Pharmacy Service Improvement at CVS (A) Harvard Case Solution & Analysis

Problem Statement

CVS is a supplier of pharmaceutical products working at the pharmacy through its operational services in Rhode Island. Currently, the company is facing problem on its operational side which are functioning unwell and due to these issues customers got highly disappointed from pharmacy services.

This situation has moved CVS towards severe customer loss which is shrinking the company’s growth opportunities and pushing it towards financial losses. The existing scenario states that the company is unable to fulfill customer’s requirements along with the unskilled staff, customer care staff and maintained operational devices. The pharmacy service improvement (PSI) team has recognized the current prescription contentment process, its exemption charges, and the problems generated by these exemptions. The company is planning to modify its processes, and what material changes its informational system requires to make in support of restructuring its process.

Introduction

As it has been mentioned earlier that the Consumer value store (CVS) is going through the phase of increased client’s grievances that is hindering the company to obtain more market share and growth opportunities. The problematic area in the beginning was supposed to be due to poor customer service. Conversely, with the help of PSI’s investigational research over the CVS’s past customers and employees experiences and consultations provided to them through pharmacy staff has changed the direction of PSI’s scrutiny. This investigation suggests that the main problem in consumer value store was with their data entry system and their customer care employees collectively presumed it as the issues with operational managers and executives.

However, the pharmacy directors, chief pharmacists and their consultants from the Boston Consulting Group were having an opinion that the key problem exists in the order fulfillment process that resulted in customer disappointment. The Pharmacy team was immense, putting their level best to resolve CVS’s operational and managerial related problems.  The enduring portion of this case study discusses the key factor originated in the gratification of the process and sanctioned steps to solve those main problems.

Failure of Management to Satisfy Customer:

 The following are the reasons identified by the PSI’s team in order to know the level of customer’s satisfaction regarding the delay in the record maintaining and response from the physician.

a. Illegitimate replenishments

Customers are often unable to keep track of their refills Adding up with the normal day,  on average to get a response from a doctor whether a refill was allowed or not. This situation caused customers to become irritated.

b. Rejection of Scripts for payment by insurance.

 The payment makers wanted to control their costs with the help of long rules about drugs, refilling time and cash collection conditions truly complicated the work of pharmacy employees therefore extended the waiting time for a refill. At the same time, the customers might not be sufficiently responsive of these rules and requirements of payment through an insurance company. Until and unless, the pickup came to the customer for prescriptions, over the customer was conversant by the store employees about the situation, which was beyond their anticipation.

c. DUR hard stop problem.

The wrong feeding of customer’s data was due to the written errors in the scripts, a DUR that stores customer's prescription record has generated false results. Due to these incorrect subscriptions pharmacy employees had to consult with each doctor individually to solve this issue, which would take extra time for progression. However, the customers did not expect nor even possessed such an idea.

Alternatives

Short Action plan:

Currently the CVS Company must invest on the effectiveness of their sales force that will contribute positively to improve their customer service process.

Long-term strategy:

The company must invest on the online information storage system that is technically flexible and automatically store data for a single patient at the time of refills. The company must use innovative technology in which customer’s data would be attained in a short period of time with their identical social security number.

CVS in 2000 due to service were light versus heavy users

PSI suggests that if the CVS’s company will give importance to improve its services then they would be able to prevent customer loss. The Customer value services were losing their customer with an alarming percentage of 60-90.........................

This is just a sample partial case solution. Please place the order on the website to order your own originally done case solution.

CVS pharmacy retail operations do not work well, and poor clients. Many clients escape as a result. Improving pharmacy service documented the current process prescriptions, the rate of exclusion, and the problems caused by exclusion. Companies now have to decide how to change the process, and what changes of the information system to make in support of the revised process. "Hide
by Andrew McAfee Source: HBS Premier Case Collection 11 pages. Publication Date: December 14, 2005. Prod. #: 606015-PDF-ENG

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