Does your rxm or store manager back up you?

[3boooda]

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just curious if a patient complained about one of rx staff, which side your rxm or store mgr would take? I heard stories that they always take patients side ( no matter if the patient was right or wrong).

 

[Unchained]

It depends on how desperately pathetic they are to keep their job. How much debt they have? Do they have kids? A wife who earns?

 

[Slippers]

Not that this is fair, but it will probably depend on how much they like you or not. Realistically though, most store managers and pharmacy managers have to suck up to customers and make sure to give them some lame, phony, apology even if they think the customer is full of B.S. and totally in the wrong. It's essentially what you have to do in customer service to hold on to your job. If they don't at least pretend to take the customer's side and pretend like they're doing something about whatever the customer was unhappy about, the customer may go higher up and complain to the manager's manager and in my experience, the corporate schlubs don't care about anything but money and getting more and more customers...

 

[CetiAlphaFive]

just curious if a patient complained about one of rx staff, which side your rxm or store mgr would take? I heard stories that they always take patients side ( no matter if the patient was right or wrong).

It's going to vary.

You're talking about individuals

 

[hye345]

Depends on individual circumstances, but if your in the right and are professional, and they have integrity and a backbone, then yeah, they should absolutely support you.

 

[wagrxm2000]

This might be a little hard to understand but:

Patient right=you're wrong
Patient wrong=you're right

I know complicating right?

 

[3boooda]

This might be a little hard to understand but:

Patient right=you're wrong
Patient wrong=you're right

I know complicating right?

Which side your manager would take?

 

[CetiAlphaFive]

The naivety in this thread is shocking.

There absolutely are managers who will try to throw you under the bus

 

[wagrxm2000]

Which side your manager would take?

Same, depends on who is correct in the situation.

 

[med77]

So it's funny. The store manager will back us up in the pharmacy, but the pharmacy manager is quick to side with the patient or throw us under the bus. The last place I worked at, the RXM was great. He'd always step in if a patient was getting too nasty with the techs and he'd often stand up for us too. Current RXM throws us to the wolves.

 

[DrVader]

just curious if a patient complained about one of rx staff, which side your rxm or store mgr would take? I heard stories that they always take patients side ( no matter if the patient was right or wrong).

I have a good relationship with my store manager, I like him. But he did say clearly that at CVS, a store manager is only fired for two reasons. They either steal from the computer or get bad service scores.

 

[6GodPharm]

It’s funny how some of you **** heads want to just come to work collect a check and give no f*cks and go home. Yes, patients and your techs sense that. So when RXM gets complaints, yes sometimes they have to be an as.s before it goes up the corporate ladder and take care of complaints or it’s our as.s on the line. Don’t hate the player hate the game.

 

[CetiAlphaFive]

It’s funny how some of you **** heads want to just come to work collect a check and give no f*cks and go home. Yes, patients and your techs sense that. So when RXM gets complaints, yes sometimes they have to be an as.s before it goes up the corporate ladder and take care of complaints or it’s our as.s on the line. Don’t hate the player hate the game.

Wait, does RxM mean PIC?

 

[VictorOfHungerGames]

It’s funny how some of you **** heads want to just come to work collect a check and give no f*cks and go home. Yes, patients and your techs sense that. So when RXM gets complaints, yes sometimes they have to be an as.s before it goes up the corporate ladder and take care of complaints or it’s our as.s on the line. Don’t hate the player hate the game.

Unless you do this, why would you assume everyone else but you is doing it? No need to call people names and cuss them out, keyboard warrior. The game exists b/c of the players. If no one plays it, the game will be obsolete. For example, the gladiators. At some point, people didn't want to get killed for entertainment purposes, so they stopped. You can hate the game if it sucks and make an attempt to change it for the better. Again, for example, instead of killing for entertainment, we now shoot a ball into a bucket. Still entertaining, no one gets killed.

 

[Old Timer]

The answer is sometimes you have to "thrown somebody under the bus" If it makes the customer happy and it doesn't go to corporate who cares. If you did not treat the customer properly, I will apologize. If you did nothing wrong, but they want to bitch about what you did or what you said or how you said it , I'll still apologize in some way without agreeing with the customer. Unless the customer is acting out for nothing, your job is turn the frown around so they come back and put more money in your pocket. Now, it is different if they come back and chew you out when you did nothing wrong.

