Smartphones are becoming more popular as more people are becoming smartphone dependent, which is why it is incredibly important that your pharmacy is smartphone compatible. What do I mean by smartphone compatible, you may wonder?

Smartphones aren’t just for calling and texting, people are using it for other reasons like surfing the internet, playing games, getting directions and shopping. Smartphones and mobile devices, generally, are the newspapers for the modern era, serving as the primary conduit for in-store retail deals, coupons and savings. According to the Pew Research Center’s study on Mobile Technology, 64% of American adults own a smartphone and that percentage is only going to increase. Majority of users are people within the millennial generation and research shows that 85% of millennial parents use their mobile devices for in-store shopping specifically, dads use their devices to check reviews, and moms are searching for deals. How can you make sure your pharmacy is smart phone compatible?

I’m a bit obsessed with retail customer service. Few things can make or break a shopping experience like the courtesy and care you receive from a store employee. I’m also fascinated by factors that keep the front-line retail employee motivated and engaged to continually provide excellent service. There’s a lot of good stuff out there on the topic (a Google search of “how to keep retail employees motivated” produces 19,600,000 results!), much of it complex, because, well, people are complex. Yet there’s a simple approach we can all employ that I have no doubt will produce overwhelmingly positive results across all retail establishments.

If we want great customer service, we need to start by being great customers.

The quickest, easiest thing we can all do to raise the collective quality of customer service in retail is to recognize great service immediately when we receive it. The person you praise one day will be shopping in your store the next. I'm not talking about an online survey to be filled out later, which is still important. I'm talking real-time, face-to-face, when commending a person matters most and can have the most impact.

According to the Institute of Medicine-Committee on Quality of Health Care in America, the definition of Patient-Centered Care (PCC) is “Healthcare that establishes a partnership among practitioners, patients, and their families (when appropriate) to ensure that decisions respect patients' wants, needs, and preferences and that patients have the education and support they need to make decisions and participate in their own care.”

Today, the concepts of patient-centered care, customer experience, and personalization have finally been linked together and collectively define the heart and mission of today’s pharmacy practice. This specific focus on the patient/customer experience is becoming a growing trend we are seeing across retail chains and independent pharmacies alike. Everyone is striving to figure out how they can better focus on the patients’ unique needs, how to ensure a more delightful customer experience, and how to promote a more personal touch at the pharmacy counter that will engage patients, encourage medication adherence, and inspire customer loyalty.

Seems like everyone in pharmacy retail is on a mission to provide their customers with the best shopping experience possible. As it should be. You don’t earn loyalty these days simply by satisfying your customers. Taking it to the next level with one-to-one engagement, surprise, delight, and a unique experience are where today’s shoppers are won (and lost). With innovative products, unique store layouts, expansive in-stock selection, personalized deals, in-store clinics, etc., retail pharmacy is clearly taking the customer experience seriously.

What we don’t often hear about though is the employee experience and just how important that can be to the long-term viability of your customer focused strategy. The best laid plans to surprise and delight customers will be quickly laid to waste by unmotivated, disengaged, and possibly even, vindictive staff. Equally, people who love their job and the company they work for can’t help but show it. These folks can cover up more than a few blemishes as you perfect other aspects of your customer experience strategy.

When you were a kid, there were two universal childhood traumas that almost everyone could relate to. Going to the dentist, and wrestling your parents to avoid bad tasting medicine.

Apparently the pediatric dentists in this country figured out how to remove themselves from the list. I recently took my apprehensive son to the dentist for the first time and did my best to sugar coat (no pun intended) what kind of experience he could expect. His first question which was innocently asked to me was if he'd get a lollipop if he was good? I had to break the news that dentists aren't big fans of sugar on a stick. Next I put my over the top game show voice on to explain that being good could result in...... A NEW TOOTHBRUSH!!!