AI agents for opticians, built inside a real practice.

Crewley runs the back office of an independent practice: the phone, patient replies, lens orders and the lab, frame stock, recall and payments. Built inside Winstanley & Son in Liverpool, now opening to one practice per area.

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You keep your practice management software. Prescriptions, sight-test data and medical notes stay inside it and never leave. Crewley runs the operational layer only: messages, bookings, orders, recalls, reporting.

Illustrative example. Reception, dictated into Slack
A patient rang, her varifocals still not back from the lab, chase it and let her know.
Crewley
Order found and read back. Chase task created for a member of staff. I have not messaged the patient. Tap Confirm to send her the update, or Undo.
Voice receptionist, August 2026
91 calls answered in its first nine days. 96% positive sentiment. Every caller hears the recording notice, and the assistant never claims to be human.
7,700patients on the books at Winstanley & Son, the practice it was built in
25calls a day at peak, answered by the voice receptionist, every one summarised
24/7patient texts and WhatsApps answered and booked, any hour, no one woken up
1practice per area. Exclusivity six months at a time, renewing while a client

A working day with the agents on

  • 08:30
    Daily brief posts to SlackOpen tasks by priority, yesterday's calls and messages, anything stuck at the lab.
  • 09:12
    Phone answered while reception is with a patientCaller told the call is recorded. Summary card and an A-priority task appear in Slack.
  • 10:05
    Order dictated, read back, confirmedOne tap. Nothing created until the read-back is right.
  • 11:40
    Delivery note scannedMatched orders move to Ready. Patients can be told with one tap.
  • 13:00
    Complaints digestAnything that reads like a complaint becomes an A-priority task within the hour. Three digests a day.
  • 20:41
    Patient rebooks by text on a Sunday nightReal availability, real confirmation, no one woken up.

A working day at Winstanley & Son with the agents running. Times illustrative, behaviour real.

calls
C
Crewley voice 09:12 · 2 min 40 s
Call summary
CallerMr T, existing patientWantedTo know if his glasses are readyToldThe call is recorded, and that I'd pass it to the teamOutcomeNot answered on the call. Task created.
A · call back todayAssigned to reception
DoneReassign

Illustrative. Every answered call becomes a summary card and a task. The assistant does not guess at order status.

Patient · SMS · Sunday 20:41
Hi, I need to move my eye test on Tuesday, can't do mornings now
Hello, this is the automated assistant for the practice. I can see Tuesday 9:20 with the optometrist. The next afternoon slots are Wednesday 14:40 or Thursday 15:20. Which would you like?
Thursday please
Booked: Thursday 15:20. Your Tuesday appointment is cancelled. You'll get a confirmation text now and a reminder the day before.
Sent through the practice's own diary. No clinical detail is read or sent.

Illustrative. Replies are grounded in the diary, at any hour, and the status the patient is told is the real one.

Our AI didn't replace anyone. It's the reason we're hiring.

The practice was getting busier. Gavin Winstanley did not want to hire people to chase lab orders and fix lens pricing errors. He wanted every hire facing patients.

So the admin went to agents. With the chasing, the collections calls and the clinic confirmations handled in the background, he is more confident hiring, and every new hire is customer-facing.

A head office used to cost you your independence and a share of your profits. Crewley is the head office of agents. Ownership and profits stay 100% with the practice.

Who built it, and why

What the agents do

Every agent below runs today at Winstanley & Son. The full picture is on AI agents for opticians.

Answers the phoneSummary card and a task, every call
Tracks lab ordersRead-back, lab board, delivery notes
Tells patients glasses are readyOne tap when the order lands
Your practicePMS stays. Clinical records stay.Crewley runs around it, never inside it
Replies to patientsSMS and WhatsApp, bookings, any hour
Runs recallDaily batches by dial and text
Watches itselfFails loud, never silent

Six actions, one boundary. The box in the middle is what the agents never touch.

Answer the phone

A voice receptionist that says it is an AI, answers the questions it can, and hands over a summary card and a task for the ones it can't.

AI receptionist for opticians

Reply to patients

Grounded SMS and WhatsApp replies. Bookings, reschedules and cancellations, with a truthful status every time.

Appointment booking

Track lab orders

Staff dictate into Slack. The agent finds the order, reads it back, logs the chase for a person and moves the order when the delivery note lands.

Lab order tracking

Run recall

Overdue patients contacted by dial and SMS in controlled daily batches, with every reply routed to a person.

Patient recall

Collections

Patients told the moment their glasses are ready, reminded until they collect, and the balance taken by link on the way.

Spectacle collections

Watch itself

Every live agent has a watchdog. A lane that fails says so loudly and keeps going. One bad message never takes an agent offline.

