The APP conference in Australia is always a great opportunity to observe the current trends and themes in community pharmacy- even online as we are doing this year. Interestingly these are generally reflected in the practices employed by the winners of the “Guild Pharmacy Of The Year’ award. Every year, similar themes emerge. These themes are even more relevant, in these troubled times of COVID-19 and the need to safeguard ourselves, our staff and our businesses in order to survive and even thrive. Typically, there are 5 key secrets to success:
Flexibility and innovation
Be nimble and adaptable to change, actually embrace it and be innovative to maximise engagement with customers and improve health outcomes. Don’t rest on your laurels. Any award or feedback is an inspiration to keep growing and doing more and better.
Winning pharmacies are always striving to innovate and do new things like installing a dispensary robot. Maybe now is the time to look at streamlining other systems so you can service more customers quickly and effectively.
Retail Sales And Professional Services Focus
Professional services can increase your profitability but you must also focus strongly on retail sales. Professional services income is limited (as is your time, right now) and, as with dispensary income, the government can reduce your income at any time. Think laterally. How can you continue to provide professional services remotely. and how about retail- there’s such a need for your front of shop products at the moment. How can you get them into your customers’ hands quicker, including those items they didn’t know they needed.
Adjusting the store layout allows you to offer expanded professional services and not only improve your profitability but increase retail sales, improving the dispensary/ retail ratio from 80/20 (very common) to a more desirable 60/40 with particular growth in products that align with your health message to your community. It’s as simple as identifying the gaps from other providers – such as difficulty getting a GP appointment for flu shots- and offering those services to customers and recommending vitamins to further support their immune system.
Marketing And Social Media
Social media is a great tool to increase engagement with customers and even build a ‘tribe’.
The strengths you and your team must bring to this platform are to be personable, genuine and engaging, tying in with your pharmacy and personal values and positioning yourself as an expert in caring for their needs- now more than ever .
What’s the heart and soul of your business? Is it caring for young families? Bring it out, it should be center stage on social media. Know who you are, know your key offering, write it down, involve your staff. Your customers will become a tribe who connect with you as people as well as your services.
Make your social media posting part of your everyday routine. A quote, a short video or some content complementing your overall marketing strategy, for example, a vaccinations promotion you’re running in store or letting your followers know when you have products available.
Like the award winning teams do, run small online campaigns a couple of days ahead about the benefits of vaccination, introduce your pharmacist who’s done the training and take the customer through the journey to build up credibility and trust. Build a story that is genuine and specific with a face attached so your community feel like they know you. Set a target for how many bookings you want so your staff stay focused. Regularly introduce fresh content and stay on point.
Caring For Staff And The Community
Your pharmacy (or pharmacies) are a social, medical and community hub who reach out to residents and are very caring of staff welfare and development. This keeps staff motivated to learn and provide the best advice and services to customers and patients.
Make sure your community engagement is excellent and you have a wonderful team who all have their own strengths and enjoy working together. Remember, it takes no extra time to make eye contact with a customer and smile when you’re serving them but that moment of connection is what builds loyalty.
One award winning pharmacy had the motto:’We care for ourselves, each other, our customers and our community’ and that’s their order of priority. They recognise different people like to be rewarded differently and in performance reviews ask staff “what would you like? How can I help you?” Some want training, some want flexible hours, some want regular acknowledgement- work out what they want and need. Surprisingly, it’s not actually about what you pay them. In today’s pressured environment, it’s the small ways you show your staff you care. Your compassion, your empathy, your flexibility, your leadership, courage and grace.
Having A Vision
To transform the pharmacy, make a plan, have a dream, get the staff and customers on board, take them on a great journey and make sure that what they want is in line with your dream. I’m sure that your vision has radically changed in the last few weeks and will continue to evolve. If you cultivate and reward a mindset of abundance instead of scarcity, everyone around you (and you, yourself) will benefit from it. Staff will cope better and customers will appreciate your outlook.
The basics for success are all here: look after your staff, reward them according to their motivators, do performance reviews (when the hectic days have subsided), get their feedback, play to their strengths, involve them in marketing and developing and driving a vision. Do that well and you could be the next Guild Pharmacy Of The Year!
In my next post, I’ll be delving into how to keep your staff motivated and enjoying maximum job satisfaction because it underpins a pharmacy’s success. Pharmacy owners need your staff to come along with you.
If you’d like to learn some specific actions you can take now to build your team’s motivation then check out strategy 2 and 3 in this great report. Click here: https://pharmacyprofitsecrets.com/7-strategies-to-increase-pharmacy-revenue-report and download your free Report NOW!
