CUSTOMER SERVICE • Solve patient and customer problems without hassle

What is customer service? • Solve patient and customer problems promptly

• is the act of taking care of the customer's needs by • Treat patients and customers with dignity, empathy, and
providing and delivering professional, helpful, high respect
quality service and assistance before, during, and after
the customer's requirements are met • Correct mistakes when they are made
• no one universal definition of “good” or “bad” customer • Apologize for mistakes when they are made
service • Under promise and overdeliver
• The agent’s efforts greatly surpassed your expectations • Do work right the first time
which left a positive impression of that company • Actively listen to patients and costumers
What is a good CS? (Leland & Bailey, 2006) • Make patients and customers feel important and
• The key to good customer service is building good appreciated
relationships with your customers. • Help patients and customers understand how your
• Thanking the customer and promoting a positive, helpful pharmacy works
and friendly environment will ensure they leave with a
• Always look for ways to help patients and customers
great impression.
Types of Customers/Patients:
• A happy customer will return often and is likely to spend
• Impulsive and friendly type
more.
• Deliberate type
• providing good customer service is intricately tied to
• Confident and decided acting customers
patient care and gives an organization or business a
a. Decided (pre-sold) customer
competitive advantage.
b. Confident customer with a concerted (know-it-
• Provide customers your complete attention
all) type
• use eye contact and avoid other activities
Undecided and uncertain customers
• sincerely apologize to a patient or customer if a mistake
a. Conformist type
was made by you or the pharmacy
b. Shopping type
• convey interest and concern when speaking over phone
c. “casual lookers” or typical window shoppers
Why is customer service important?
Types of Customers/Patients:
• good external customer relations are likely to mean
• Friendly and talkative customers
regular repeat orders.
• Silent or talent customers
• increased customer loyalty results in bigger turnover
and increased market shares. • Impatient, nervous or irritable customer
• good publicity enhances the organization’s • Suspicious customer
reputation. • High-roller customer
• all organization can benefit from good publicity. • Transactional customer
 Treating your customers as you would want to be treated • Relationship customer
(Obarski, 2010). Company sales comes from two groups:
WHAT IS A CUSTOMER? • New customer
• most important person in the company. • Repeat customer
• the customer isn’t dependent on us, we are dependent on Aim of the business: to create customer
him. EFFECTIVE CUSTOMER RELATIONS
• is the purpose of our work. “Business is People”
• he is doing us favor by giving us the opportunity to serve
Customer care strategy:
him.
• Ensures that the customer gets:
• is not someone to argue with.
o What they want
• is someone who brings us his wants, and it is our job to o The product to the standard and specification
handle them profitably. that they want
• is part of our business. o With predictable quality or reliability
• a human being with emotions and feelings is the o At a price which suits their needs
lifeblood of every business. In judging how well a product or service meets their needs,
customers/patients consider factors like: (Leland &Bailey 2006;
Parasuraman et al.,1988)

Most appropriate term: (Austin et al., 2006)

• “patient”, “client”, “consumer”, or “customer”???
• Patient as being more reliant on a pharmacist and more
desiring of a personal relationship with a pharmacist than
a customer.
• Customer who tends to be more autonomous, information
driven, and self-confident
• Both patients and customers are entitled to high-quality
service in a pharmacy

PRINCIPLES FOR ENSURING GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE

[Friedman (2010); Tipton (2009); Umiker (1998)]
• Golden rule of customer service
• Anticipate patients’ and customers’ needs and wants

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 • A “sorry, it’s our policy” response
(Umiker,1998)

Service Criticality
• The magnitude of the consequences of a potential service
failure to the patient or customer (Webster & Sundaram,
1998)
• Service failures in the pharmacy can range from the
o inconvenient (a long wait for prescription, or a
partial fill due to limited stock) to the
o very serious (giving a patient the wrong drug
or wrong dose)
• increasing service failure criticality, decrease in
satisfaction and commitment to the business by the
customer is more likely to decrease, and negative word
of mouth can become that much more problematic (Weun
et al., 2004)

