Walgreens: Customer Feedback Process

Founded in 1901, Walgreens goal is to be consumers’ first choice for health and daily living across the nation, and a central part of people’s lives and the communities where they live and work. The company provides the most convenient, multi-channel access to goods and services, and pharmacy, health and wellness services while developing a new customer experience. Walgreens is the largest drug retailing chain in the United States as of 2012. A fiscal year for Walgreens end on August 31st, all of the measures are from either fiscal year 2012 or 2011.

Walgreen Co. (Walgreens) and its subsidiaries operate a drugstore chain in the United States. “The Company provides its customers with multichannel access to consumer goods and services, and pharmacy, health and wellness services in communities across America” (Walgreen Company). The firm currently operates two mail-order facilities and has 7,752 retail drug stores located across all 50 US states, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia (Walgreens). Prescription drugs account

WalMart's (NYSE:WMT) expertise in discount retailing is globally recognized, as is their supply chain and extensive logistics capabilities. What differentiates WalMart from the many other discount retailers is their extensive reliance on buyer personas or representations of their customers. All aspects of the WalMart value chain are predicated on serving their customers as cost-effectively and efficiently as possible. WalMart has also created an extensive information systems network that includes satellite uploads of data on a daily basis from their thousands of retail locations to their Bentonville, Arkansas headquarters (WalMart Investor Relations, 2013). The intent of this analysis is to evaluate the mission, vision and strategy of WalMart from the perspective of improving its customer service while also taking into account its financial position. To accomplish this, objectives are provided, combined with performance measures and expected levels of performance as well. All of these factors taken together provide senior management at WalMart with insights into how they can profitably improve customer service.

Thank you Lord! I am very grateful to be able to successfully finish my third rotation at Walgreens pharmacy in Wellington, FL. My preceptor was Dr. Andrew Guvetis, a graduate from Nova Southern University and he has been working with Walgreens for a little over 2 years. During the first day, I noticed that this Walgreens was somewhat different from the others. It was designed like a wellness clinic where the pharmacist can spend some time during the day sitting on a desk right outside the pharmacy check-out counter and be accessible to answer any questions patients may have. It also had a big consultation room with comfy seating, a table including a sink and counter where a pharmacist can prepare immunizations or perform several screening tests. Walgreens offers health tests every day which help determine possible risks for heart disease or are looking for convenient ways to manage diabetes or high blood pressure. Some of the services offered include: cholesterol and blood pressure tests, body composition test and a comprehensive medication review. Test results are provided within minutes and it includes a pharmacist consultation as well.

The corporate name of the Walgreens drugstore chain is Walgreens Co, as identified on Form 10-5 (SEC Filing). The company is traded in the NYSE under the ticker symbol ‘WAG’.

The Walgreens chain began in 1901, with a drug store on the corner of Bowen Ave and Cottage Grove, Chicago, Illinois, United States owned by Galesburg native Charles R. Walgreen, Sr.[6] By 1915, there were five Walgreen drugstores. He added several improvements to the stores such as soda fountains and luncheon service. He also began to make his own line of drug products and was then able to control the quality of the items and sell them at lower prices. By 1916, 19 stores were in operation, all in Chicago. And in that same year, all the stores were consolidated under Walgreen Co. The 1920s was a very successful decade for Walgreens. In 1921, the company opened stores

Walgreens is the second-largest retail pharmacy chain in the United States. The company’s mission is to be America’s most loved pharmacy-led health, wellbeing, and beauty retailer (Walgreens Mission, n.d.). Our purpose is to champion everyone’s right to be happy and healthy through the company slogan of “Corner of Happy and Healthy.” Our core focus is to improve the quality of life through our pharmacy services, Take-care clinics, and health and beauty products. These messages are widely broadcast through media such as television commercials, radio, and health and fitness magazines.

Walgreens’ principal activity is to operate a chain of retail drugstores that sells prescription and nonprescription drugs. The company also carries additional product lines like general merchandise including cosmetics, food, beverages and photofinishing. Walgreens is one of the fastest growing retailers in the United States and led the chain drugstore industry in retail sales and profits last year.

• We are a “national/neighborhood” company. Our customers benefit from our national buying ability, but we want each store to be close to the customer and really a part of their neighborhood.

Strengths. As of 2008, Walgreen operated 6,934 stores in the U.S. and U.S. held territories, making it the largest retail chain pharmacy in North America (DataMonitor, 2010, p. 22). Walgreen’s recent acquisition of Duane-Reade, a prominent

Mission statement: “ To be a leader in merchandising and distribution of food, personal care items, pharmacy, seasonal merchandise and related products & services."

Founded in 1901 in Illinois by Charles R. Walgreen, Sr., Walgreens was a subsidiary of Walgreens Boots Alliance. In the most recent years, Walgreen’s corporate strategy has been focused on mergers and acquisitions, the first of which occurred in 2014 when Walgreens purchased the remaining stake in Boots costing the company approximately $15.3 billion. (Walgreens, n.d.) With this acquisition Walgreens became the largest pharmacy/health/beauty combination retailer in the world, operating in all 50 states and 12 countries internationally. (Schauber, 2014)

Along with the company's strong market performance, the Walgreens Corporation continually shows considerable growth. 2006 ended with Walgreens' 32nd consecutive year of record sales and earnings ("Walgreen Co. reports..., 2006). Walgreens' 2005 sales of $47.4 were a 12.5% increase over the previous year and over $1.5 billion in earnings were a 15.5% increase over the previous year (Walgreens Corporation, 2006a). Furthermore, a new Walgreens store opens approximately every 19 hours (Carpenter, 2004). Consequently, the Walgreens name carries considerable brand equity as a nationwide retailer known for quality and convenience. In fact, Walgreens has positioned itself as the drugstore offering the most convenience (Walgreens Corporation, 2006c). As such, Walgreens offers drive-thru pharmacies in over 80% of its stores, and nearly 30% of stores are open 24 hours a day (Walgreens Corporation, 2006a). The company strives to offer a merchandise mix in line with this focus, providing customers with one-stop stopping for not only prescription drugs,

According to the analysis of the pharmacy fulfillment process by PSI team, a number of major problems in the five basic steps should be concerned and emphasized by the company.

In order to support and increase customer satisfaction, surveying patients within the first 2 weeks about the current perception of customer service was conducted and shared with the staff. The interventions that were implemented within the second 2 weeks stemmed from the results that were found from the data collection, as well as a survey that was previously conducted by one of the nurses to determine the reasons and number of calls being answered from the nurse line. By focusing on these results in particular, there should be an increased awareness of patient and employee education, a decrease in waste as it relates to patient wait times and improving and smoothing out patient throughput.