On Monday, February 8th, Dr. Tavel Family Eye Care will open its 20th Indiana Vision Center in Zionsville, Indiana. The Zionsville Dr. Tavel will join the other vision eye centers in Indianapolis, Anderson, Bloomington, Columbus, Fishers, Greenwood, Kokomo, Muncie, New Castle, Shelbyville, Elkhart, South Bend, Richmond and Terre Haute. Three of the current optical locations are Vision Values by Dr. Tavel and the remaining 17 are Dr. Tavel Family Eye Care.
As with any of our Dr. Tavel stores, we will offer comprehensive eye examinations by a board certified Indiana eye doctor, premium contact lenses and eyeglasses. If you want to buy eye glasses or see the best eye doctor possible, come to our new location at 61 Boone Village in Zionsville or call 317-733-3344 for an appointment. Of course, you can also schedule on line at
www.drtavel.com. We look forward to serving the Zionsville community.
Dr. Tavel Family Eye Care is doing its part to help with the Haitian Relief Effort. Due to the massive earthquake that hit last week, many of the buildings have been damaged and personal belongings destroyed. As Indiana Eye Doctors, it only makes sense that we would help the best way we know how, with the gift of sight. We are asking that anyone who has an old pair of eyeglasses come into one of our 20 Vision Eye Centers to donate their used eyeglasses. We will be working with the American Red Cross to get these glasses to those in need.
It is estimated that over 4 million pairs of eyeglasses and lenses are thrown out in a given year in the United States. Rather than toss that old frame and lenses, come into Dr. Tavel or a Vision Values by Dr. Tavel optical location to donate these to someone in need. If you have a pair that you don't wear, bring them in. If you only have a frame, bring it in. We will accept any donation of used eyewear. Go to our locations page to find the nearest Indianapolis Optical or Indiana Optical store to you.
If you've been having trouble reading things up close, it may be time to consider first and foremost, an eye examination, and secondly, a pair of reading glasses.
Reading Glasses can be custom made and dispensed by Dr. Tavel or can be purchased in a "one size fits all" kind of way.
Whats wonderful about pre-made readers is that they are available in so many different styles, patterns, and colors, that you can comfortably go for a new look without risking a lot of money. Cheap readers allow you the freedom to buy eye glasses for every room in the house.
On the other hand, since they aren't custom made, pre-made "drugstore" readers can sometimes be more harmful than helpful. Many people need a different reading prescription in each eye, which means that you might only be helping one eye see more clearly. And, since the lenses are not made according to the measurements of the wearer's eyes, the optical center may be off center causing headaches and eye strain.
Your best bet is to visit your vision doctor and let him/her help you pick out the most appropriate readers for your eyes.
The best compliment we can receive at Dr. Tavel is from our patients. It illustrates to us that we are the best eye doctor for these patients and that is our primary goal. We don't hear all the compliments we get from our patients, but when we do, it really hits home. Our store manager at the Fishers Dr. Tavel Family Eye Care received the following card from one of our patients:
Our manager helped her with a couple pairs of glasses and lenses, which meant so much more to her than simply filling an order. At Dr. Tavel, we pride ourselves on offering vision values and recommending the best glasses to our patients in terms of fashion eye care and affordable eye wear. When we receive letters like this from our patients, it shows us that we are fulfilling our promise to be the best eye care provider in the state of Indiana.
This coming November, Delta Gamma at Butler University will be hosting its 32nd annual philanthropy event, Anchor Splash. All donations go to Service for Sight, Aid to the Blind; and more specifically, Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, BOSMA, and ORBIS (all local organizations). Since Dr. Tavel is in the eye care industry, we had a very special interest in the event.
BOSMA’s slogan does a great job of explaining the motivation behind the services they provide and the cause which both Delta Gamma and Dr. Tavel so strongly support. We are “dedicated to empowering people who are blind or visually impaired by creating opportunities that lead to the achievement of each individual’s employment, economic, social, and self-determination goals.”
Dr. Tavel creates such opportunities by providing extensive eye examinations, thorough follow up visits, premium contact lenses, and glasses and lenses of superior quality all within an affordable price range.
We feel that the gateway to every day opportunity is the gift of sight; it allows you to live independently, see your children grow, appreciate nature, and so much more.
As a result of hard work by our genuine, caring opticians and extensive knowledge of our doctors Dr. Tavel is able to help you protect this gift and use it to take advantage of all the opportunities of life.
