Zitka and Dano: We're raising eyewear lovers
Five years have passed since the early plans for an optician's that took shape in the Grigar family living room. What does ZITA look like today, and where are we headed? Our founders – Zitka and Dano – have the answers.
1. August 2022, Author: Paula Blahová, Photo: Jakub Čaprnka
This year we're celebrating ZITA's 5th anniversary! How do you two, who stood at the very beginning, feel about that?
Zita: I see that people are happy with us, and that brings me enormous joy. Over these years we've really moved forward – with taste, with the team, and with service. Customers who've been with us from the start now have their second, third pair of glasses from us. It's great to see them moving forward alongside us!
Dano: It flew by incredibly fast! I rarely think back to the past, I'm more looking ahead and comparing ourselves with who we could be in the future. I remember people predicting at the beginning that we wouldn't make it as a company and would fold very quickly. Five years later we're still here and not going anywhere.
Zita: Our big strength is the quality of our service, which we never compromise on. People are still delighted by it today. Though I've been telling them from the start that there's nothing exceptional about our approach – it's just how it should be everywhere.
Where have we moved with our selection over the years? Have our customers moved with us too?
Zita: Five years ago we had much more ordinary frames compared to today. When we opened ZITA, square metal glasses still ruled the Slovak market. But even back then we brought round, oval frames. We always wanted to push people forward at least a little. To listen carefully to their needs and try a frame with them that they wouldn't reach for at first glance.
I still remember when we went to our first optical trade fair in Paris. We stood in line for the coat check and all around us were people wearing really beautiful designer frames. And we hadn't even stepped inside yet. We always come back from trade fairs bolder.
Dano: At the same time, product quality is also very important to us. The frame has to be made of durable material and it has to be easy for all our colleagues to work with. At the beginning we had 10 brands, today it's over 30. Our customers trust that if they come back after a few years, they'll always find something new. And that's true not just for products but also for equipment and the team.
Zita: Awareness about vision in society is low. And yet it's so important! During examinations we always try to explain to people what we're doing and why they need exactly this correction. They don't have to be experts, but they leave with the knowledge that they understand their eyes better. And they usually come back.
At the beginning you could count everyone at the optician's on one hand. We're still one big family, but now from different backgrounds and with different experiences. Are we growing as people too?
Dano: I like the idea that we founded a company where our employees actually look forward to coming. They're not bound by a manual they have to follow when working at ZITA. Everyone brings something different to our optician's character. We deliberately create an environment where we influence each other and share opinions. I wasn't born a leader myself. This position requires a certain amount of empathy, but also expertise. I'm also learning from my team every day.
Zita: For me, the people I spend almost every day with are almost like family. People often ask me if the optician's is named after me. ZITA isn't just me. It's all of us. I know I could confidently entrust any of my friends to any of our colleagues and they'd be brilliantly taken care of.
Where is the optical field heading in Slovakia? And what about the new generation of opticians?
Dano: To ruin. There's a shortage of people today in almost every craft or professional field. In Slovakia we don't have a single university that would focus on optics or optometry. There are two secondary schools, but optics doesn't have "sexy" PR, so it's rarely a young person's first choice. About 40 people graduate from these schools annually, and roughly ¾ of them go on to work in a completely different field. At ZITA we're trying to change what we can reach. In recent years our team members have started teaching at the school, and we'll see where that takes us.
Zita: In the Czech Republic, for example, you can feel they're much more proud of optics. The awareness comes from a long tradition – unlike Slovakia, eyewear frames were manufactured in the Czech Republic. Here optics has almost no prestige.
Dano: Which is an enormous shame. I don't know another field where such different disciplines intertwine – product design and manual craft with medicine and physics. All these different factors must inevitably come together at the end for things to work. That's the only way to create a functional and beautiful product.
Service and the experience of it has always been paramount for you. Is it possible to keep delivering it with so many customers?
Dano: Right from the start we decided we're not willing to compromise on quality. We introduced appointments for safety reasons during corona, but we found that this way of working suits us. Customers appreciate that we're here primarily for them. If we cancelled appointments, we could serve people, but everyone would get 5 minutes of our time. The quality of our service would drop.
Zita: It's true that people have to wait for their appointment. But we see the sense in it, and so does the customer after they spend their 90 minutes with us.
What are you looking forward to in the future?
Dano: Interest in ZITA today is greater than our one optician's can handle. So we're planning a second Bratislava location. With it will come new people I'm already very much looking forward to. We're building a community of people who enjoy working together and who bring their own perspective to ZITA. I believe that love for honest service is contagious and we can inspire more and more people for the field.
Zita: We're raising eyewear lovers. I'm excited that we'll grow! At the same time, I'd like to show students and graduates that working in optics makes sense. We still have many challenges ahead of us.
