Alcon is the global leader in eye care, dedicated to helping people see brilliantly. Started in 1945, Alcon is the largest eye care device company in the world—with complementary businesses in Surgical and Vision Care. They work in over 70 countries and serve patients in more than 140 countries.

Alcon has a long history of industry firsts, and each year they commit a substantial amount in Research and Development to meet customer needs and patient demands. As such, they’re a leader not simply in digital solutions within the healthcare field, but also pioneers of life-changing and life-saving cutting-edge treatment options.

The main challenge Alcon was faced with was the fact that about 50 percent of first-time users of contact lenses drop out after only two days—and there is very little data on why. According to Alcon's studies, the sky-high number is primarily due to users becoming frustrated when they start to learn how to use the lenses during the initial period. This is an issue for both Alcon and Eye Care Professionals (ECPs), so it was equally important to bring ECPs into the conversation.

A strategy was created to deliver a tool for onboarding and problem solving for new customers in their trial phase when signing up for contact lenses. The strategy was two-fold:

1. To improve the consumer’s experience of trying contact lenses
2. To track where and why the high dropout happens—gathering the data in a dashboard.

This way, Alcon would then be able to digitally activate and streamline the previously fragmented customer journey for new contact lens users. In the end the goal was to reduce dropouts and increase the level of retention by supporting users in real time, and at the same time, to learn about user needs in real time to find out why and when people are dropping out.

The Wearlenses ecosystem was created and it entails the Wearlenses website as the central digital touchpoint, with an App and the Chatbot adding to the user experience, creating the foundation for a new digital relationship between Alcon and consumers.

We created a concept that can support the consumer journey with how-to guides and other relevant content through video or image and explanatory text, through a multi-channel approach. Based on user insights into previous experiences, we created a coherent digital solution that supports people who wear contact lenses. The solution is generic and non-branded, making it available to a wide variety of consumers and across countries.

Collectively, with the launch of the Wearlenses ecosystem, Alcon is seeing a ripple effect. Internal stakeholders are experiencing new strategic opportunities, ECPs can now offer tools to users to enable fulfilling the trial phase, and users are experiencing a more enriched journey—supported by digital initiatives as engagement flows. All of this is being interpreted as data for Alcon to analyse for further digital activation.

Our main objective is to gain higher retention and change consumer behaviour by supporting the contact lens wearers and Eye Care Professionals with customized tools to make the life with contact lenses more valuable. Collaborating with Valtech helped us create the strategy behind the Wearlenses ecosystem and specifically the App, which is one of the key elements of the program. It supports us in bridging the gap between us, the ECPs and the end user, and ultimately it helps us gather valuable data.
Damir Petrinic, Head of Digital at Alcon