RIGHTING THE WRONG

PHARMACY ISSUES THAT ARE IMPORTANT TO PATIENTS • the way in which a service provider responds to a failure
is critical
• Filling prescriptions accurately and efficiently
• Service recovery is the attempt to correct the service
• Overall convenience failure and make things right for the patient or customer
• Pharmacy staff were most important to patients (Tipton, 2000)
• Prescription pricing • Service recovery as an effort to “alter the negative
• Printed health information perceptions of dissatisfied customers and to ultimately
• Additional medical services maintain a business relationship with these customers”
 This requires pharmacies and their staff to achieve a (Schweikhart et al., 1993, p3)
balance between ensuring customer satisfaction by • Requires more than correcting the error and making things
being accurate, efficient, and convenient, and also right, but requires going above and beyond to satisfy
focusing on patient care and expanding services to the patient or customer (Bell & Zemke, 1987)
improve health outcomes. (Boehringer Ingelheim, 2015)
HOW TO TREAT A CUSTOMER? SUGGESTED RECOVERY EFFORTS FOR THESE TYPES OF
• Treat them courteously FAILURES
• Ethical treatment • Apology (Bell & Zemke, 1987)
• Listening to complains • Urgent reinstatement
• Empathy
Added customer services are:
• Symbolic atonement
• free parking with adequate security
• Follow-up
• extension of credit
• Provide information abut the problem (Johnston, 1995)
• free delivery service
• Provide information about what is being done
• order filled up through phone
• Action in response to customer (but preferably without
• gift wrapping service being asked)
• return and exchange privilege • Staff appearing to go out of their way to help
• play area for kids • Involving the customer in decision making
• warranty • Discount (Kelley et al., 1993)
 growing list of services such as medication therapy
• Correction
management (MTM), medication adherence programs,
and disease state management initiatives (Simone, 2014) • Replacement
• Compensation for substantial financial losses
WHEN CUSTOMER SERVICE GOES WRONG • Assurance system is either not defective and this was a
Failing to meet the expectations of a patient or customer is unique situation, of that system is defective and will be
called service failure. corrected
Example: • Explanation of how the mistake was made (Tipton, 2000)
• Patients and customers are not getting • The good news is that effective recovery from a service
what they expected or were promised; failure can potentially result in a more satisfied patient
• Having to wait longer than they expected than if no service failure ever happened (for low to mid
or were promised; critical service failure)
• Rude, patronizing, or indifferent treatment o This phenomenon is known as the service
from a pharmacy staff member recovery paradox (Smith &Bolton, 1998)
• A “can’t do” attitude

