This week, Walgreens announced they will be closing anywhere from 1200 to 2000 drugstores within the next three years.This is not much of a surprise. For awhile, it looked like there was a new Walgreens opening up on every corner. Did we really need that many drugstores (not to mention all the CVS stores and other chains!)? For awhile, Walgreens complained about theft being a major factor in their store profitability. Then last year, they backed off—saying it was not nearly as big a factor as they had originally noted. As a long-time Walgreens customer who swore off using them for anything last year, I can tell you exactly what the problem is: customer service. Or, more accurately, total lack of it. For decades, we used Walgreens because they had an excellent nationwide system for filling prescriptions and enough 24/7 locations to make it easy to pick up those scripts. But for the last few years, there were never enough people in the store to serve the customers, particularly in the pharmacy. When they began to close locations, prescription orders were moved to other locations, without adding staff to compensate. It was impossible to reach someone who could help by phone. Going to the store meant standing in an interminable line, just to find out the status of your Rx, which usually then meant waiting till they decided to eventually fill it. The clerks in the pharmacy were extremely overworked and likely underpaid, as they were surly at best and more often obnoxious. The breaking point was when we asked the status of a prescription that should have been filled days earlier and a clerk yelled at us, “It’s somewhere in that pile of hundreds of unfilled prescriptions. How should I know where it is? And no, I have no idea when it will be filled!” We moved to CVS, which has built up a nationwide system and actually delivers prescriptions to customers. They aren’t the paragon of customer service, but working with CVS is an order of magnitude better than Walgreens. Lines move fairly quickly. The pharmacy seems to be well-staffed, and the people there actually smile and look glad to be helping you. Walgreens, let me help you out here. You have a bad case of ignoring and maltreating your customers. The prognosis is grim: This could be fatal if not treated promptly. It’s time to change your habits and start running a healthy operation. Treat your employees right and insist they treat their customers right too. Otherwise, all the interventions in the world won’t cure what ails you.
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