Walgreens

01/31/12

Long waits for medications & horrible customer service

by hujiemin721

Waited 3 days to have an antibiotics filled in the pharmacy, and the antibiotics was not even out of stock (Z-pak should be plentiful since it's fast-mover). I've had problems with Walgreens before especially their 24-hour pharmacy for long waits and lack of response to customers through phone calls. Walgreens seems to give out empty promises alot regarding customer care. If they would want their patients wait so long for medications filled (especially antibiotics and painkillers) or their medication questions answered by pharmacist, hire more technicians to help out. Walgreens, like a lot of corporations I see, wants to maximize their profits and trivialize customer service through just hiring limited amount of help to service a lot of customers, thus sacrificing customer service in the meantime. If pharmacists need to return to work ASAP wanting you to read patient pamphlets rather than giving out proper patient counseling as they should since they are trained this way in pharmacy school for proper patient care, if you need to wait more than 15 minutes on a medication because they said there are a lot of patients in line, then obviously there are not enough help. Yet Walgreens is very reluctant to add more of the much needed technician help to pharmacies since they want to maximize their profits, in the meantime sacrificing customer service. Walgreens wouldn't give any help to pharmacist (thus they must work alone answering phone calls, filling, verifying, ringing up registers) in their 24-hour pharmacies after 10PM when I last worked for them as a pharmacist. If you are upset at your pharmacist or a particular technician for long waits in line or not picking up telephone calls, you are mad at the wrong people. Those corporate managers and decision makers are often the ones limiting help trying to maximize profits (don't tell me they cannot financially afford more help with technician help as little as $10-15/hr with their trillion dollar business and with them keeping up opening more and more stores expanding their business). Again, these what I call "official liars" like to give out euphemistic lies and lots of empty promises saying "we care about our customers". Well, they obviously don't when they want their patients wait for more than 15 minutes for their medications filled (or in my case, outrageously 3 days) or their pharmacists not being able to spare time to counsel patients verbally since they need to return to work because they have a lot of scripts to fill.

Another thing outrageous about this store is, when we purchased some vitamins in the front store and asked for a bag, the cashier wanted to charge us 10 cents per bag. I mean, come on Walgreens, is this what you call "we care about you, customers"? Isn't this again another example that all you care about is money and profits and "I really don't care about you as a customer; all I want is for you to bring me some profits while I make you wait in long lines and give you crappy customer service through begruntled and overworked employees just because corporate liars who are in charge limit their amount of help.