How honest AI works here
reception
S
Staff 10:05
new order for Mrs H, varifocal, Essilor, frame from stock, priority B
C
Crewley 10:05
Read-back before I create anything:
PatientMrs HLensVarifocalSupplierEssilorFrameFrom stockPriorityB
ConfirmUndo

Illustrative. A dictated order is read back and nothing is created until a person taps Confirm.

documents
S
Staff 11:40
📎 delivery-note-scan.jpg
C
Crewley 11:40
Delivery note read. 3 lines matched to open orders by order number.
3 matched0 unmatched
Move all to ReadyReview
OrderSupplierStatus
Mrs H · varifocalEssilorBack from labNotify
Mr T · single visionNikonAt lab · day 6Chase
Miss R · contact lensesStockReadyNotify

Illustrative. A scanned delivery note moves matched orders on. The board answers "what's at the lab?" without anyone looking it up.

And the back office

The jobs that eat a practice manager's week. Lenses, lab, stock, frames, credits and money.

Orders your lensesBuilds the lens order from the order sheet for Essilor, Nikon and your other suppliers, ready for one press to send.
Runs the in-store labA live board of every glazing job: what is in, who is on it, what is due today, what is waiting on a frame or a lens.
Checks lens stockKnows what stock lenses you have on the shelf, so a stock job is picked before a lab order is raised.
Tells you what stock to keep inReads what you actually dispense and recommends the stock lens ranges and powers worth holding, and the ones you can stop stocking.
Analyses frame salesWhat sells, by brand, range and price point, and what does not.
Shelf time and reordersHow long every frame has been on the shelf, what is moving quickly, what to reorder now, and when to order more to save postage or hit carriage paid.
Time at labDays at the lab for every order, with a chase raised for a person the moment an order goes past its threshold.
Non-tolerance, remakes and warrantiesEvery non-tol, remake, warranty claim and lens or frame return tracked to the credit note, so nothing is written off by accident.
Time to collectHow long each patient takes to pick up after being told their glasses are ready, with reminders until they do.
Sends payment linksA payment link by text or email for deposits, balances and repairs, taken without anyone standing at the till.
Creates payment plansSets up monthly plans and subscriptions for contact lenses, eye-care plans and spread payments.
Tracks subscriptionsWatches every plan for a failed or missed payment and raises it for a person before the next lenses go out.

Lens ordering and the lab · Stock and frame analysis · Payment links and plans

Honest AI

Crewley doesn't sell "AI answers your phone". It sells "AI protects human conversations". No undisclosed AI calls, ever. The agents would rather say "I'm not sure" than guess, and nothing is booked or sent until a person taps Confirm.

We publish our failures as well as our numbers.

Read the Honest AI position

Your records stay yours

Clients keep their existing practice management software. Clinical records never leave it. Crewley runs the operational layer: operations, growth and the patient journey.

How a build works

Your practice management softwarePrescriptions · sight-test data · medical notes · clinical history
  • Stays exactly where it is
  • Never copied out, never trained on
diary availability and order status only →
Crewley · the operational layer
  • Voice receptionist and call summaries
  • Patient SMS and WhatsApp replies, bookings
  • Orders, lab tracking, delivery notes
  • Recall queue and reactivation
  • Daily brief and complaints digest

The boundary, drawn. Clinical records on the left never cross to the right.

How it works

1Read the case studyWhat runs, what broke, what was fixed.
2Free auditRecall flags, response times, ad account. Yours to keep.
3Demo on the live estateNot a slide deck. Try to catch it out.
4Priced buildOn your existing systems. One practice per area.
5RunWatched, reported, improved in batches.

The audit is free and there is no obligation. If the number is small we will tell you that too. Pricing and exclusivity terms.

Questions practice owners ask

Does Crewley replace my practice management software?

No. You keep it. Crewley runs alongside it and handles messages, bookings, orders, recalls and reporting. Prescriptions, sight-test data and medical notes stay where they are.

Will patients know they are talking to an AI?

Yes, every time. The voice receptionist says it is an AI. There are no undisclosed AI calls.

What happens when the AI is not sure?

It says so and hands the conversation to a person with a summary. It does not guess, and it does not book or send anything without a person confirming.

Can my competitor down the road buy it too?

No. One practice per area, with exclusivity guaranteed six months at a time and renewing while you are a client.

What do I have to change to run it?

Nothing in your practice management software, and nothing to migrate. Crewley is built around your existing systems by us, not by you. Your side is access, a short briefing on how the practice works, and a one-page guide for staff on what they can ask it to do.

Who runs it after the build?

Crewley does, and the person doing it owns an opticians and answers its phone. The same estate runs Winstanley & Son every day.

Find out how many patients your practice is missing. The audit is free and the number is yours to keep.

Book a free recall and response audit