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A Special Report:
Find Out What Pharmacists And Customers Are Telling You.

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Any customer service training I have had has strictly come on the job—I have been lucky to work with some really good people who took me under their wing.”

That is what one member of a live panel of retail pharmacists had to say about the lack of committed customer service training for pharmacists and pharmacy staff. Without exception, every member of the panel said they wanted to see more training about how to deal
with customers.

Another panelist noted that, somewhat ironically, the supermarket in which she works recently added a Starbucks, and anyone in the store who wanted to work in the new kiosk had to
participate in a mandatory 10-day barista training course that included intense customer service training.

“They had to be there for every one of the 10 days for three hours a day, or they weren’t eligible to work behind the Starbucks counter,” she said of the training that included in-depth customer role-play exercises. “Training [was] not just on how to make a latte, but also on how to handle the customer service aspect of the job. We don’t get any of that.

“We just have people who take us in the corner and say, ‘Hey, you were kind of rude to that customer—be nicer next time.’ And then that person is gone two or three weeks later, and when that customer [who was treated rudely the last time] comes back to your store, there’s a whole new person behind the counter and it happens all over again.

” While it’s no substitute for a dedicated customer service training program, this kind of mentoring process, either formal or informal, helps set the tone for customer service at the pharmacy counter. “It starts with the pharmacist,” one panelist said. “And it gets passed on to the tech.”

“I have worked with numerous techs who have no idea about customer service—many of them actually talk back to the customer. They’ll get a nasty look on their face, roll their eyes; customers come up to the counter and [the techs] pretend like they’re too busy to help them … that’s all basic stuff you would never see at, say, a Starbucks,” she said. Indeed, several panelists pointed to the world’s leading coffee purveyor as the model for how to perform
customer service.

“That bad attitude can get passed on to the entire staff,” she continued, offering a chilling reminder of what a lack of customer service training can mean for a pharmacy operation. “You become a staff of pharmacists and techs [who] are actually working against the patient. Instead of a collaborative relationship between the patient and the pharmacy, it’s really an adversarial relationship.”

In general, pharmacists say they want continuing education—live and written—customer role-play scenarios and other interactive learning to help bridge the gap in their customer service knowledge. More than 68 percent of pharmacists say they want more communication skills training, according to a recent online poll.

“We have CDs that teach us how to fill prescriptions as part of our regular training program—I would love to see a CD on how to deal with customers,” she said.

“We have to go out there and try to find that kind of stuff on our own,” another pharmacist noted.