Chris Brooker’s recent story ” We take a look at 12 key business-related findings and statistics from the 2016 UTS:Pharmacy Barometer ” shows us that 3 (ie 25%) key findings are about professional services.   As a keen student of, and stakeholder in the evolution of retail pharmacy, I have no doubt that those pharmacies that survive and thrive David Quilty’s “burning platform” will be exemplars of professional services delivery.  My concern is the degree to which “professional service” seems to be overlooked through the noise and fanfare surrounding “professional services”.

No, I am not being tautological.

More than 250 studies of the health customer engagement experience and script processing efficiency across a broad cross-section of the Australian industry show how under-utilised pharmacy-only and pharmacist- only medications are.  Indulge me to do some “join the dots” and put forward a thesis for your consideration.

• Average number of s3 + s2 + unscheduled health product items (“non-script health products”) per script customer visit serves as a proxy to tell us the degree to which the staff:customer counter conversation generates a product based version complete solution for each script customer
  • The current industry average is 0.29 “added on” such products per script customer visit

Step 1 = run an observational data collection exercise for a few days…instruct your cash and wrap staff to run a log to count the number of “added on” products for every script customer.  See how you compare to 0.29.

• Average number of non-script health products per otc customer visit serves as a proxy to tell us the degree to which the counter conversation generates a product based version complete solution for each otc customer
  • The current industry average is 1.18 “basket size” such products per otc customer visit

Step 2 = run another observational exercise for a few days…instruct your cash and wrap staff to run a log to count the number of these products for every otc customer (ask the dispensary counter staff to drop a little colour card into the customer basket for otc customer flagging).  See how you compare to 1.18.

• Average number of s2 + unscheduled health product items per “health gondola aisles” customer visit serves as a proxy to tell us the degree to which the self-selecting mid-store is working in parallel with  counter conversations in generating further volume throughput of these types of products (notwithstanding that the gondolas cannot carry s3 meds, nor in some states, s2 either)
  • The industry average on this ratio is currently unknown

However, a complete suite set of metrics in relation to all the above can be derived,  if each metric in the suite described above is “normalised” back to a “per script customer transaction” ratio.  Apples to apples.

Step 3 =  Run another observational, manual log over a few days again,  to get enough data to give you average number of script items per script customer visit.  The national average is 1.9.  ie 100,000 scripts pa divided by an average of 2 script items per script customer processed shows 50,000 script customer visits/transactions pa.  See how you compare.

Step 4 =  do another observational, manual sample count over another few days…simply counting script customer visits vs otc customer visits.  Remember to count a script customer who breaks their dispense into two visits as a half.  Let’s say you end up with an anticipated ratio of something around 4 script customer visits to 1 otc.  Now you can convert your otc basket size result from above and normalise it to “per script customer visit”, eg if your version of the national average 1.18 from above is 1.2, then divide that by 4 {for the four-to-one ratio} to give you 0.3 non-script health products from otc customer visits but translated to per script customer visit.

Step 5 =  run your annual non-script health products volume, and divide it by your script customer visit number {your version of the 50,000 from above}, eg 100,000 such items / 50,000 script customer visits = 2.  The national average is again, coincidentally 1.9.  See how you compare.

Step 6 = Now you have mathematical magic at your fingertips.  If I now assemble all the example numbers converted to “per script customer visit” from above, I derive a total 2 non-script health products sold per script customer visit {see immediately above}, which is contributed to by…

• Script counter conversations between staff and script customers , contributing 0.3 {rounding up the 0.29 from above}
• Otc counter conversations between staff and otc customers, contributing another 0.3 to the 2
• By derivation then, 1.3 products are generated from the aisles, more often than not by self-generating customers…making up the balance of the total 2 per script customer visit

So, why is this set of numbers magic to you, and what does it have to do with my heading “professional service” vs “professional services”?

• Knowing how your score on each of these four metrics compares to national average can indicate where you are over-; on-par; and under-performing at each critical location.
• Knowing how your “mix” compares, ie how much volume is coming from self selection vs counter conversation can indicate how well your strategy aligns with your reality.  For example, a non-discount, professional services pharmacy would likely look for a higher than average proportion of the mix to come from staff:customer counter conversations.

Regardless of your analysis and assessment on both these fronts, I define “professional service” as the confidence and competence of pharmacists to extend reacting and responding in their conversations at the service counters to meet customer perceived needs … to … prompting and proacting  to exceed customer expectations and provide a fuller solution than the customer’s anticipation.  Script customer add-ons and otc basket size of s3/s2/unscheduleds is a very good proxy to the product based part of the more complete solution and therefore “professional service”.  And at current benchmarks , 0.29 per script customer visit and 1.18 per otc customer visit, I think we are significantly and unwittingly missing the opportunity of  dramatically improving “professional service”.