasses. Introduced in the U.S. in late 2010 by Carl Zeiss Vision and VSP Vision Care, i.Scription employs wavefront aberrometry to generate a compensated prescription that can be used to design a new type of customized lens. These lenses deliver better night vision, improved contrast and richer color perception to eyeglass wearers, according to Zeiss.

i.Scription technology consists of three elements: i.ProfilerPlus by Zeiss, an instrument that combines corneal topography, autorefraction and aberrometry; i.Scription software, an algorithm that combines the aberrometry data from i.Profiler with the doctor’s subjective refraction to create a prescription that is accurate to 1/100th of a diopter and is optimized for the effects of the patient’s high-order aberrations; and Zeiss and VSP Reveal free-form customized lenses.

Following an exam, patients receive fitting and lens consultation with the i.Terminal by Zeiss, a sophisticated dispensing system that takes personal measurements with 0.1mm accuracy and uses the patient’s own image to aid frame selection and demonstrate premium lens options.

Another key element in the Zeiss Experience is practice furnishings, which consists of a range of customizable, scalable options designed to work with the practice’s office design. The furnishings, designed by noted architect Elmar Gauggel, feature a contemporary, high-tech feel. All design elements employ a minimalist design with an emphasis on white, and employ the Zeiss brand to enhance the message of precision optics.

Zeiss rounds out the Zeiss Experience with an array of marketing tools including direct mailings, promotions, point-of-purchase displays, window decorations, personal profile booklets, demonstrators and Cinemizer videos.

At Visionary Optics, several aspects of the Zeiss Experience are evident, starting with the blue and white Zeiss logo on the awning. Inside, the brightly lit furnishings and clean lines are pure Zeiss, right down to the prominent Zeiss graphic behind the front desk. An i.ProfilerPlus occupies the exam room, and an i.Terminal sits in the middle of the dispensary.

 
Optometrist Lee Gelman opened Visionary Optics last July with his partner, optician James Lloyd. Gelman, who also owns an uptown location with his father, veteran optician Michael Gelman, said he decided to partner with Zeiss because “People who know optics know Zeiss is the best. We’ve been using Zeiss for more than 20 years. It’s our lens of choice.”

Lloyd added that “Zeiss coatings, such as Purecoat, are the best. I also like Zeiss prescription sunlenses.”

Lloyd said that although Zeiss helped with the store’s design, the partners modified the décor to fit their own needs and tastes. He drew upon the Zeiss aesthetic, though, which he described as “very futuristic and space age look with very sharp lines that convey a high-tech feeling.”

Dr. Gelman is particularly impressed with
i.Scription, because it allows him to get “as customized an Rx as possible. I’ve never before able to prescribe to the 100th diopter before,” he said. He also likes the fact that i.ProfilerPlus, a single unit with a small footprint, replaces both a corneal topographer and autorefractor.

Lloyd praises the iTerminal. “It helps us dispense free-form lenses, especially lenses with high base curves,” he said. Both partners noted that the Zeiss Experience dovetails nicely with their own approach to prescribing and dispensing eyewear, which places a high value on premium quality products.

“We sell Leica digital cameras, too,” said Dr. Gelman. “We’re one of the only dealers in New York, and we have Zeiss binoculars, too. It shows we’re serious about optics. We talk about the optics and lenses first. It’s a European way of selling eyewear.”