On the 30/07/2020 I was with my family taking a walk in Castleknock Village. My little sister has severe special needs. She has severe dyspraxia, a gravitational disorder and severe hand eye coordination issues. We noticed she kept taking her glasses on and off because the arms on the glasses were too short and hurting her ears. She is severely shortsighted in both eyes so she cannot see much at all without them. We did not need an eye test, or any services with which would take too much time, simply a 2 minute consultation on what to do or, if it was possible, a quick adjustment which we would have been more than happy to pay for.
We knocked on the door at approximately 5:00pm and we were greeted by one a staff members, a woman who was approximately 5'6, slender, wearing a black suit with a white blouse. Unfortunately I did not get her name as we were all upset with the interaction and turned away quickly. When she answered the door we informed her of the above and were told " We ll I can't take anyone as I already have one person in the shop but you can make an appointment." We informed her that unfortunately my sister and parents live in a different county and they would be returning home later on today so we could not make an appointment for tomorrow and again we were met with "It's against government regulation and you have to book an appointment."
I would like to point out that not wearing a mask, particularly while working in the healthcare industry in which Optometry lies, is also against government regulations and the employee was not wearing one despite being in the store. What is more upsetting however is not the hypocrisy of the employee telling us we were against government regulations when she herself was too, it was the lack of willingness to help a person with a disability. After the interaction I tried to ring to talk to a manager and the same employee answered and said there was no manager.
I would like to point out that I had been to Specsavers the other day for my own eye test and the staff were friendly, had masks and were willing to help all their customers. As they are also opticians, they too have similar limitations to the amount of people they can have in a shop and are under the same government regulations Rods and Cones Eyecare are. How is it that a major chain opticians who are always busy can provide better service and care than a small opticians who are significantly less busy, as evidenced by the employee telling me there was only one person in the store?
There was a number of ways that they could have helped my sister which would have not broken any regulations:
1: Take a quick look at the glasses and advise of what the next steps would be and how long the adjustment would take OR
2: Take the glasses into the store and be so kind as to adjust them while we waited outside which would not have broken any limitations on the amount of people in the store as apparently, as said by the employee, the limit was one person in the shop at any one time OR
3: If the employee was alone in the store and was finding it incredibly difficult to look after that one customer she could have advised us when that one customer would be finished and then took a quick look before the next customer came in.
Under the Optical Registration Board Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics for Optometrists the very first guideline is to act in the best interest of service users (service user being my sister) which they did not. While I recognize there is a challenge in the new way things are run due to the effect of Coronavirus, this should be a time to cultivate empathy for people, especially vulnerable people, who require these services instead of cultivating neglect.
This is by far the worst customer service I have ever received, and I feel justified in leaving a review as we tried talking to the employee, her manager and sending an email and we were ignored and turned away 3 times. read more
