1-24-11 Monday (Cheap Customer)

There’s a saying in customer service about a happy customer will tell one person but an unhappy customer will tell a dozen.  Don’t let that be you.  I’m guilty.  Not all the time, but this time I am.  Sometimes I’m that guy that complains about bad service but doesn’t say anything about the good service.  Not that often though.  There’s many times I ask for the manager and compliment someone.  It’s important.  You see, in the past I’ve had exceptional (above and beyond) service by Rite-aid and then today, bad.  I scoured the blog looking for the praise they should have gotten in the past so that I could back link to that.  I found nothing.  I searched and searched.  I tried keywords like Rite-aid, riteaid, Simvastatin (the medication name), etc.  I tried.  I failed.  I even looked back at the entry of when I had the prescription first filled which was the good experience.  Nada.  It was the day Carl & Tim’s trailer arrived to Charlotte.  Maybe I was caught up with them settling in?  No excuse.  So with all that said, allow me to tell you what happened.  Not like you have a choice or anything…

My doctor has been awesome at understanding that I didn’t have medical insurance.  With the help of the internet and the Walmart pharmacist I was able to find inexpensive meds or substitutions.  In September, I found that Rite-Aid had an “Rx Savings Program” for a $9.00 drug of what I needed but it only came in 80mg tablets and I needed 40mg.  I reported that to my doctor and he changed my prescription to 80mg, take half.  I went to Rite-Aid as a first time customer, with prescription in hand and then asked where the pill cutters were.  The pharmacist said, “we can cut those for you.”  I was stunned, I was grateful, I thanked her and the staff.  The next 2-3 times I had my prescription filled I asked them to cut them and they did so with no problem.

Today I call my prescription and ask that they cut them.  She says she can’t guarantee that because they’re busy.  I said that I didn’t need them for over a week so no problem.  She says she’ll try but she doesn’t do that.  I told her that the last 2-3 times they did.  She adds she doesn’t like to do it because she doesn’t like handling people’s medications – it’s unsanitary. I think all the words I underlined are the words that made me angry.  I asked for the manager.  She says she is.  Now I understand.  I’ve always heard that pharmacists can make a lot of decisions on their own despite corporate guidelines.  They are empowered.  I understand that.  I understand they paid a lot of money in tuition, studied hard, and have an important job.  I’m the customer.  You should know that I have certain rights too.  Such as my reply of “I guess I’ll take my business elsewhere.”  She said, OK, thanks and hung up.  I will say, she was pleasant.  She even offered to show me where the pill cutters are when I come in.

What was annoying is that they’ve done it before so I have expectations.  It bothered me that the excuse given was that they were busy and when I gave her a week to do it, she had a different excuse.  What’s the truth?  She has no idea who in my family goes there, and didn’t even know my name to identify if I were a customer she’d truly want to lose.  I never got to give her my prescription number or any other info.  I spend a measly $9 a month with them.  Honestly, I’m not a “good” customer.  BUT when I have health insurance once again, I would have more expensive meds to get filled. 

I immediately called Rite-Aid’s corporate customer service line.  The rep said if they’d done it previously they should do it.  She didn’t confirm, nor deny, nor did I ask what their company policy is on pill-cutting.  I don’t put much faith in what a customer service rep says knowing that she’s referred it to a district manager of sorts and that we’d probably never speak again.  Perhaps what she said was just to seem like she was on my side.  Perhaps she really felt that way.  I dunno.  What I do know is that it’s 11:22am at this point and I’ll keep ya posted.

2:46pm, some district or regional type manager guy, Mike, called me from Rite-Aid.  He asked what medication I wanted filled.    He said that some pills lose potency when split or sometimes won’t split very well because of a lack of a divot.  He went on to explain there’s many pills or times when splitting is inappropriate.   He said he called Angie, the pharmacist I spoke with, and asked her what medication and dosage was in question.  She said she didn’t know.  Mike was apologetic and said Angie should have asked and then would have known to have offered the correct dosage.  Yes, the dosage I actually need is on the list now!  Mike asked if he could have them call my doctor for me and have the prescription changed.  Naturally I agreed.  Thanks Rite-Aid.  Thanks Mike.

And so, Rite-Aid will have to deal with me longer…