This idea sprung up from an incident where a customer somehow perceived that we treated her incredibly rudely and wrote a letter to our corporate office chastising our rude and unprofessional behavior. She vowed to never use our pharmacy again because of the incident.
I don't want to go into specifics, but let me assure you that her entire basis of being "humiliated" was a blatant lie on her part. However, her letter made an impact on corporate because they wanted our pharmacy manager to respond to it in some way. I think he called the patient, but I don't know what he said to her or what her reaction was.
In any case, this got me to thinking: It seems pretty common place that customers can write a letter to a manager or supervisor over anything that they perceive to be rude behavior. Usually these letters result in store managers or supervisors kissing the customers' asses and handing out gift cards to try to right the alleged wrong that was done. Well, how come customers are the only ones that can write letters? Why can't we write a letter to a rude customer calling them out for being an asshole to our staff?
How awesome would that be?!?! Can you imagine it? A pharmacy customer acts overly rude and obnoxious to the pharmacy staff. A couple days later, that customer finds a letter in the mail:
Dear customer,
Several days ago, you came to pick up a prescription at our pharmacy. The technician told you that your doctor had not yet called a prescription into us. At this time, you loudly proclaimed that it was the pharmacy's fault your prescription was not ready for you. You called the technician and pharmacist working that day incompetent. You were loud, overly rude, and your tantrum over something that the pharmacy had absolutely no control over unsettled several other customers who were waiting in line.
This kind of behavior will not be tolerated at our pharmacy. We strive to treat everyone with decency and respect, and we expect the same in return. If you are unable to act in kind, you will no longer be welcome to fill your prescriptions here.
We strongly believe that an apology is in order.
Sincerely,
The staff of Your Pharmacy
Now, is that not a great idea???
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9 comments:
brilliant
I think that's GENIUS, and it can be applied to all kinds of professions. A couple that immediately spring to mind that I could write are for the frequent flyer who calls 911 for a hangnail and the other fairly frequent flyer who doesn't seem to know what soap and water are :'due to the unnecessary stench left by your person in the back of our medical taxicab, we feel we must decline to provide further service to you until such time that you can demonstrate to us your knowledge and practice of basic personal hygeine (ie wash your stank ass).'
That would RAWK.
Thank you for my first smile of the day.
I'm a firm believer in the evil eye. Passive-aggressive behavior works also. Fact is, most of these people have already been tossed out of the local CVS. I don't need to tolerate insubordination. I show everyone a lot of love and respect. I work in the neighborhood I live. I see these people at teh dry cleaners and the diner. Our kids play together. If they think they're gonna treat me like the cashier at the burger king, they're wrong. Writin a letter would take too much of my time. Perhaps a form letter? Have the template already set to go in MS Word. Just print out a whole stack and fill in the Dear______ part?
:)
That quite possibly has to be one of the greatest ideas of all time! I would love to mail it out to a few of my customers after today!!
Best idea ever although at the pharmacy I work at we would have to assign one person that duty because it happens so often.
I'm ready, sign me up! I'm sick and tired of a**holes having all the cards. All they have to do is play the "Rude" card over and over.
I swear, there must be some rule that to become a corporate executive, you must have spine removal!
I think that is the best idea of the year. This will be great to read over and over, after each crappy day. Thank you!
I've had 3 cashiers quit in the last week bc of abusive treatment from customers. How about a trap door at the pharmacy register that could be activated by the pharmacist with one of the feature buttons on the phone. I'd like to help the cashiers but I'm always stuck on the phone. A mechanism to transport people back to their vehicle without further discussion would be satisfying. I don't agree about the money- my quality of lfe was much better before.
I used to work for Walgreens at a store that did 600+ scripts a day(shittiest pharmacy chain on the planet, 2nd to Rite-Aid), and there was a store manager who would carry a stack of $20 gift cards in his pocket like playing cards. If you complained about the pharmacy, you got a gift card. In the 6 months I was there, costumer complaints went through the roof. Why wouldn't they? Their complaining behavior is being rewarded. When this wasn't enough, the manager would instruct the techs to add the comment "AAA customer" to the patient's profile (I'm sure this has to be a violation of some law somewhere), and this meant to the pharmacy staff that whatever they were doing, regardless of how busy, you were to drop everything and give this patient your undivided attention until their prescription was filled. Needless to say, I deleted these triple A ratings everytime I came across them. Eventually I got so fed up, I quite. Fuck Walgreens and their douchebag store managers.
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