(L-R) Chad Wolenhaupt, Adam Rosengren and Harlan Hankins, Jr., founded All About Eyes in 2005.

NORMAL, Ill.—Celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, HW Holdings, LLC, dba All About Eyes, has grown to 21 retail optical locations and ranked at number 33 among this year’s Vision Monday Top 50 U.S. Optical Retailers with revenues of $25.5 million for calendar year 2014.

Founded by three individuals who previously worked for another well-known national retail optical chain, All About Eyes was launched April 5, 2005, with a lot of “sweat equity” and a desire to “take the commercial setting and infuse the things that were missing, a high level of customer service and high quality,” according to vice president Adam Rosengren. He founded the company along with president Harlan Hankins, Jr., and chief executive officer Chad Wolenhaupt.

Celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, All About Eyes
has plans to grow beyond Indiana and Illinois.

The company got off the ground with a lot of personal involvement by its founders, something Rosengren described as “internal sweat equity. We kept the pedal to the floor and did it all ourselves,” he said. “We did all our own internal construction. Harlan scouted them out, Chad acted as our general contractor, and I opened them up,” said Rosengren, explaining that this was the process they followed for the company’s first 18 All About Eyes locations.

After each location was opened, customer service then became a high priority. One way they achieve this on an ongoing basis is by “staying as connected as possible to each patient,” Rosengren told dba. This is achieved in part through the use of Solutionreach patient engagement software. “We use all the engagement tools, and we post our personal cell phone numbers on every receipt, on the web site, and on the front door of every store, instructing patients to call if they are not satisfied,” he said.

While they don’t receive many calls, they do get “maybe one call every couple of weeks,” Rosengren said, further explaining that those who call are “usually the people you can’t make happy no matter what.” However, this keeps management and staff on their toes ensuring that they are at least attempting to provide the best customer service possible. “By striving to make that difficult patient completely satisfied then every other patient will love us,” Rosengren added.

Email surveys also help management determine the level of customer service that’s being provided. Any surveys in which patients indicate that service was average, below average or poor sends an email directly to Rosengren. “This makes the opticians want to do a great job,” he explained.

This also serves as one of the many teaching tools the company uses to educate its staff opticians. “I write a narrative of what went wrong, how I resolved it, and what I would have done differently to handle it,” said Rosengren. “We share that with everyone so they can learn for future reference.”

Also, although opticians are not required to be licensed in Illinois and Indiana, the company provides those on staff with the ABO certification training material to help improve their competency. Having opticians educated at that level helps further set the company apart. The company’s optometrists, who either lease space or are 1099 employees, operate more independently.

In addition, HW Holdings also operates its own optical surfacing and finishing lab, which serves both as an in-house lab for its All About Eyes locations and also as a wholesale lab for other retailers. All of the surfacing equipment is from Satisloh, and the finishing equipment is from MEI. “If it can be produced, we can produce it,” Rosengren said about the equipment’s digital surfacing and high wrap finishing capabilities.

Having firmly established itself in Indiana and Illinois, the company is looking toward further growth, both within those states and beyond into other nearby states, Rosengren told dba. “We plan on opening one to two locations next year and then two to four locations every year after,” he said.