What Does the Practice Design of the Future Look Like? [Interview with Bill Gerber]

In the latest episode of Can I Ask You One Question?, I asked Bill Gerber (founder and CEO of OMG and Contentlinq) to look into his crystal ball and describe the practice of the future from a retail and design standpoint.

Spoiler alert: The future is now!

Below are the key points from the interview. Scroll down to see the entire interview.

Technology has played an integral role and will continue to play a much bigger role.

It’s important to look outside our industry because we do tend to lag 10 to 15 years behind a lot of other categories.

“I believe the practice of the future that thrives and succeeds will be an integrated omni channel experience.”

The experience will start online (typically on a phone) – lifestyle questionnaires, education about lenses, virtual try-on, etc.

The brick-and-mortar practice will be a continuation of the experience.

“Anyone who doesn’t start planning for this now will be left behind.”

From an efficiency standpoint, the ability to take care of these things before the appointment will become increasingly important.

The “other thing” syndrome: A lot of laggards are so busy doing exams that they don’t have time to focus on being the CEO of their business. They are occupied with “other things.”

Bill mentions privacy as a factor in the store of the future and gives interesting data on the percentage of consumers who are introverts.

Will we see the death of the waiting room? The frame board as we currently know it? What else will die, and perhaps needs to die?

If we haven’t done a good job communicating why the patient should stay and buy our materials, it’s an inconvenience and a little bit abusive on the part of the practice.

Bill thinks the future looks really, really bright for our profession, with one caveat…

“This applies to practices focused on providing a great experience. For those who aren’t providing a great experience, the future doesn’t look bright at all.”

Check out the interview below, where Bill shows some great examples of the impressive work he’s doing with practices that don’t want to wait for the future to arrive.

Steve

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