Pictured: Justin Rocyn-Jones, head of marketing at Essilor Ltd and Paul Houston, sales and marketing director at See20/20

West Midlands based practice management software specialist See20/20 has announced an exclusive partnership with Essilor Ltd, the world leader in ophthalmic optical products.

The exclusive partnership - the first of its kind in the marketplace - will enable UK opticians to stream- line their business, improve customer care and increase practice revenue. It means UK opticians will benefit from a unique range of software and service bundles provided by Essilor Ltd and See20/20.

Opticians using See20/20 already find it is easy to connect with their patients using powerful segmentation tools to identify patient types, transactions, spending habits and activities.

Now, with Essilor Affinity and See20/20 combining expertise and resources, it enables opticians to generate increased patient footfall and patient spend, at the same time as allowing opticians to offer a range of aftercare services.

Essilor Affinity will produce and manage professional and educated reminders, follow-up questionnaires and on-going patient communications via SMS messaging, e-marketing and direct mail. It is designed to help opticians increase transaction frequency, patient retention and advocacy.

Sales and marketing director at See20/20, Paul Houston said: "This is a very exciting partnership that will benefit all UK independent opticians.

"By combining our professional expertise and service offering in the optical industry, we are able to offer a complete solution for existing and new customers alike, covering all angles of practice management including sales, marketing and customer care. 

"Importantly, this move represents our shared commitment to the UK market and our aim to provide customers with the very best products and services to maximise the potential of their patient base, at the same time as increasing revenue for their business." 

Justin Rocyn-Jones, head of marketing at Essilor Ltd said: "From working closely with See 20/20 on other projects, we could see how successful they are in generating new business within a practice environment. Immediately, we felt we could offer added value to their services and software.

"Recognising the close synergy between our businesses, we are more than confident our partnership will have significant benefits for all opticians. It will provide our customers with increased revenue, patient footfall and loyal patients. Crucially, this is available to all UK opticians and we are both more than happy to look at ways of helping fund these systems.