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 • High-criticality service failures (aks catastrophic
prescription errors) in the pharmacy include those causing
severe harm that is irreversible (Tipton et al., 2003)
o are emotionally disturbing in addition to being
potentially or actually life threatening
o implications can include:
▪ loss of trust in the pharmacist and / or
pharmacy
▪ injured public image
▪ spread of negative word-of-mouth
▪ legal action
▪ board of pharmacy action
▪ loss of customer and profit
• Tipton (2009) outlines recommendations for response to a
victim after a catastrophic event
o Tell the truth about what happened
o Attempt to compensate for emotional costs with
an apology
o Attempt to compensate for psychological costs
with assurances the system will be fixed
o Attempt to compensate for costs related to time,
money, and inconvenience through financial
settlements
• Empowering employees to do whatever it take to make
patients and customers happy with minimal oversight from
managers and “red tape” requires training of employees,
but can pay big dividends for customer service (Gonell,
2014).
CONSUMER RIGHTS
1. The name and strength of any medication they take
2. The purpose of the medication
3. When and how the medication should be taken
4. How long the medication should be taken
5. What side effects may occur and how they should be
handled if they do occur
6. What side effects should be reported to the physician
7. What food, alcohol prescribed and nonprescribed drugs
should be avoided
8. How the medication should be stored
A. COMMUNICATING WITH CUSTOMERS
SATISFACTION
• The extent to which patients’ and customers’ needs and
wants are met (Chui, 2012)
• As meeting the expectations of the patient’s or consumer’s
anticipation of how a service encounter should occur
(Bunniran, 2010)
• A strong recovery can have a positive influence on
satisfaction
• However, satisfaction still remains negative after recovery
if a more severe service failure occurs (Weun et al., 2004)
FOUR PERSPECTIVES OF CUTOMER SERVICE
• PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
o Determining satisfaction with characteristics of a
particular service such as the physical
environment of the pharmacy (eg. Convenient
location, availability of parking, safety,
cleanliness)
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• AFFECT-BASED ASSESSMENT
o Refers to emotional reaction that a patient or
customer experiences as a result of the service
(eg “I am delighted with this service”)
• EQUITY-BASED ASSESSMENT
o Refers to a patient’s or perceptions of fairness
in the provision of service based on inputs and
outputs and other individuals’ service
experiences (Schommer et al., 2002; von
Waldner and Abel, 2011)
• DISCONFIRMATION OF EXPECTATIONS
o Patients and customers evaluate the gap
between their expectations and perceptions of
a service
o If a patient or customer perceives that a service
outperforms their expectations, they will be
satisfied (or delighted, if their expectations are
significantly outperformed) with the service.
PERCEPTION – EXPECTATIONS GAP CONCEPTUALIZATION
• Suggests that patients and customers also evaluate the
gap between their expectations and perceptions of
service quality (Parasuraman et al., 1985)
• An extension of this theory is the zone of tolerance
(Zeithaml et al., 1993)
ZONE OF TOLERANCE
• Includes any level of service between desired and
adequate
• Level of service that is desired
o At the airport, a desired level of service
would include on-time arrivals and
departures, graciously helpful staff, and
luggage that is never damaged or lost
• Level of service that is adequate
o 15 – minute delays, staff that helps when
asked
WORD-OF-MOUTH
• Occurs when patients and customers provide each other
with information about products or services in a
noncommercial way (Arndt, 1967)
• Can be positive or negative
• Web-based social networking through media such as
Facebook and Twitter can result in an exponential
dissemination of word-of-mouth
• Mobile applications or “apps” specializing in providing
consumer reviews and ratings of products and services
• In cases of a severe service failure, even strong recovery
efforts might not be enough to stop negative word-of-
mouth (Weun et al., 2004)
TRUST IN THE ORGANIZATION
• In the pharmacy setting, it appears that trust in the
pharmacy and pharmacist remains relatively high,
regardless of how severe a patient condition is
(symptomatic cough or severe infection) or how serious the
service failure is (partial fill or medication error); even
before the service recovery is initiated (Bunniran, 2010)
CUSTOMER RETENTION
• A single service failure is one of the primary reasons
customers switch service providers
 • Service recovery efforts can be effective in retaining 75% Something to Think About: The last impression people have of you
of customers who experience service failures (Hoffman et will stay with them until you have a chance to change it-if you even
al., 1995) have another chance!
THE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SYSTEM
1.Greet customers B. SOLVING CUSTOMERS’ PROBLEMS
2.Value customers CUSTOMER COMPLAINTS
3.Ask how to help customers • Are a natural part of the service industry no matter how
4.Listen to customers hard managers and employees try to ensure good
5.Help customers customer service
6.Invite customers • Complaints should not be perceived negatively but rather
1. GREET CUSTOMERS a way to improve the service the pharmacy provides
“Put, me at ease and make me feel comfortable” (Leland & Bailey, 2006)
How to get good at greeting people • Complaints can “prove to be a great source of
1. Get eye contact. information, innovation, and inspiration”.
2. Thank them for coming in, contacting you or
seeing you. EIGHT PRINCIPLES FOR CONSTRUCTIVELY DEALING WITH
3. Tune the world out and them in. CUSTOMER COMPLAINTS (Leland & Bailey, 2006)
Something to Think About 1. View complaints as gifts
People average making eleven decisions about you 2. Make it easy for customers to complain
in the first seven seconds of contact! 3. Identify the elements of the complaint
4. Thank customers for complaining
2. VALUE CUSTOMERS 5. Sincerely apologize
“Let me Know that you Think I’m important!” 6. Fix the problem
How to Get Good at Valuing People 7. Practice prevention
1. Think, “ You’re the Customer – You Pay My Salary!” 8. Follow-up
2. Think, “There’s Something About You I Like!”
3. Think, “You Make My Job Possible!” THE PROBLEM-SOLVING FORMULA
Something to Think About: When you value people your sincerity causes 1. Understand the problem
them to feel good about you and trust you. 2. Identify the cause
3. ASK HOW TO HELP CUSTOMERS 3. Discuss possible solutions
“ Find Out What I Want!” 4. Solve the problem
How to Get Good at Asking How to Help People
1. Ask, “How may I help you?” 1. UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM
2. Find out why they came in or contacted you. “Try to understand my Problem from my Viewpoint!”
3. Ask open-ended questions to further understand their How to Get Good at Understanding Problems
needs. 1. Get all the facts.
Something to Think About: A genuine desire to understand people’s 2. Listen non defensively.
needs or wants impacts customers and places you ahead of most 3. Repeat back the problem as understood.
other people in your field. Something to Think About: Taking ownership” or responsibility for
problems, when done with a sincere desire to understand them and
4. LISTEN TO CUSTOMERS solve them, can turn negative customer attitudes into positive ones.
“Please Listen to me and Understand me!”
How to get good at Listening to Customers 2. IDENTIFY THE CAUSE
1. Listen to people’s words. “Take enough time to understood what caused my problem”
2. Listen to their tone of voice. How to Get Good at Identifying the Causes of Problems
3. Listen to their body language. 1. Find out what has happened.
Something to Think About: According to Dr. Albert Mahrabian, a 2. Find out what should have happened.
UCLA professor, communication effectiveness consists of: 3. Find out what went wrong.
1. 7% verbal Something to Think About: A problem whose cause is understood is
2. 38% tone of voice half solved!
3. 55% nonverbal-body language
3. DISCUSS POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
5. HELP CUSTOMERS “Explore possible solutions with me”
“Help me get what I want” How to Get Good at Discussing Possible Solutions
How to Get Good at Helping Customers 1. Suggest options.
1. Satisfy their wants or needs. 2. Ask for customers’ ideas.
2. Solve their problems. 3. Agree on best course of action.
3. Give them extra value. Something to Think About: Not only will you enhance problem
Something to Think About: To remain competitive today, businesses resolution, but valuing customers’ ideas and listening intently to them
and professions must change from a product or service focus to a will help fill emotional and ego needs they have.
customer-needs focus.
4. SOLVE THE PROBLEM
6. INVITE CUSTOMERS “Solve my problems and you’ll enjoy my loyalty forever!”
“Let me know that I’m welcome back anytime” How to Get Good at Solving Problems
How to get Good at inviting customers back 1. Remove the cause, or
1. Thank them for coming in or contacting you. 2. Take corrective action.
2. Ask them to return soon. 3. Ask if the customer is satisfied with the resolution.
3. Leave them waiting to return. Something to Think About: Solve few or small problems and you’ll
receive small pay. Solve bigger problems and you’ll earn bigger