The other night, I went down to Conseco Fieldhouse to check out the WNBA Indiana Fever game and support the local team. As a self-proclaimed basketball junkie, I love watching these women play and I truly enjoy seeing how passionate the fans in Indianapolis are about their basketball teams.
While at the game, I was talking to another fan and he informed me that he has been a patient of Dr. Tavel for over 20 years. He informed me that he has been going to the Greenwood Dr. Tavel Family Eye Care for a long time to get his eyes examined and to buy eyeglasses. My first question when I talk to a Dr. Tavel patient is always "How was the service?" The reason is that I know patients can get glasses and lenses anywhere and with on-line options for contact lenses, they can go even more places for that. If we aren't providing excellent customer service, we aren't doing our job and we are going to lose our patients to a competitor.
The good news is that he was very happy with the service provided. As tends to happen, he accidentally sat on his glasses and needed them to be adjusted. He explained what happened to one of our opticians and she quickly fixed the glasses so they fit right again. He told me that it was done as a complimentary service at no charge. It is always good to hear from Dr. Tavel's patients, especially when they see the vision values that our eye doctors and staff provide.
The key to this experience is that people talk and they are more than willing to tell others about their experience, whether it be positive or negative. To have been in business as long as we have at Dr. Tavel, we know that our success as Indiana Eye Doctors lies in our ability to provide eye examinations and customer service that far exceeds our customers expectations.
Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines! Memorial Day Weekend has arrived and that means its race time! There is nothing more exhilarating than sitting in the stands watching those cars race by at over 200 miles per hour right in front of your eyes at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. I was invited yesterday to go to both the Indianapolis 500 Festival Parade downtown on Saturday and the 93rd running of the Indianapolis 500 race on Sunday and I just can’t wait.
Not only will I get to see amazing drivers like Helio Castroneves, Ryan Briscoe, Danica Patrick, and Marco Andretti, but I’ll get to see them clearly and in race-day style because of the new glasses and lenses I ordered last week (obviously from Dr. Tavel). They really couldn’t be more perfect.
I know that stylish glasses are not necessarily at the top of people’s agenda for this particular event, it’s really more about staying cool and soaking up the ten seconds of 200 mile-an-hour glory whizzing by on the track. But to ensure that I got a little bit of both, and to ensure that this supersonic moment is crystal clear, I got Purifier lenses, a top of the line Dr. Tavel signature lens that significantly reduces the glare of the summer sun by eliminating reflected light (Dr. Tavel (and Vision Values by Dr. Tavel) is the only Indiana eye center that carries this lens). The fact is, with these lenses everything is sharper, clearer, and all the colors are more vibrant and alive!
Ready for the best part? The frame is one of Dr. Tavel’s “TryChange” brand frames that allow you to actually change the temples and the bridge of the frame and replace them with different ones to match whatever you’re wearing! The particular frame I got for this weekend is a checkered pattern (of course) to get in the racing spirit. Needless to say, I’m ready to race!
*This is one of many TryChange frame & lens combinations available at Dr. Tavel. Drop by any of our stores to check them out!
**Once you have an eye examination and order TryChange glasses, you're welcome to come into any of our locations to purchase additional "wishbones" (wishbones are the temple & nose peice combinations that create the frames) whenever you're in the mood for a new style.
A good friend and I attended the
Big Ten Tournament at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis last night to watch Indiana University play against Penn State. He was wearing contact lenses for the first time in about 15 years. This guy was one of those people who tried contact lenses years early on, had a bad experience and decided to give them up due to dry eyes, discomfort, etc, the usual reasons for not wearing contact lenses.
We were talking a while back and I explained to him the many improvements that have come about in contact lenses over the years. Specifically, the introduction of silicone hydrogel technology has made lenses more comfortable for the wearer and typically allows more oxygen into the eye and allows for a longer wear cycle. After our conversation, he decided to go to our Doctor Tavel office on the south side of Indianapolis for a free trial set of lenses.
As it turns out, he decided to try a new lens from CIBA Vision, the Air Optix Aqua. This lens is a 30 day wear contact lens and is priced affordably for those patients looking for true vision value. He was absolutely blown away at how much better these contacts felt compared to his last experience. Not only that, but his vision is great with this new product. Unfortunately, as an IU fan, it might have been better to have poor vision on that night.
Recently, Dr. Tavel launched a website dedicated to the Vision Values by Dr. Tavel brand. The new site is
www.visionvalues.net and is an extension of Dr. Tavel's optometry practice.
The Vision Values by Dr. Tavel brand was launched in the early 1990's as an extension of the existing Dr. Tavel practice. These stores are focused on exactly what the name implies: Vision and Value. For patients looking for quality frames, lenses or premium contact lenses, while staying focused on a quality eye examination, then Vision Values by Dr. Tavel is an excellent option.