 

[ifillrxs]

The answer is sometimes you have to "thrown somebody under the bus" If it makes the customer happy and it doesn't go to corporate who cares. If you did not treat the customer properly, I will apologize. If you did nothing wrong, but they want to bitch about what you did or what you said or how you said it , I'll still apologize in some way without agreeing with the customer. Unless the customer is acting out for nothing, your job is turn the frown around so they come back and put more money in your pocket. Now, it is different if they come back and chew you out when you did nothing wrong.

And sometimes you have to help the customer redirect the anger toward the responsible party. Many times that is either an insurance company or state/federal regulation.

 

[Old Timer]

And sometimes you have to help the customer redirect the anger toward the responsible party. Many times that is either an insurance company or state/federal regulation.

Then you didn't do anything wrong, so how could I throw you under the bus? if the problem is the insurance what would I gain by blaming you?

 

[johnpharm01]

This is a funny thread because it is corporate oriented. If I am a licensed pharmacist, why do I need to get my manager involved or why would a customer want/need to get a manager involved? Last 2 positions handled everything myself. One before that, management didn't want to get involved. Before that in a corporate environment management would say or do whatever to please the customer be it right or wrong and would place blame on anyone but themselves. Every rph for themselves.

 

[Old Timer]

This is a funny thread because it is corporate oriented. If I am a licensed pharmacist, why do I need to get my manager involved or why would a customer want/need to get a manager involved? Last 2 positions handled everything myself. One before that, management didn't want to get involved. Before that in a corporate environment management would say or do whatever to please the customer be it right or wrong and would place blame on anyone but themselves. Every rph for themselves.

Unless you are the owner, someone can always go over your head. When I was an intern I tried to strong arm a patient into getting the generic. I explained if everyone kept taking the brand the copays would go up. My boss made me apologize. Six mnths later his copays went up. He came in and apologized.......

 

[ifillrxs]

Then you didn't do anything wrong, so how could I throw you under the bus? if the problem is the insurance what would I gain by blaming you?

Now, it is different if they come back and chew you out when you did nothing wrong.

I agree with everything you wrote. I was replying to the last line of your comment only. The customer coming back to make an issue about something out of my control, such as an insurance denial. In that case, I'll try to resolve it by looking from the customer's perspective. Then the customer and I can TOGETHER look at the real issue. The customer came looking for a fight and I redirected the fight. It shows I'm empathetic to the situation and trying to help.

From the tech's perspective, it might look like I'm agreeing with the customer and throwing the tech under the bus. I see that.

When I have to resolve a complaint, I talk to the customer privately so I can speak my mind without a tech overhearing me. If a customer believes he/she was mistreated, I apologize and ask what I can do to make the situation better. If I think discipline to a tech has to be given, I'll let the customer know that I will consider that option without being specific. In most of my experience, the tech might not have said or done anything wrong from a policy perspective but they were perceived as being wrong from the customer. In any case, I'll use the opportunity to coach my staff on the art of customer service.

 

[johnpharm01]

Unless you are the owner, someone can always go over your head. When I was an intern I tried to strong arm a patient into getting the generic. I explained if everyone kept taking the brand the copays would go up. My boss made me apologize. Six mnths later his copays went up. He came in and apologized.......

And even then people can complain to state/federal agencies, file lawsuits

As a customer I look at it this way. If I have to complain to a manage multiple times, I am going to do business elsewhere. Why? What good is complaining to a manager because they are a source of the problems to begin with even if other employees help you. Why? Because they hire fire and train the right people. If they were doing their job right, managers would get few complaints.

 

[Wickett]

I'll back someone up if they handled a situation properly, and discipline and/or critique if they didn't. If it goes to corporate level complaint against an employee, I will defend them if they weren't at fault. However, if the complaint is at store level, sometimes you just have to tell a customer what they want to hear/apologize/give a generic "I'll talk to the employee" over a perceived slight, even if the employee wasn't at fault.

