Walgreens Pharmacists to focus on customers

In a new article at the Arizona Daily Star, they share how Walgreens in the state of Arizona are changing their practices at the pharmacy counters. Instead of filling all prescriptions in stores, they're going to be sending some prescriptions to a center in Tempe to allow pharmacists in stores to focus on their customers. In addition to filling prescriptions, the outsourcing center will also take care of data entry of prescriptions and phone calls.

One concern that arises in these situations is the number of employees that will actually be serving customers in stores. There is also concern as to the safety of the patient when pharmacists in-store are not fulfilling the patient. Read the full story here.

What do you think? Could this potentially turn into a way to better suit the in-store shopper?

Walgreens making changes to be customer centric

In a new interview at the In Store Marketing Institute, three Walgreens executives discuss their efforts to become more customer-centric, with their new focus on "customer centric retailing".

Shopper Marketing: What is the new CCR initiative?

Bryan Pugh: We are working to elevate purchasing into a merchandising business, putting the customer at the center of everything we do. Our first change is all of the adjacencies. Instead of laying out the store by how buyers buy the store, we lay it out by how a customer shops. We began rolling out 40 new departments in mid-March.

Read the full interview here.