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This showed up in my email.. appears to be from one of the chains…
They are now training employees’ “behaviors”.. you know a few years ago.. I was at a animal show birds – dogs ..etc ..and I remember that the trainer stated that the animals didn’t do “tricks” they were trained to perform certain “behaviors”…but.. I digress …
I love this this quote from this “.. Accountability for the perception of our customers takes a mature mind set and ownership to that mindset is the first step to improvement.. “That wasn’t how it went”… is not the right answer… “.. it doesn’t matter what we think, what matters is what the CUSTOMER thinks.
We have all seen how the civility of our society is generally on a downhill slide… it would seem that the philosophy of the “customer is always right ..” is alive and well in this company.
I can think of several scenarios where absolutely applying this philosophy is not going to work…
* Pt: I have no deductible… I have never had a deductible… you must be wrong… I’m not going to pay no stinking deductible.
* Pt: I have never had a $20 copay.. it has always been $5… you need to make my copay $5
* Pt: The doctor said that I need this medication.. what do you mean that the insurance won’t pay for it.. my doctor ordered it.. I need it.. and I only pay $5 for my Rxs.. I don’t think that you know what you are doing…
So the CUSTOMER THINKS (perceives) that you are a IDIOT ! How do you change the pt/customer’s perception? Remember.. the company spells SUCCE$$$… as a practical matter.. I don’t think that you can’t have SUCCE$$$ if you cave to the pt’s monetary demands.. I may be wrong… but .. I have only had 6 hrs of economics, 3 hrs of accounting and ran my own business for 20 yrs.. I know, that is no where near having a MBA.. and my management skills may be kind of rusty since my first retirement was at age 49.. 16 + yrs ago… and I never paid a single fine for fraud/abuse while admitting no wrong doing… but I digress..
I have also heard that this same company was offering pt/customers a $4 gift card if they would give over their email address… It is amazing what people will do for basically a GALLON OF GAS..
Word on the street is that the chain took these emails and sent out surveys … “how are we doing..” and one store got 50 NEGATIVE COMMENTS… and many districts, the majority of the stores are now labeled as “challenged”… which is in “chain talk” … means that all the staff have a target on their back… and the stores are no where near “meeting their metrics”.. something like being put in “chain store hell”… careful what you ask for…. but I digress….
As a reminder, you RPH’s working for these chains,, especially the PIC.. you are the ONLY ONE who is held by the BOP for the legal operation of the Rx dept.. the same BOP.. that granted you your license and has the ability to take it away… for failing to live up to your legal requirements… I’m just saying..
Filed under: General Problems
What we really need to do is exactly what these people want us to do, what they expect. You never pay more then $6.60 for an Rx? Ok… Your Zyvox ( linezolid) Rx that is $2,000 for a copay, AFTER the insurance pays… If that is what the PDM wants, then do it, but document the email, and the copay…. When they fire you for any reason, especially “store not profitable”, sue them like crazy….
Steve, the first thing we need is ‘accountability’! Yes, we pharmacists need accountability. The accountability is addressed toward corporate. We need to know who is accountable for the crap that comes down to us. From the wording in that email, you would think the person that wrote it has a PhD in psychology. So, are these idiot chains hiring PhD’s in psychology, philosophy, and of course accounting? It seems evident that they don’t have ‘real world pharmacists’ at corporate. That email is exactly the kind of stuff that makes me furious at these chains. We have NUTS trying to tell us what to think and how to behave. Can you imagine that we pharmacists are to held accountable for what customers perceive? Does this apply to the guy with a Portable prescription that uses multiple docs and multiple pharmacies? Like you, I can think of dozens of scenarios where there is no way to change a customers perception. And, our work is increasingly moving toward a hostile environment because all civility seems to be breaking down in our society. I guess the chains will start blaming us for the break down of civility in our society.
We have got to do something about this! This sort of crap just makes me furious! Just how much longer can pharmacists take this sort of BS? I tell you this….these chains have lost any sense of logic and have gone completely nuts. Here we are working for NUTS! Here we are having to tolerate this sort of nutty stuff.
The email from the customer talking about Matthew being such a nice pharmacist and how he saved her money….gee give me a break. Since when did it become OUR job to save customers money? I am serious. Here we are, highly educated people, and our job is not to get prescriptions filled and counsel, but to ‘save people money’. Sorry, Mr. Corporate Bozo, I am not in the charity business. It is not my mission in life to save people money. I never went to college to spend most of my time saving people money. Do the colleges need to change their pharmacy curriculum? Should Pharmacy 101 be about how to save customers money. Oh..while we are at it…lets have Pharmacy 102 about ‘how to change customers perception’. Have you ever thought about all the ‘psychology’ these chains try to force on employees? You are suppose to always be smiling…Mr/Mrs/Miss Wonderful. Hey…if you are having a bad day…you are still suppose to be smiling. I think that the chains should only pick employees that will undergo plastic surgery where a permanent smile is made into the face. That is it…everyone in the pharmacy should have smiles permanently stamped into their faces. Imagine that? Just picture a pharmacy like that. It would look ‘retarded’, just like all these ideas from corporate. Do yo think some of these folks at corporate are ‘retarded’? I think the one in that email is retarded!
Don’t know about the rest of the chains, but in my chain you never know who is the origin of this crap. If you try to track down the person it is impossible. They will say that decisions are made by committee. OK…committee or no committee some idiot had to come up with the idea.