Specsavers

If you need a new pair of glasses or two… come to this place! I was shopping around for the most affordable pair of glasses and Specsaver was the place I decided to purchase some new ones because of their affordable prices and various offers. Since I alway wear glasses, I try to switch up the design and colour. This place has many different types of glasses that fits the shape of your face, style, and personally preferences. Most importantly they have different price ranges. You can get frames from £25 to £100+. The majority of their frames fall under £69 and the designer glasses starts around 80+. Mind you, the type of lens you want also changes the price and the add ons.
The staff here are AMAZING and friendly. They know their stuff, and I have to give a shout out to Samantha who helped me cause she was awesome! She took the time to make sure I was happy with the glasses I selected. I always have a hard time finding good fitting frames cause of my petite face, but she was happy to show me different types and even looked into the hidden stash they have in the storage to see if others fit better.
Another good thing about this place is the quick turn around for the glasses. Usually it can take 10 – 14 days to get glasses with proper prescription, but I got it in 5 days! The staff that helped me when I picked up my glasses were equally as nice and helpful. She made sure the frames fit and since it was a bit lose, she used her magic to make sure it fit me perfectly.
I only bought my glasses here since I had my prescription, but you can also get your eye sight and hearing test in this location.

Ok is about the best way to describe this place. It’s a busy branch and quite near lots of hotels/​visitor attractions so it always seem to have someone in that’s forgotten contact solution, contacts or broken glasses. It can be frustrating when you just want to pick up contact lenses but as it’s close to my office I put up with it.
The staff are generally friendly and welcoming and will deal with the que as quickly as they can. The opticians are fine and fairly standard when it comes to giving you eye tests. They have a good range of frames in store to try on and they can order in most contacts within 2 – 3 days. They do text you when your order arrives in store which saves a trip when they are later than expected.
They usually have optician appointments available if you can go anytime but the Thursday late night appointments book up three or four weeks in advance.

On holiday in the UK late March, we stayed at the Scotsman hotel across the street. DD broke her eyeglasses, and we couldn’t ask her to trudge through Edinburgh in a blurry, myopic haze. We stopped in, explaining our predicament. We were wondering if they could have a pair of spectacles made up by the end of the day (the Saturday before Easter, mind you.) The staff were unfailingly helpful and polite throughout.
Since we’re not UK residents, we weren’t eligible for the National Health voucher, so we spent the roughly $ 30 for a walk-​in eye exam, which is roughly what you’d spend here in the States anyway. BTW – excellent eye exam, and we used the prescription for a cheap pair of replacement glasses a few weeks later.
My daughter quickly found stylish frames that she fell in love with from among their selection, around $ 100 – very reasonable again by US standards. However, for her prescription, they didn’t have her lenses in stock – so much for lenses the same day. Or so we thought. At this point the manager stepped in, rung around to several of the other stores in the city, and determined that they had the lenses at one of the other locations. He convinced them to make them up for him, at which point he would personally drive over and pick the finished product up. Moreover, he took our mobile down and told us he’d ring when they were ready. We were in a state of disbelief at how willing they were to bend over backwards and help us in our (admittedly not major) distress.
We were walking down Prince Street a few hours later when he called to tell us they were ready. After some lunch we strolled over and 5 minutes of adjustments later and my daughter was over the moon with excitement at her new specs, for which she received several compliments already from her friends. Altogether, a $ 130 outlay for exam and glasses, with DD’s glasses ready in about 6 hours. A really excellent piece of business given the circumstances.
The helpfulness, timeliness, selection and price offered at this location was second to none in our experience.

As far as ‘service provider’ places go, I’m normally very middle of the road. Partly as I don’t expect anything above and beyond the ordinary. Unfortunately, this particular branch of Specsavers has consistently provided me with disappointing, frustrating and occasionaly laughably infuriarting experiences that has led to me consider switching opticians (which is a hassle in itself).
I wear contacts every day. I also need glasses. I’ve been with Specsavers since I was 17, from Perth to Glasgow and now Edinburgh. This being my closest branch I go here for the contact lense top-​ups.
First visit, when I first moved to Edinburgh They had to call up the branch in Glasgow to get my prescription, but the phone lines were dead. It took half an hour to work this out. I’m a patient person and know these things happen. I returned the following day and got the prescription transferred but it was a bit of a hassle.
Second visit, when I went in asking to get a top-​up, they asked for my name. After they pulled out «my» record they first of all said my contacts had to be ordered in specially. No, they don’t. They really don’t. Also, my contact lense check was out of date. Um, no it isn’t, it really isn’t. Are you sure you have the right file? After 10 minutes of back and forth it turns out they HAD pulled out the wrong file. I was getting quite frustrated by this point as I know my eyes are ‘normal’ and don’t require special lenses, and patiently explained I definitely had had a test recently (they charge £30 a pop for that). The staff weren’t apologetic, but I felt more as though they were laughing at my frustration.
Third visit, just this week. They’re out of stock of my lenses. Ummmm ok (that’s never happened before.) By the looks of the shelf they were out of a lot of stock. I was told they could order more in for me — perfect. But as I went to leave the sales assistant said «oh but you need to pay now» with a tone of ‘well duh” despite that he hadn’t implied this at first. I asked ‘are you not just getting in a large order soon?” and he, again in the same tone, said that these would be put aside for me. I had no problem with paying in advance (I pay either way). It was his attitude of acting like I was dumb for not realising this, and also expecting me to just *know* this.
So currently I am contact-​lense-​less and a bit pee’d off. This branch has had three strikes and I’m just about out. Every time I’ve been in something has gone wrong, and it’s not been dealt with well. I’m patient, I understand nothing is perfect all the time, but it’s a matter of how you deal or handle the less-​than-​perfect situations. In this instance, this branch has dealt with it badly every time. I’ll be picking up my contacts when they come in then consider looking elsewhere.