It's just part of retail and something you have to do sometimes for customer service and to keep corporate out of it. I make sure to be quick to let the employee know where they actually stand and provide support if they handled the situation properly. You have to swallow your pride sometimes to keep your store and employees off the corporate radar.

 

[CetiAlphaFive]

u have to swallow your pride sometimes to keep your store and employees off the corporate radar.

Sad.
I told more than one person,

"We strive to provide every guest with amazing service, but we can only do what is possible within the law or what insurance allows.

If this is unacceptable we can transfer your prescriptions to another pharmacy"

 

[Wickett]

Sad.
I told more than one person,

"We strive to provide every guest with amazing service, but we can only do what is possible within the law or what insurance allows.

If this is unacceptable we can transfer your prescriptions to another pharmacy"

With situations with the law and insurance, yea, I'm not saying you give customers whatever they want. You definitely have to put your foot down and I do. But sometimes when you have someone just looking to get upset over some stupid perceived slight, you just say sorry and move on.

It may be different depending on where you work (a super busy wags or cvs you can be a hard ass and lose some customers with no worries, but at a lower volume small town grocer like where I work, that attitude can quickly result in noticeable drops in sales and script count). I've also learned to never volunteer the "you can transfer out" line to people because that's just asking for a complaint where it gets twisted to you just told someone to go somewhere else/you don't want their business.

I won't convince jerks to stay if they use the threat of leaving to try and get their way, but not the best idea to just come out and say that if you're in a management position. In my case, our limited hours, lack of drive thru, lack of insurance plans to force funnel people to our pharmacy doesn't really allow for that. You have to try and retain customers under reasonable circumstances to compete against big box competition.

I ask for respect from customers and stand my ground, but it simply isn't worth getting into fights and dealing with complaints over ticky tack stuff. 30 secs of swallowing your pride and forgetting about that person 5 mins after they leave has greatly reduced my stress levels compared to always standing my ground over dumb arguments then worrying about explaining it to corporate.

 

[CetiAlphaFive]

With situations with the law and insurance, yea, I'm not saying you give customers whatever they want. You definitely have to put your foot down and I do. But sometimes when you have someone just looking to get upset over some stupid perceived slight, you just say sorry and move on.

It may be different depending on where you work (a super busy wags or cvs you can be a hard ass and lose some customers with no worries, but at a lower volume small town grocer like where I work, that attitude can quickly result in noticeable drops in sales and script count). I've also learned to never volunteer the "you can transfer out" line to people because that's just asking for a complaint where it gets twisted to you just told someone to go somewhere else/you don't want their business.

I won't convince jerks to stay if they use the threat of leaving to try and get their way, but not the best idea to just come out and say that if you're in a management position. In my case, our limited hours, lack of drive thru, lack of insurance plans to force funnel people to our pharmacy doesn't really allow for that. You have to try and retain customers under reasonable circumstances to compete against big box competition.

I ask for respect from customers and stand my ground, but it simply isn't worth getting into fights and dealing with complaints over ticky tack stuff. 30 secs of swallowing your pride and forgetting about that person 5 mins after they leave has greatly reduced my stress levels compared to always standing my ground over dumb arguments then worrying about explaining it to corporate.

I understand.

I guess from an independent rph point of view, if I know this patient only gets two Rx from us with a net profit of <$10 per Rx and we're gonna spend an extra 5-10 minutes of payroll on them compared to three average customer, then I don't want those 2 fills.

 

[johnpharm01]

I understand.

I guess from an independent rph point of view, if I know this patient only gets two Rx from us with a net profit of <$10 per Rx and we're gonna spend an extra 5-10 minutes of payroll on them compared to three average customer, then I don't want those 2 fills.

I like this perspective. At major chains sometimes it seems like you spend more time dealing with manipulative meaningless complaints that waste all the time you don't have. Customers know it and will take advantage of it. This is far from a business like environment.

 

[CetiAlphaFive]

I like this perspective. At major chains sometimes it seems like you spend more time dealing with manipulative meaningless complaints that waste all the time you don't have. Customers know it and will take advantage of it. This is far from a business like environment.

Yup.
I know the chain guys around me pretty well.

If I'm transferring in someone really awful and there's extra time, they'll give me the details.

I always ask, "why do you put up with that kind of harassment?"