We currently have three Vision Values by Dr. Tavel locations: Chapel Hill on the west side of Indianapolis, South Bend, Indiana and a third one at Esquire Plaza on Pendleton Pike on the east side of Indianapolis.
The Vision Values site will continually evolve as we add content in the future. Currently, patients can use this site to link to the main Dr. Tavel website, find our locations, print off promotions, view our great selection of frames and re-order contact lenses.
Over the weekend, Dr. Tavel sent out its first edition of "Seeing Eye 2 Eye", which is our new e-newsletter. We will be sending out a newsletter each month to our existing patients and to anyone else who signs up to receive it.
The Dr. Tavel newsletter will contain a variety of information that is related to your eye care. Each edition will contain a section on Dr. Tavel's Tips, which will offer educational tips and ideas about eye care. It also contains a section detailing the Latest and Greatest as it pertains to eye wear. We will cover new products such as new frames, new lenses, new contact lenses and some of the new technologies that are allowing us to offer amazing enhancements to eye wear and fashion. With every newsletter we will also have some optical illusions, which are both fun and educational in nature.
To sign up for the Dr. Tavel newsletter, you can simply go to our website at
www.drtavel.com and sign up at the bottom of the home page for the Exclusives. In addition to the newsletter, we will send out various promotions, coupons and health care tips as they relate to your vision. So whether you are a patient in Bloomington, Indianapolis, Columbus or Anderson, you can go on-line and sign up to receive our newsletter delivered right to your e-mail inbox. Seeing Eye 2 Eye is our way of keeping in contact with the patients of
Dr. Tavel Family Eyecare and
Vision Values by Dr. Tavel.
Anyone who works in a retail environment has likely heard the phrase "I can find it cheaper on-line". As a retailer of fashion sunglasses and fashion eyeglasses, as well as premium contact lenses, we invariably hear this from time to time. Last week, the manager of our Greenwood Dr. Tavel Family Eye Care said that she had a patient tell her she found one of our frames for a little bit less on-line. There are a few ways to handle this in my opinion. The first is to give the patient a discount and essentially price match what she found on-line.
The second approach, and the one I favor, is to explain to the patient the value she receives from us and from buying glasses directly from us. When you walk into one of our vision centers, you are typically not just coming to buy a frame. You are typically coming in for a service and for a product. The service comes in the form of an eye examination from a certified eye doctor to ensure that your eyes are healthy and that you have a current prescription. After getting your prescription, you are going to get a second service and that is from our opticians in the form of helping you with your Rx and determining what lenses you need with your specific prescription. Once we determine the lenses, we can then choose a frame that fits your lifestyle AND fits your lenses. For example, some high Rx's will not work well with a drill mount frame. Our staff is going to walk you through all the key points to help you buy eye glasses.
Ultimately, you are not going to get the same service on-line. Sure, you can pick out a frame that looks good and might be less expensive on-line. However, you are not getting the service and quality that you will find from Dr. Tavel and his associates.
There is no question that we are in a very tough time from an economic standpoint. We have all seen the news highlighting companies making cuts,
rising unemployment rates and foreclosures. What this does is force everyone to tighten their belts and make some tough decisions in terms of their budgets, where they will spend money and where they will make sacrifices.
The scary part of this scenario comes when I read articles about how people are considering holding off on health care visits and making that an area to cut. This tends to be a short term gain, long term loss. While holding off and delaying a doctor visit will help you to save money in the short term, you are opening yourself up for potential long term harm by not taking care of your body. In terms of your eyes, you need to see the best eye doctor you possibly can and see him or her on a routine schedule. Contact lens wearers need to adhere to an annual schedule more than anyone as they are putting a prescriptive material directly on their eye. Just because your eye "feels fine" doesn't mean that you aren't depriving your cornea of much needed oxygen due to overuse of your lenses and not following the lens wearing schedule. These are the types of things that can be seen during an annual eye examination with a
Dr. Tavel Vision Doctor and will help you prevent serious eye diseases.
So as you focus on what is truly important, please don't take your health for granted or as something that can be put off or made out to be a line item on a budget. Focus on your eye care, focus on your children's eye care and see your health as the best investment you can make.
Prior to last year, I never thought that I would go to a Monster Truck show. A friend of our Sales Director gave us tickets and we took our two young boys to the show. They were hooked on the big trucks with big tires driving over jumps and other vehicles and so we made it an annual event. This past weekend a group of men and our 4 and 5 year old boys went to the Monster Jam at
Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis to watch Maximum Destruction and Batman fight it out in the finals of the racing portion. Batman won and all the little men in our group were very happy with that result.
