SPECSAVERS at Connswater is marking 20 years in business with a significant store expansion, having acquired the adjoining unit previously occupied by Karine & Co Jewellers.
Store director Lynsey Caldwell has also seen the team grow to 34, and says she intends to grow that figure, with recruitment under way to fill a number of professional and customer service roles.
Lynsey and fellow director Paula Cunningham (who joined in 2003) oversee a team which includes optometrists, optical assistants, dispensing staff and audiology colleagues.
And throughout this anniversary year, the store is also expected to reach a major milestone of 100,000 customers supported (some 97,000 patrons have been through the doors of the branch since it opened in May 2001).
Lynsey said: “We're proud to have served the local community for 20 years and look forward to continuing that relationship with them.
“To ensure we always deliver the highest quality of service, we are expanding our store and enhancing our customer offering, as we open additional testing rooms and recruit staff in both professional and customer service roles.”
The team has continually developed its services over the last two decades, most recently with a £30,000 investment in technology which saw it among the first in Northern Ireland to instal an optical coherence tomography (OCT) machine, usually found in hospital eye departments.
Staff have also been encouraged to specialise and undertake additional training to build on their existing qualifications.
Paula added: “We are always driven to ensure quality of care and value for our customers. Particularly throughout the last year, our intentions to acquire additional space to help more of them were only reinforced as we implemented social distancing.
“By adding more testing rooms, we can increase the number of customers scheduled within a day – this will be beneficial both while we operate under current guidelines and as we progress out of the pandemic, as we have always been an extremely busy store.”
Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, Specsavers stores have remained open, with services available to the public via appointment, to help manage social distancing and reduce time spent in store.
