Pharmacies Earn Top Scores in Customer Service

Pharmacies are rated as some of the best places to receive top-notch customer service in America.

A new Gallup poll revealed that pharmacies and banks are rated the highest for customer service, while clothing and retail stores and fast-food restaurants have a smaller percentage of excellent service scores.

The American survey-takers were asked to rate banks, pharmacies, post offices, grocery stores, convenience stores, clothing and retail stores, and fast-food restaurants.

Of those surveyed, 34% rated pharmacy service as excellent and 53% rated it as good, while only 10% rated it as fair and 2% as poor.

Pharmacies shared the lowest percentage of poor scores with clothing and retail stores and grocery stores at 2%.

For banks, 38% rated the service as excellent, 51% as good, 9% as fair, and 3% as poor.

Meanwhile, only 15% of those surveyed said fast-food restaurants had excellent service. Americans were most likely to say the service at these restaurants was good at 54%. A little more than 20% said service was fair, and 8% said the service was poor.

Less than 20% said service at clothing or retail stores was excellent, 61% said it was good, 18% said it was fair, and 2% said it was poor.

“One encouraging sign is that even for the types of stores with lower ratings, a majority say they have had a ‘good’—if not an ‘excellent’—experience, suggesting that most customer transactions are viewed positively,” the Gallup report read.

Some factors that may have contributed to these scores were the physical environment of the store, wait times, value of products, and direct contact with the employees, Gallup noted.

Another finding from the poll was that those born between 1900 and 1945 typically give the best ratings to pharmacies; 95% of this patient population said they had excellent or good service experiences.

Around 89% of baby boomers and 85% of Generation X individuals gave excellent or good scores to pharmacies.

Millennials were slightly less likely to give pharmacies good scores. Around 83% of those born from 1980 and later gave excellent or good scores.

One reason for this could be that the younger generation has fewer face-to-face interactions with pharmacists than the older age groups. Gallup noted that adults born before 1946 are more likely to visit pharmacies in person, and these personal interactions can lead to increased customer loyalty.

Because poor customer service often causes consumers to stop buying a product or using the service, brick-and-mortar pharmacies should be set up well to maintain and grow their customer base.

The Gallup poll involved a random sample of 3572 adults who responded to the survey via telephone interviews between October 26, 2015, and November 3, 2015.

Pharmacists have been considered some of the most honest and ethical professionals, based on a previous Gallup poll that analyzed Americans’ thoughts on 11 professions in 2014.