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pesos. You’ll usually be paid consistent with your willingness and
ability to solve problems.
ASK YOURSELF: (as patient)
•How well did they greet me and make me feel
comfortable?
•How important did they make me feel?
•How effectively did they find out my wants or needs?
•How well did they listen to what I told them?
•How well did they help fill my wants or needs?
•How much did they cause me to want to come back?
WHAT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY?
Basically, you are responsible for providing customers with:
• A pleasant, friendly greeting
• A positive and helpful attitude
• A professional and accurate business transaction
• An apology for any delay
• A quick resolution to problems
• A sincere thank you for their business
WHAT DO YOUR CUSTOMER EXPECT?
Your customer wants to be listened to, to be understood, cared for,
and treated fairly, intelligently, and individually
• Reliability
• Credible
• Appeal
• Responsiveness
• Concern
COMMUNICATION – A KEY TO EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE
1. Understand verbal and non-verbal messages
2. Use positive body language and voice tone
3. Use language that your customer will understand
4. Actively listen to your customers
5. Communicate effectively over the telephone
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION AND FEEDBACK (SEEKING
CUSTOMERS COMPLAINT)
1. Suggestion boxes
2. Feedback form
3. Providing a customer service hotline
4. Personal interaction
5. Announcing names of supervisors who are available
o It helps identify any gaps or deficits in service
provision.
o Pharmacy manager can implement strategies to
improve customer service
ENSURING EMPLOYEE’S QUALITY OF WORK LIFE AND JOB
SATISFACTION
• Employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction are
positively correlated
• The stressful environments of pharmacies have been found
to be related to decrease job satisfaction in pharmacy
technicians
DEVELOPING STAFF THAT WILL PROVIDE GOOD CUSTOMER
SERVICE [(Bowen et al. (1999); Umiker (1998); Wangenheim et al.
(2007)]
• Hire employees with a caring attitude
• Reinforce customer service in employee training and
orientation
• Monitor employees’ customer service and coach
deficiencies
• Empower employees to solve patient and customer
problems
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• Reward employees who make special efforts to please
patients / customers
• Get feedback from employees
• Make customer satisfaction a condition of satisfactory
employee performance • Model good customer service as
a manager
• Ensure employees’ quality of work life and job satisfaction
• Treat employees fairly
EMOTIONAL LABOR
• Describes the process of modifying the emotions you feel
of the emotions you express to meet the goals of your
organization (Grandey, 2000)
• Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians’ perception that
they have role overload (feeling that there is too much
needed to accomplish at work), appears positively
related to emotional labor (particularly, surface acting)
• Surface acting appears to be related to negative
outcomes in pharmacists, such as reduced job satisfaction,
intentions to leave their pharmacy, and emotional
exhaustion
• Coworker social support (Abraham, 1998)
• Organizational support
• Mitigate the negative effect of emotional labor on job
satisfaction
• “employees are first, and customers are second”
• Nordstrom one rule for employees is to “use your good
judgement in all situations.” There are no other rules for
employees
How to deal with “difficult” patients and customers?
• why patients and customers may be unhappy?
• patients likely view their medications as “negative
goods” (Kolassa, 1997),
• patients may already come in with negative perceptions
of the price of medicines, their other health care
professionals
SIX-STEP PROCESS
• Let customer vent - let the patient or customer express
his or her feelings without interruption
• Avoid getting trap in “negative filter” instead replace
it with a “service filter.”
• Pharmacy employees should ask themselves, “What does
this customer need, and how can I provide it?” This will
change an employee’s focus from anger and frustration
(and a possible argument) to that of problem solving.
• Expressing empathy allows employees to recognize and
appreciate a patient’s or customer’s feelings.
• Begin active problem solving by gathering additional
information
• Employees should work with the customer to come up with
an acceptable solution to the problem
• Following up to make sure that the solution worked
PREVENTING PATIENT COMPLAINTS
• Avoid using phrases and language that make patient or
customer feel like an adversary or that express
disinterest on your part
• For example, phrases such as:
- “I don’t know” -“no”
- “that’s not my job” -“you’re right; this stink”
- “that’s not my fault” - “you need to talk to my manager”
- “you want it by when?” - “calm down”
- “I’m busy right now -“Call me back”
- “I’ll find out,” -“what I can do is…,”
- “this is who can help you,” -“I’ll try my best,”
- “I understand your frustration,” -“I’m sorry,”
- “let’s see what we can do about this,”
- “I can help you,” -“I will call you back,”
- “I’ll be with you in just a moment,”
 • Can demonstrate to patient and customers that you are • Rule book obsession
not willing to help, and can sometimes be a catalyst to • Runaround
conflict (Leland & Bailey, 2006) • Lack of knowledge and training
• Avoiding body language, tone of voice, and other “VITAMINS” needed for Success in any business
nonverbal behaviors that can express similar negativity. E = energy and enthusiasm
• 55% of what is learned from others comes from body A = amicable
language, 33% comes from tone of voice, and 7% comes G = goals
from actual spoken words (Leland & Bailey, 2006) L = love
• Ways in which eye contact, facial expressions, nodding, E = excellence (dedication)
hand gestures, and personal space are used can S = super service
drastically affect the patient or customer encounter and PLUS “VITAMIN” B – Belief
communicate to them whether an employee is engaged AND “VITAMIN” C – Commitment
in helping him or her, is uninterested in helping or sees ALSO “VITAMIN” D – Determination
them as an adversary

