Quality customer service is crucial to the success of pharmacy business. Indeed, how a company manages the customer experience can prove to be the difference between growth or a rut.
Pharmacy leaders that prioritize pharmacy customer service (or as we like to call it, customer centricity) and take action to improve customer experiences set their organizations apart from the competition.
Here, we’re going to explore a few ways that professionals in the pharmacy industry can build a more customer-centric pharmacy business. And maybe grow some profitability while they’re at it. Check it out below!
Optimize Services
How many of your customers come in just to get a prescription filled? Ideally, you want pharmacy customers to consume as many of the products and services you offer as possible. The more they can get out of their relationship with you, the more loyal they’ll be.
Communicate the services you offer and help customers take advantage of them. This can be anything from vaccines to medication synchronization or point-of-care testing. Create signage, send emails, print reminders on receipts and train staff so they are familiar with the services you offer. Additionally, use whatever tools you can to help make customers consume more crazy-easy. One great example of this is counselling on prescription induced nutrient depletion. When a customer picks up a prescription that could cause depletion of certain nutrients, recommend a supplement to alleviate issues caused by nutrient depletion.
With the right pharmacy point-of-sale system you can use an interface like the one we have with TRC Healthcare. The interface automatically identifies recommended supplements based on drug induced nutrient depletion. The recommendation will pop up at the till for real time counselling on nutrient depletion and associated recommendations.
Click here to watch a panel discussion on clinical services for some great ideas for your pharmacy!
Pay attention to your front end – no matter what the size.
Much like services, you want customers to take advantage of your front end. Whether you have a small selection of OTC’s or a front end complete with gifts, snacks and household necessities, the front end can generate significant revenue for your pharmacy.
In order to maximize front-end shopping frequency, pharmacies need to streamline and optimize their ordering and inventory management processes. The good news is that you can automate key processes and cut down on ordering costs, guarantee fully-stocked shelves, and boost overall ROI for front-end transactions. Additionally, tools synced with the pharmacy point-of-sale system can updated prices quickly and accurately and help identify issues like shrinkage.
Watch RMS’ series on Inventory Management to learn important strategies and how RMS customers can use point-of-sale based tools for success.
Click here to watch!
Be convenience-minded.
The biggest threat to pharmacy front end isn’t the box pharmacies. It’s actually grocery stores. Because after all, what’s more convenient than picking up your OTC necessities while you shop for the weeks groceries?
Your services and expertise certainly play a role, but you also want to make shopping with your pharmacy as easy as possible. The less friction that occurs in the sales process, the easier it will be for a pharmacy to deliver a positive, customer-centric experience. A such, any steps that pharmacy business leaders can take to make their products and services more accessible is massively beneficial. Consider services like drive-thru, curbside and home delivery. Or meds-to-beds for outpatient pharmacies.
You can also use Pointy from Google to help customers find your pharmacy and the products you carry and consider eCommerce solutions to sell products online.
Keep learning about customer-centricity.
Running a customer-centric pharmacy business is an ongoing journey. One that never really ends if you want to continue to succeed. One of the best ways to build your customer-centricity is to learn from other pharmacies and pharmacy industry experts. Which is exactly what we do every month during our CLIMB webinar series. You can register to attend these monthly broadcasts and learn from some of the pharmacy industries very best as they discuss ways to build more customer-centric and profitable pharmacies through the tenets of care, leadership, innovation, motivation, and balance. Annual membership for the CLIMB webinar series is $199 but blog readers can register for free by clicking here!
