Frame Styling Practice of the Year Winners

We spoke to SightCare’s Frame Styling Practice of the Year winners, Yorkshire Eyewear, about how winning an award at the 2023 SightCare Conference has impacted their team.

How did you/your team feel when your practice was announced as the winner?

We were absolutely delighted to be announced as the Frame Styling Practice of the Year, we were in a category with fantastic practices, so to win was an honour.

What was the stand out feature that you believe set you apart from your competitors in this category ?
 
We believe that our stand out feature was our in house Bridal Eyewear Styling Service. This is something completely unique, so was bound to set us apart from competitors. Bridal Eyewear was founded by one of our owners, Karen, and she has helped brides from all over the country pick and style gorgeous frames for their special day.

Does this win make you want to be more ambitious about your practice’s frame styling and if so how?
 
Since winning, we have organised two sets of ‘Frame Styling’ open days for our patients. Days dedicated to helping our loyal customers choose the perfect frames, and sharing our expertise in frame styling with the local community. We hope to organise more of these in the future as our patients seem to really enjoy having dedicated time towards this. We are also in the process of upgrading the Bridal Eyewear website.

How do you believe opticians/practices can have a positive influence through social media with regards to frame styling?

We believe opticians and practices can have a positive influence through social media when it comes to frame styling by not just being commercial across digital platforms, but also sharing advice on styling and choosing the perfect frame for them. Social Media is a great tool for helping patients and customers with all things frame styling, and can also be used as a digital catalogue, allowing our patients to continuously experience new ranges, and see what sort of frames our practices have in.

What future plans can be expected from you in terms of frame styling?

We are always looking for ways to improve our expertise, particularly in Frame Styling. The world of optics is constantly evolving, but so is the fashion world. As a team we hope to improve our knowledge on innovations, new designs, what colours are in this season etc. We are also hoping to collaborate with other businesses, such as styling frames for photography shoots in the near future. We have one such shoot with all the Bridal suppliers in the next few weeks.

 How have you been been able share your award success with your patients, community and staff ?

We were featured in the local media having sent press releases to them, including print and radio. We utilised social media to share our award success with our patients and the community, posting live whilst at the awards so that our followers could come on the journey with us. We also planned our ‘Frame Styling Open Days’ with the award at the centre of it all, as the open days were focused on inviting the local community to be styled into the perfect frame by our team.