Service professions are developing. Latest, home opticians. Jessica Poulain starts her independent activity and travels through the rural areas of the Somme. His company will soon receive the Solidarity Company of Social Utility label.
In the large black suitcase on wheels that she pulls behind her, Jessica Poulain takes a miniature shop with her everywhere. “You have a trial case with all the possible lenses in it. There you have a small equipment with screwdrivers, pliers“, she enumerates.
A more accessible service
Jessica Poulain is an independent home optician in the Somme. The young woman loved her job and the store she had in Normandy, but after 10 years, she wanted to change her life and devote more time to customers, in rural areas in particular. “I will help people with reduced mobility in order to provide them with a service that is currently underdeveloped. I give them the time they need, says Jessica. I go to them so they don’t have to call a relative to take them to the optician, or perhaps get the wheelchair out once they get to the optician. It’s a whole organization that is still quite complex and that takes time“.
This morning, she goes to the outskirts of Amiens, to Hébécourt at Christian Dubreucq. It is he who opens it. Jessica settles in the dining room. This retiree suffering from Parkinson’s disease sees only advantages in having the optician come to him. “It’s better than an impersonal city storeadmits Christian. And there is the advantage of not having displacement. And here in Hébécourt, there are no buses. I can’t take the car. And then parking in town, there is a cost. For us, it’s easier…“
Fewer constraints
At home, Jessica takes the time needed for her client. Especially since today, Christian must choose the frames of his new glasses from the hundred that she has brought. In store, the average time granted is 30 minutes. If Jessica isn’t in a hurry, it’s because she can afford it: “I have no premises so no rent, no electricity, no water. I only have my car so running costs are a little lower.”
Jessica already came to Christian’s a few weeks ago to the study of its correction. Once the glasses are received and installed on the chosen frame, she returns to adjust the glasses to Christian’s face. Social security coverage is the same as for store-bought glasses. “The primary goal is not to compete with existing opticians, defends the young woman. They have their clientele and I think there is room for everyone“.
The home optician service is expanding. And some stores also offer this service. It is especially in nursing homes and among teleworkers that demand is the strongest. Jessica, the independent, focuses on rural areas. It plans to cover the south of Amiens within a radius of 50 kilometers, Santerre and Hamois.
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