TONE OF VOICE
• Flat, Monotone Voice
o Suggests boredom or disinterest in the patient or
customer
• Slow Speed And Low Pitch
o Wants to be left alone high-pitched emphatic
voice – suggests enthusiasm
• An Abrupt Speed And Loud Tone
o Suggests an employee is too busy for the patient
or customer
• High Pitch And Drawn Out Speed
o Expresses disbelief in what the customer is
saying
• Inflection (wave-like movement of highs and lows in the
pitch of your voice), stress on words, breathing, volume,
and pacing can influence communication to the patient or
customer (Leland & Bailey, 2006)

USING THE CLEAR TECHNIQUE

Calm your emotion
Listen actively to the customers
Emphatize with the customers
Apologize / acknowledge
Resolution

WHY COMPANIES LOSING CUSTOMERS?

1% - customers dies
3% - customers moves away
5% - customers influenced by friends
9% - customers lured away by competitors
14% - customers dissatisfied with product

BUILDING A FOUNDATION FOR EXCELLENT CUSTOMER

SERVICE
1. Define your responsibility to your customers
2. Define what customers expect from you
3. Examine the factors that lead to customers dissatisfaction
4. Explore the consequences of handling challenging
customers
CUSTOMER DISSATISFACTION STEMS FROM:
1. Promises not delivered
2. Service that was rude and inefficient
3. Conflicting message from employees
4. Feelings of being victimized by the business operation
Sins of Service
• Apathy
• Brush-off
• Coldness
• Condescension
• Robotism

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