KTBS.com – Shreveport, LA News, Weather and Sports
Customer dis-service? Angry confrontation may be sign of a trend
http://www.ktbs.com/story/26163525/customer-dis-service-angry-confrontation-may-be-sign-of-a-trend
From the article:
If a store overcharged you a lot of money, you’d probably want them to straighten that out promptly and courteously. But it was anything but that for Bob Morrison when he went back to the checkout at a Shreveport CVS drug store. And he got it on cell phone video.
That video shows a pharmacist who puts the “dis” is disservice.
“Fifteen minutes of hell,” is how Morrison describes his return trip to the CVS on Pines at 70th.
Morrison’s prescription had been processed incorrectly and he was overcharged $100. He says he didn’t realize that until he got home and checked his insurance policy. After an out of town business trip, he went back to the store five days later on July 20. And he found a pharmacist who was none too happy to correct the problem. The woman appeared ready to deny a refund, claiming there was a store policy that the prescription had to be returned within seven days. Morrison brought it to her attention that he was there inside that time period. That’s when it got heated.
Filed under: General Problems
Sure… everyone has a “one touch auto record” on their phone…
I actually had a conversation with Mr. Morrison. He said that he first had a conversation with a somewhat defensive tech, who was not able to help him and she suggested that he wait for the pharmacist to return from break, which he was happy to do. He sat and waited for 10 minutes or so and played games on his phone to pass the time. He doesn’t know what was shared with the pharmacist in the meantime but when the Rph came out SHE approached the counter with a very offensive stance and started out with a confrontational tone. He had his phone in his hand and has one touch auto record which he accessed when things started to get loud. What he posted IS the entire video. He maintains that he did NOT approach the situation with the intention to have a conflict. He knew it was a mistake and was confident that it would be handled diplomatically. He was shocked at how quickly both the tech and the pharmacist jumped into attack mode.
POST the ENTIRE video, start to finish, then we can decide what is really going on. This recording was obviously started before what is show here and on Facebook.
Maybe you’re right, Bob. Maybe you were treated unprofessionally from the very beginning. But so far you’ve only shown us what YOU want us to see. Post the entire video from when you started recording to prove your point. Let the viewer decide.
Put up or shut up.
People don’t act that way without provocation. Not a chance.
Why is ok in our society for a customer to behave any way they want, including yelling, screaming, swearing, threatening, etc., but the moment an employee says anything in defense THEN it is unprofessional behavior?
Smile, you could at any time be on camera. Remember that whether you are a pharmacist, politician or a choke holding police officer. We know not when, where or why we may be recorded. It is a fact of life that you may be recorded any time or any place. This is the digital world. Get used to it.
Now the real question I have is how was the prescription incorrectly processed? I suspect it was something to do with a manufacturer’s prescription discount card. These cards can be tricky to input, have exclusions that they should not be combined with any Federal, State or other government funded insurance programs, and are just really challenging especially with the extremely low staffing levels in retail pharmacy.
The cards are extremely labor intensive and fraught with potential insurance fraud liability and customer complaints. The time and effort it takes to process these cards makes them a detriment to the safe practice of pharmacy in my opinion.
I would Have been happy to reprocess the prescription for the patient and issue a refund, though I don’t understand what error in processing they made that would result in a $100 overcharge. However, if I realized the patient was recording me, I would tell them they would need to stop recording or leave, end of discussion. I would not let the encounter spiral out of control, it never is a good idea to lose control with a patient. Without seeing the whole encounter, who knows what really happened.
So it is okay for your employer to video the interaction, but not the customer? A recent Supreme Court ruling .. ruled against cops stopping citizens from video them while doing their job. IMO.. anyone who is against being videoed on the job.. is probably afraid that they will be caught not doing their job well.. Otherwise, what are they concerned about ?
Well Steve, I disagree with you for a number of reasons. First and it is a issue you have taken the chains to task for numerous times is possibility of a Hipaa violation. While in this video the quality is poor, my cell phone is capable of taking much higher quality video, depending upon the angle of the camera, a photo from the pickup window could see someone in the consultation window, my pharmacy is an older angular design. Secondly, I am not a public servant. My salary is paid for by a corporation, not through tax dollars. The building I practice in is private property. There is a sign next to the front door stating clearly that videotaping on the premises is not allowed. Thirdly, I would never videotape someone without their express approval, it is rude and if you need me to explain why that is, I’m at a loss. Lastly for you to imply that I am anything other than a competent, conscientious Pharmacist, since I don’t wish to be videotaped, is astonishing. I’ve been reading your blog for over a year now and I find we disagree on many things, this will be just be another.
Another question is if it was processed thru his insurance online what was the error that resulted in it charging him 100.00 over what he was supposed to pay? This is why people need tp stay OFF their dang phones at the counter. Everytime im picking up scripts im watching the register screen and stop them if I a price im not sure about. On the other hand he probably started recording because she took offense to him asking her to fix her mistake…..iv worked with her type before…chip on the shoulder
I’d like to give my two cents worth on this.
First a question: When someone goes to get a refund, why the need to videotape it? People don’t video tape their entire lives. People videotape for a purpose. Was the man expecting trouble when he decided to go in while videotaping? Was he looking for trouble and expected to get trouble back?
From the point the video STARTS it appears very clear to me that the pharmacist was quite agitated. But we don’t have video that actually goes from start to finish. We only have video from what is posted by the man which shows an agitated pharmacist. Why is she so agitated? We really don’t get to see what set her off. No one flies off the handle without out being poked. I’d like to see what happened, start to finish, not from where this video begins.
Maybe this man’s encounter from the moment he stepped up to the pharmacy until he left was wrong in every way. We’re not seeing that, however. We’re only seeing what he has selectively shown us. Until I can actually see what happened, START to FINISH, I smell something fishy.
I’ve been in too many situations myself where customers blatantly lie about what happened at the pharmacy. I’ve met with regional pharmacy managers and signed warning letters over trumped up lies by customers wishing to get even simply because I wouldn’t give in to their pharmacy demands. In the corporate world you’re considered guilty simply by getting a complaint.
There is no doubt that customer service may be suffering everywhere, but this selective segment of video shows me a frustrated pharmacist. God only knows what put her in that condition. Let’s say for a moment that the man said things which set her off in this situation. No, she should not have acted the way she did, HOWEVER, you can certainly look at it from a different point of view if that was the case.
I agree with Crazy RxMan I had the same concerns about this video.
There had to be some reason for the pharmacist to be so upset and we are not being shown what that was.
Nobody had a need to videotape the conversation; the need was to expose a blatantly unprofessional behavior to others. The only thing fishy here is why anyone would defend her actions.
Geez. Who did you know what in her Wheaties that morning
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