In Medi-Trust I Do Not

My wife called Medi-Trust today to refill some prescriptions. The person to whom she was speaking made a comment about how most of my prescriptions were lapsed or no longer valid. She politely disagreed with him, tried to discuss the situation, but he said the last time they had a refill for me was last year.

Step in the angry American. I had been in to see my doctor in mid-October and my wife had written me a note to make sure I got the doctor to write scripts for all four of my current medications. We then, together, went down to the pharmacy because there was an issue with one of the (existing) prescriptions. During that visit, I gave them the script with all four new prescriptions on it, and the female pharmacist and the counter girl did what they felt they had to in order to fix the one prescription. My guess is that they then filed the script without inputting the other three updated prescriptions.

I thought telling him this provided him with more than enough information for him to put the time and date into context, give him ideas on how best to provide customer service, and suggest a mutually agreeable solution.

He said, basically, "I don't know what to tell you, we don't have it. You'll have to go to your doctor and get these renewed." This is not an acceptable, mutually agreeable solution. And it is lazy and self-serving. This completely ignores everything I just told you. Time to ramp it up and get angry.

My responses was, "So, I did everything right, I went to my doctor, I got my scripts, and took them to you, and you screwed up, so now it is my responsibility to fix it? I don't think so."

We argued back and forth for a minute or two more, with him trying to pass the buck to me and me not accepting that buck. I finally asked, "Don't you keep the old scripts in a file somewhere? Can't you find it and fix it?"

"I can go try to dig through our files," he responded, as though to do so would mean losing a child or killing kittens.

"Do that," I said, "I'll wait."

It took about 6 minutes of dead air time on the phone before he came back. Sure enough, I was right and he was wrong. He sounded angry that he had found the script, angrier that it wasn't done correctly, and angriest that he had to admit that I was right.

Living where I am now, I'm sure that his initial "you have to go back to your doctor" is usually met with an "okay," even if the person is pretty sure they are right, and he goes about his day. CSRs here are used to those they deal with being much more 'go along to get along' than I am. I feel that this leads to CSRs who will not work with you, who don't want to listen when you suggest they (or someone in their company) have done something wrong, and who rarely expect someone to come out swinging and make them do their job.

When my wife politely asked the question about files, why didn't this gentleman simply respond in the affirmative and go check them? If he had, he would have found the old script and could have figured it out without me getting on the phone and getting angry and forcing him to do his job. Barring that, when you have someone else get on the phone and give such a detailed description of when they brought the script, who they spoke to, and what occurred, why not give them the benefit of the doubt and check their story? Once he refused this second opportunity and I got angry and demanding, why didn't he immediately offer to continue looking for the script, which would have led him to the solution and avoided the angry verbal engagement he and I went through? My wife and I, basically, gave him multiple opportunities to provide us with customer service that he ignored or refused, resulting in him having an angry exchange, being proved wrong, and having to apologize and fix it anyway.

Customer service has been on a downward track for some time now. What confuses me is that this is one area where companies can make the biggest difference and, by providing good support, get more business in return for minimal investment.

The old adage "the customer is always right" is not always accurate but it is always true. What the adage means is that the words that the customer is saying may not be accurate, but if they feel they are wronged, the business needs to right that wrong. The business can right that wrong in a mutually beneficial way such that the business doesn't lose a customer or its shirt in correcting the mistake. The business can present the customer's error in such a way that the customer doesn't lose face and the business doesn't lose the customer. Either way, the customer is satisfied, the business keeps the customer, and both gain from the experience.