Consumer Value Store: Pharmacy Service Improvement Case Study

Introduction

Consumer Value Store (CVS) was started in 1963 to provide pharmaceutical services in America. It was located in Lowell, Massachusetts. The company grew and, by 2002, ranked among America’s largest retail drugstores. It had over 4,000 functional stores, and its revenue amounted to $24.2 billion.

However, its service delivery deteriorated with time as it increased in size. The pharmacy began losing customers frequently because they got dissatisfied with the services they received. They considered the service to be of low quality. As a result, the management got concerned and decided to form the pharmacy service improvement (PSI) committee to investigate the cause of poor service delivery and recommend strategies to overcome obstacles for smooth operations. This essay provides an analysis of the CVS pharmaceutical store, identifies its current problems, and provides recommendations for high quality service provision.

Analysis

From the interviews and observational analysis, the PSI team discovered that CVS pharmacy had three major problems, which needed attention for the pharmacy to deliver high quality services. The problems were associated with customer safety, waiting time, and customer care/handling. Those problems affected the daily operations of the pharmacy. In addition, the PSI team discovered that customers switched to other facilities at a high rate costing CVS a lot of revenue loss. For instance, in a span of one year, the pharmacy had lost approximately 7.2 million regular customers.

The team also realized that filling the prescription had complications because almost a quarter of all the scripts had serious problems with the fulfillment process. Furthermore, the PSI team discovered that 40% of the customers staged complaints in a single eight-hour shift, and there was no professional staff to attend to their complaints immediately. This bigger percentage slowed down the fulfillment process making the customers throw abuses to the technical staff in charge of the pickup pharmacy section.

The prescription fulfillment process was affected by the actions of some customers. The majority of them dropped-off their scripts at the pharmacy mostly in the morning in order to collect them in the evening after work. In the evening, all of them arrived almost at the same time each in need of his/her script regardless of the time he/she delivered it to CVS office. This caused longer queues and customer dissatisfaction.

Data entry into the system after drop-off had a number of problems. Some customers could drop-off ineligible scripts because the scripts have a limited number of refills a customer is required to make. Therefore, some clients could submit scripts with incomplete payment records and unauthorized script refill. This caused confusion and delayed the whole process of customer service.

Recommendations

1. CVS should provide customers with scripts that allow them to fill the prescription at least thrice. This will reduce congestion at the facility during peak times.
2. It should also create an online register and a system of contacting the clients before pickup to finalize any issues with the prescription. This will ensure that clients submit their missing information instantly to facilitate the prescription process in their absentia.
3. The company’s IT department should improve its systems. Instead of relying on telephone calls to confirm the client’s prescription, all the information should be stored in an online database (Davis & Heineke 2005). This will hasten service delivery, improve quality, and reduce the workload for the staff.
4. Making sure that the customer clears all the payments before moving to the last step (pickup) will help solve the problem of last-minute frustration.

Consumer Risks

Access to non insured drugs, lack of contact details for clarification in case of emergency, and the customer’s ignorance of their rights constitute major customer risks. To mitigate the risks, CVS should carry out an awareness campaign to enlighten the customers of their rights and the importance of having a medical insurance cover (Davis & Heineke 2005). Furthermore, having an advanced automated system will reduce the risk of wrong prescriptions and confusion of patient’s drugs details.

Conclusion

The PSI team evaluated the problems discussed above and provided the recommendations that will help CVS improve its operations and service delivery.

Reference List

Davis, M, & Heineke, J 2005, Operations Management: Integrating Manufacturing and Services, Cengage, New York.