Osco Pharmacy - - Slooooooowwwwww

My own standards for customer service are high. Well, correct that…. Super High. Perhaps almost unattainable, some would say. I give great customer service and I expect great customer service.

What I must settle for is good customer service and, too often, much less. Here’s a recent example.

While waiting this morning in a short line at the Woodstock Osco Pharmacy, I noticed the line wasn’t moving. The clerk was engaged in a friendly conversation with a customer, and it didn’t seem to be always on the business being conducted. There was no sense of urgency on the part of the clerk, even though the length of the line of waiting customers was increasing.

The clerk left the window a couple of times to check on the customer’s order and meandered back. After a few minutes, when the clerk started away from the window one more time, I interrupted her and asked if another clerk could come to the second customer position and help those of us who were waiting. The response was, “We are short-handed today.”

After further delay, that transaction was completed, and the woman in front of me moved up to the window. About that time a store manager passed me and I stepped out of line to make my complaint in person, since it did not appear that the pharmacy manager was on duty. I have spoken with him previously to voice my complaints about how the clerks completely disregard the line of waiting customer and how there is no sense of urgency on their part to complete the transactions efficiently.

Then one of the younger pharmacy associates opened the second window. When she waited on me in a friendly manner, I thanked her for opening the second window and for noticing that customers were waiting.

When the pharmacy manager is on duty, window service is better. But, when she is not, the employees behind the counter are in no hurry to wait on customers. Banks train tellers in their “heads-up” policy. It works this way. When a teller notices customers waiting in line, she acknowledged them – with a nod, a wave, a word. She doesn’t just ignore them.

Osco tells me they train employees in the “heads-up” service. But they don’t monitor employees to see if they use it!

It may be that the Woodstock Osco pharmacy needs to make some personnel changes. Simple re-training should suffice. If it doesn’t, then you give those people an opportunity to be happily employed – elsewhere! The consequences of not doing so? More and more customers will find another, friendly pharmacy not too far away.