Our work : Boots

Boots: Boots Optician

Bringing in £1.5 million a year in additional revenue.

21st century opticians

Boots Opticians has almost 300 practices across the UK and an enviable reputation as a reliable and well-priced optician with 25 years of experience in eye care.

In celebration of its 25th anniversary, and 21 million completed eye tests, Boots has been re-launching every one of its optician practices. When live|work began working with Boots Opticians, In contrast to the success of its in store practices, it had a poor online presence and a web site that was not fulfilling its potential. It was hard to find the information that people needed, impossible to book an eye examination on-line and it didn’t reflect the level of service or expertise of Boots optometrists.

Insight, Improve, Innovate

Our challenge was to transform the website into a service that would fully support the revamped in-store opticians and provide everything a customer could need, with the exception of an actual eye examination.

To achieve this we used the three stages of Service Design,
‘Insight, Improve and Innovate’ to tackle the issues:

1. Fixing a broken site and creating a look and feel to match the new marketing campaign

2. Improving the site experience to provide easily accessible information, allowing customers to research different frames and glasses and book appointments for eye tests at their closest branch

3. Innovating a longer term strategy for the website that would beat the competition in becoming a revenue earner and creating customer loyalty

The essential first step was carrying out in-depth interviews with users of the site.

We found that the site was inaccessible and in some sections, unusable; customers couldn’t book an eye test online and the content didn’t inspire confidence or trust. In addition, our interviewees said that if the website was better, they would do their research before going into the store. This meant being able to look at all the frames easily, in their own time, see how much they cost and the availability of the frames they had short-listed.

Looking good

We completely re-designed the site ensuring it was on-brand and in line with the rest of the marketing. We also re-structured the site so that people could see the range of frames, find the nearest in-store opticians and make appointments easily.

Finally, we developed a number of ways in which customers could begin the buying process online but complete it in store, bringing in an estimated £1.5 million a year in additional revenue.

Boots implemented live|work’s re-design and within days the site was receiving over 100 eye test bookings a day – representing a five-fold increase.

The site is a vital part of the overall re-brand for Boots Opticians. It not only supports but also enhances the service of the in -store practices, gaining more customers for Boots Opticians rather than turning them away.

With live|work’s help Boots Opticians is well on its way to achieving its ambition of becoming “the market leaders in eyecare”.

“This puts us in a really good position to take on the competition”
– Elizabeth Fagan, Managing Director, Boots Opticians

2007

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Client list :

Public Sector

• British Standards
• Haringey Borough Council
• Home Office
• Kent County Council
• Newcastle University
• Northumberland County Council
• Ordnance Survey
• South Tyneside Council
• Sunderland City Council
• The Cabinet Office

Financial

• Egg.com
• Experian
• Gjensidige
• NCR
• Norwich Union
• PFA pension

Transport

• BAA
• Danish Rail
• EurotaxGlass’s
• North East Ambulance Service NHS Trust
• Opplandstrafikk
• Riversimple
• Streetcar

Telecoms, media & technology

• BBC
• Cisco Systems
• Fast Search
• Orange
• Telecom Italia
• Virgin Mobile USA
• Vodafone
• Vyke
• Wordia
• Yell

Retail

• Boots
• FINN.no

Health

• Department of Health
• Macmillan
• NHS
• NHS – Ealing PCT
• NHS Innovation & Improvement Institute
• NHS – Luton PCT
• Norwegian Knowledge Centre for Health

Environmental-Sustainability

• DOTT 07
• National Energy Action – WarmZones
• WWF

Manufacturing

• FIAT
• Laerdal Medical
• Mustad
• NOKIA
• Sony Ericsson

Economic-Development

• Design Council
• Hong Kong Design Center
• NESTA
• Norwegian Design Council
• ONE North East Regional Dev. Agency
• Scottish Enterprise
• Skills Development Scotland
• The Danish Enterprise and Construction Authority
• Tyneside Economic Development Co

Voluntary Sector

• Agrarian Renaissance
• Amnesty International

Museums & Cultural Institutions

• Baltic
• National Maritime Museum

Research & Education

• Said Business School Oxford University