DISPENSING
PRINCIPLES OF GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE
INTRODUCTION
CUSTOMER - A person or group with whom a business has
dealings with, i.e., paying customers, insurance companies
/agents, doctors, pharmacists, distributors (vendors).
• Customer service only becomes an issue when a
complaint is received.
• These customer service functions are implemented to
resolve the problem; only after it has already occurred.
The best approach to avoid any discontentment invoked
by the initial problem is to practice good customer from
the start.
• Customer Service - assistance and advice provided by a
company to those people who buy or use its products or
services
• meeting the needs and desires of any customer
Helping people spend their time, effort and /or money
efficiently is what good customer service is all about and
what business is, and has always been, about”
GENERAL CUSTOMER SERVICE MISSION STATEMENT
All customers are entitled to be treated in the following
manner:
1. With quality products and services
2. With full focus and attention
3. With the freedom to ask questions and receive
appropriate feedback
4. With the right to file a complaint if the company
/employee has made an error
5. With respect, fairness, and courtesy
SKILLS FOR INTERACTING WITH CUSTOMERS
1. Have a good attitude
2. Make a lasting first impression
3. Go for the quick fix
4. Always follow up
5. Talk the talk
6. Show some empathy
7. Heed customer criticism
8. Let them down easily
9. All’s well that ends well
QUALITY FACE TO FACE CUSOMER SERVICE
Customers will remember the way you treated them for a
long time. Their first impression of you and the business for
which you work will determine whether they will bring their
business to you again.
When a customer comes in person to Drop off prescription,
pick up a prescription, or for any other reason, you must be
aware of the customer’s expectations of his/her visit to your
work setting. Employee should make a special effort to take
note of people who enter their place of work. It is important
to immediately make the customer feel welcome
HATED BY THE CUSTOMERS DURING THEIR VISITS
1. Being forced to wait in a long line
2. Being ignored
3. Being waited on by a poorly informed staff member
4. Being treated in a casual manner or as if you are
unimportant customer
STANDARDS TO BE FOLLOWED DURING FACE-TO-FACE
CUSTOMER SERVICE
1. Never ignore a customer
2. Greet the customer with a smile and eye contact
3. It’s all in the name
4. Action speaks louder than words
5. People first, Paper Second
STANDARDS FOR TELEPHONE CUSTOMER SERVICE
Telephone customer service is just as important as any other
activity that you might be engaging in on a day-to-day basis.
The ff are telephone service problems the caller wishes to
avoid:
1. Waiting while the phone rings continuously
2. Being greeted in a cursory or rude fashion
3. Being transferred to someone who is not available or
to someone who cannot help them
4. Being placed on “hold” for a long period of time
5. Getting the call transferred several times
Good telephone customer service consists of the ff:
1. Answer the phone promptly
2. Identify yourself and the pharmacy immediately
3. Be friendly
4. Have all your resources available
5. Indicate your regret when applicable
6. Use caller’s name
7. Don’t interrupt
8. Get as much information as quickly as possible
9. Speak clearly to make yourself understood
10. Transfer a call when necessary
11. Hang up gently
PRINCIPLES OF INTERCULTURAL AND INTERPERSONAL SKILLS
Intercultural communication
• Requires both knowledge and skills
• Requires understanding and empathy
Relationship Cultures
• Cultural and social norms
• With expectations based on schemata
Personal Idioms
• Create a sense of belonging due to the inside
meaning shared by the relational partners.
• In romantic relationships, for example, it is common
for individuals to create nicknames for each other
that may not directly translate for someone who
overhears them.
Relationship Schemata
• Inner workings of a relationship
• Just like a schematic or diagram for assembling a
new computer desk helps you put it together,
• How we believe our interpersonal relationships
should work and how to create them.
Relationship Rituals
• personalize their traditions by eating mussels and
playing yahtzee on christmas eve or going hiking on
their anniversary.
• other rituals may be more unique to the
relationship, such as celebrating a dog’s birthday or
going to opening day at the amusement park.
Relationship Routines