The great part about this is that the next day we went to lunch at a local restaurant and saw the driver of the Batman Monster Truck, John Seasock. My boy was very excited about this and when John walked by our table I briefly talked to him and told him how great of a show he put on. My son was wide-eyed about the fact that this man gets to drive the coolest monster truck on the planet and he was standing at our table talking to us!
After this exchange, John came over later and asked if he could buy my son dessert. I obliged and thought that was a nice gesture. A few minutes later, John came over to my son, gave him the ice cream and asked him if he liked the show, if he was going to come back next year and who he was going to root for. This 5 minute conversation was a great example of customer service. While some might think of John as a professional driver, he knows that part of the job is making his customers happy, whether it is in the Batman truck or at a restaurant. If he was rude to us, I would have likely been turned off and less excited about cheering him on in the future. However, he was incredibly polite, eager to talk to a complete stranger and went above and beyond what was required to ensure that he would have a repeat customer.
This simple concept is something that can be incorporated by every business. At
Dr. Tavel and Vision Values by Dr. Tavel we realize the importance of customer service and try to incorporate this into everything we do. Ultimately, people want to do business with others that treat them with respect, go above and beyond what is expected and give you a reason to come back.
Today we signed on to become the official sponsor for the
WISH TV Forecast 8 Alerts, which sends text messages and e-mails when there is either severe weather or a school closing. The reason we chose to do this is because the program is focused on families with children. If their children are not going to be able to go to school, they get this information quickly and it allows them to plan ahead for scheduling purposes. It also allows them to ensure they can be safe by not going out in inclement weather.
How does this tie in with us and why would we want to sponsor this? As I mentioned in previous blogs, we are focused on families and their health (and safety). We are
Indiana eye doctors and while most of our patients think of eye doctors as someone who prescribes glasses and lenses, our primary focus is that of an eye examination and giving our patients and their families the best health care possible. We are proud to be part of the Indianapolis community and this sponsorship exemplifies some of our core values.
Over the weekend, I took my 4 1/2 year old son into our Columbus, IN office for his annual eye examination. This is his second exam and I have on my calendar an annual reminder that he needs to see one of our eye doctors. This seems like a rather routine thing for me now, however prior to working for an optometry practice, I wouldn't have thought like this. Growing up, my parents didn't take me to the eye doctor for annual exams. An eye exam was thought of as something you needed when you were having trouble seeing and you needed glasses and lenses or contact lenses.
The problem is that most people don't realize that an eye exam should be thought of in a manner that is closer to a dentist than a regular doctor. Many people go to their dentist for a 6 month or annual check up to make sure their teeth are in good condition, whereas most people go to a doctor only when they are sick. The mindset needs to change from one of reactionary care to one of preventative care. We as vision care providers need to do a better job educating patients on the values of an annual eye examination, which should start for children at the age of 3. The truth is that a routine eye exam can uncover problems which frequently either have no detectable symptoms or come on so slowly that they are missed without a thorough exam by an eye care doctor.
The doctors at Dr. Tavel are specifically trained to detect signs of diabetes, High Blood Pressure, cataracts, and glaucoma in addition to writing corrective prescriptions for eye sight. So while I don't think my son has a vision problem and he appears to see just fine, it is important for me and for him that I know for sure.
Welcome to the Family Eye Care, Fashion Eyewear blog at Dr. Tavel Optical Group. Dr. Tavel provides Indiana families with an extensive array of high quality, yet affordable, eye care products and services. As a full service eye care retailer, we are family owned and committed to consistently delivering outstanding levels of customer service and long-term customer satisfaction. What does that mean exactly? It means we are focused on you, the patient. As Indiana's largest eyecare provider, we have locations all throughout Indiana, including Indianapolis, Anderson, Bloomington, Columbus, Richmond, Terre Haute, Shelbyville, New Castle, Kokomo, South Bend, Elkhart, Muncie, Fishers and Greenwood. At each location we have eye care doctors who offer comprehensive eye examinations and are focused on giving you the best in Family Eye Care. We also have highly trained opticians who can help you select glasses and lenses or premium contact lenses that are right for your lifestyle, your unique prescription and your budget. This blog will be focused on covering all topics that relate to Family Eye Care and Fashion Eyewear. We look forward to hearing feedback on these posts and serving as an educational resource for all things related to these two core components of our business.
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