• Are communicative acts that create a sense of
predictability in a relationship that is comforting.
• Some communicative routines may develop around
occasions or conversational topics.
7 PRINCIPLES OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
• MAIN GOAL: to help promote healthier outcomes in
the workplace
1. Respect, openness, curiosity:
a. willing to take a risk and to move beyond
one’s comfort zone.
b. willing to be wrong, or at least to have one’s
perspective altered or widened
2. You are not the center of everyone’s universe
a. realize that one’s own culture is specific,
and study how it has affected one’s own
world view – also how odd or foreign it may
seem to others, and how it may impact
upon them
3. Culture, power, status
a. understand that cultures are often in a
relationship of status, power, and
domination
b. subordination – that those who feel
dominated often feel ignored
c. marginalized, and those who dominate
often do not recognize their privilege or
power.
d. when these power or status relationships
change, there is often upheaval, fear,
4. Learn from the other
a. Willing to learn as much as possible about
others’ culture, as far as possible without
judgment, but with respectful curiosity.
b. This will often throw a new light on one’s
own culture
5. Develop core skills
a. intercultural communication requires self-
mastery, as we develop our willingness and
ability to observe, listen, evaluate, analyze,
interpret, and relate with less judgment and
more openness
6. Reap the inner dividends
a. will enrich you personally and
professionally, as you gain in flexibility,
adaptability, empathy, and the ability to
really ‘get’ what others experience and
perceive, whether you ‘agree’ with them
7. Reap the outer dividends
a. “The effective and appropriate behavior
and communication in intercultural
situations.”
b. effectiveness (can be determined by the
individual)
c. appropriateness (determined by another
person)
d. dominant or non-dominant (culture in
situation)
INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION BENEFITS TO GOOD COMMUNICATION
Is the process of exchanging messages between people
whose lives mutually influence one another in unique ways in FOR PATIENTS:
relation to social and cultural norms 1. Reduce medication misuse.
2. Reduce noncompliance.
PRINCIPLES 3. reduce adverse drug reactions
1. Interpersonal communication is inescapable 4. Reassuring the patient that the drug is safe and
2. Interpersonal communication is irreversible Effective
3. Interpersonal communication is complicated 5. Referring nondrug related situations for
4. interpersonal communication is contextual assistance.
a. Psychological 6. Assistance with self-care.
b. Relational 7. Improve patient satisfaction.
c. Situational
d. Environmental FOR PHARMACISTS:
e. Cultural 1. legal protection from lack of information to patients
2. Increase job satisfaction.
3. Attracts customers and aid in market competition
HANDLING DIFFERENT TYPES OF CUSTOMERS 4. Reduce job stress by gaining trust from people
surrounding them.
5. Increase profit by paying for counseling and reduce
TIPS ON HOW TO HANDLE THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF
loss from unfilled or unrifled prescriptions.
POTENTIALLY CHALLENGING CUSTOMERS
6. Maintain professional status in the health care team.
HOSTILE AND AGGRESSIVE TYPES
FACTORS INFLUENCING COMMUNICATION
1. Remain calm and professional
1. Internal Factors like Previous experiences, Attitudes,
2. Let them vent their emotions
and values
3. Find the right moment to get your voice in
2. Sensory and Emotional Factors like Fear, Stress,
4. Sit them down
Pain, and anxiety
5. Keep eye contact
3. Environmental Factors like Lighting, Noise and
6. Do not argue
Privacy
4. Verbal Expression like Language barrier and Jargon
COMPLAINERS
5. Nonverbal Expression like Body movement and
Facial expression
1. Listen
2. Do not pass judgement
FACTORS INFLUENCING COMMUNICATION
3. Maintain service attitude
4. Do not rush to agree or apologize
5. Solve the problem

COMMUNICATION SKILLS

• The ability to communicate clearly and effectively with

patients, family members, physicians, nurses,
pharmacists, and other health care professionals is an
important skill.
• Some pharmacists are skilled communicators,
comfortable with all types of people; other pharmacists
find it difficult to communicate with health care
providers or with patients from different socioeconomic
or ethnic backgrounds.
• Fortunately, communication skills can be learned.