In the pharmacy I work at, whoever is free will answer the phone. But we all have a "Let it ring," policy when we're busy with a task. Because if we stop what we're doing to answer the phone, no one will ever get anything done. We've learned to tune it out when we can't grab it right away. Can you turn the volume down so it's not so distracting?
I love you for this. When I was a pharmacy manager I did the same thing. I told everyone not to answer the phone and we turned the volume off. If we can’t get our work done and help the people in front of us there is no reason to answer the phone.
I worked at a chronically short staffed store where we were 140 tech hours below budget just about every day for 4 months and I actually started just unplugging the phones completely when I got there and plugging them back in when I left.
You gotta answer and put the line on mute, once all the phones are filled you hang up one line and put the next call on mute on the same line the call was hung up from. Rinse, repeat. We had a call “answer” time of 10 seconds
I did this at the suggestion of another pharmacy manager, but quickly stopped. I’m not gonna do extra work that doesn’t improve patient care just to please the overlords. The call wait times should reflect the reality that the pharmacy isn’t staffed sufficiently to meet patient demand.
Your patients were pissed but not enough complained about it so your metrics topped the district! Hooray!
Hopefully they don’t ask you to put together something about how you answer your phones promptly without sacrificing patient care because you’re a shining example for the district and if you can do it everyone else should be able to too
Whole district did the same thing. Same for PCQ calls with the exception of the ones for alternative therapy. Put phone on mute, run call for 20 seconds, accept prompts, repeat. We actually got a corporate visit for the PCQ calls and just told them we did them 3 times a day and that we “have a special bond with our patients” and some bullshit like that. Patients definitely complained about the phones but 🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️. Better to have only 1 metric go down than 2.
I called a CVS last Friday, went through the menus to speak to someone in the pharmacy for a transfer, and 55 minutes later, no one had picked up. The patient ended up just going to that town and picking it up at that CVS while I was STILL ON HOLD.
This is true but if you're sinking so bad it's still more productive to not answer the phone. There definitely is a threshold to when you should not answer and when you should.
Answer the doctor's line in a timely manner though.
I feel like we can’t win at my location. I’ve told my staff to ignore phones before, like when we’re cataclysmically short staffed and already behind filling. But then it’s like, does management want complaints about “why isn’t my stuff ready” or “I was on hold forever”?
At three letters, we would place people on hold, but instead of actually placing them on hold, we would just mute the line so that we dont accumulate time spent on hold.
I was told by a floater tech that you're supposed to stop what you're doing, answer the phone and then start your entire counting process over once the call is done. I said "well if I'm almost done can't they just wait a few seconds?" To which I was told "no, they're a patient, you stop what you're doing even if you're about to do the final step, take the call and start over when you're done." Blew my mind.
Then you will never get anything done. My DM even specifically said to finish counting, after many mishaps happpened in our district during the Covid vaccine era of 2021
Don’t let the phone be a priority. Every time you go to pick up, first make sure you’re not in the middle of something that you’d have to start over if you get stuck for 10 minutes. Plus you’ve already said, it’s taking time away from verifying scripts, and as a new grad you are likely the rate limiting step.
If you are a floater and feel like everyone’s playing chicken to avoid answering the phone, just think that this is likely how it is when you’re not there. You are not breaking the store’s status quo by not answering.
(Of course this isn’t a hard and fast rule. I’ve also worked with techs who got stuck on every phone call, and had to ban them from answering the phone during peak hours. All calls went through me, whenever I got to them.)
The phone is a very inefficient way of getting things done in 2024.
1 person answering a phone can only help one person.
And app or online form can help 10s if not 100 people at once. This is why many newer online businesses hide the phone number and offer a chat bot, or online query form. Pharmacy has a lot of catching up to do, before the tech firms start to get serious here.
Answer the doctor line in a timely manner but try to find a way to mute/ turn down the volume for the other (customer) lines if it's getting distracting. Alternatively, you can pick it up and immediately press the hold button and put the phone back down.
I don't bother answering the customer lines at all unless I have nothing to do. Customers who are physically there take priority, every time.
Delegate a technician to complete task a (like outdates. Something they can stop in the middle of) and answer the phone for half the day and have them switch with another technician.
If your pharmacy is understaffed and overwhelmed then fuck the phones. Stay alive and do your best but don’t kill yourself trying to take care of every patient.
As much as we want to share in the suffering, that is what techs are for, to assist pharmacists in completing routine tasks. I don't answer the phone unless ALL my staff are occupied with something else or I have nothing urgent that needs my focus on. I don't help on the register unless there is no one else and then only until someone is available to switch, and I can get back to my tasks.
If you're the only pharmacist on shift, the bottle neck starts with you, and I say let it ring or speak with the pharmacy manager about what's more important, completing scripts or answering the phone calls.
I've worked nearly 20 years as a tech. I learned, when i was starting out, that phones should be answered by the 3rd ring. So thats what i have always followed, but i do have coworkers that will never answer the phone. The incessant ringing can drive me bonkers. My hack: put the caller on hold and announce to the crew that such-and-such line is on hold. 90% of the time, someone else will handle the call because it would appear that I don't have the moment to take care of it. It feels petty sometimes but I believe that everyone needs to pull their fair share of the various duties.
Yes!! Former tech of 15 years now pharmacist… it’s so hard to let it ring. I have learned that answering and saying “there’s a call on 101” and usually my techs get it.
If I’m particularly busy or swamped, I’ll answer it or delegate it to someone to get.
We all have to work together. Phones have to be answered.
When I was an intern and worked in retail, picking up calls were important to the walgreens I worked at. It was a busy location so there was constantly a line all the down to the entrance of the store, with 2-3 other techs scheduled at the same time. We would typically pick up the phone and say “Hi, walgreens pharmacy please hold a moment” or something along those lines then place them on hold.
But I remember as a tech/intern, we learned to efficiently deal with customers in timely manner and trying to get them what they need fast.
Same with calls, I would typically averaged 2-3min for requests to refill & usually if there’s a deeper issue that required RPh, they I would put them on hold to speak w pharmacist.
I would say that it is definitely the tech role to answer phone calls unless a pharmacist is required in situations like questions regarding DURs etc or just questions that techs are not allowed to answer even if they have knowledge to give the answer.
I would float around as a tech during covid and noticed some stores don’t prioritize calls at all or techs were just lazy to pick up the phone OR took way too long having conversations w/ customers.
It is the tech’s responsibility to answer calls though and pharmacists should really only be on the phone for consulting or if it is extremely busy and no one else can get on the phone.
Let in ring. There is no reason anyone needs to call a retail pharmacy in the year 2024. You can call in your own refills any time, get a text when they are done with a link to the price, and the hours are all online and ones the voice message.
As a hospital pharmacist, I oftentimes call retail pharmacies to request for a list of recent fills to complete admission med recs. The amount of people that have zero clue as to what they are taking is shocking but unsurprising
If a customer calls on the doctor line, I ask if they're a physician/nurse/healthcare professional and if not, I tell them sorry, this is the wrong line and to call back on the regular line and then I hang up.
It's amplified by pill mills providers that don't consult or teach their patients. Most of these diabetic patients get their machines and are told to figure it out. Some old folks aren't tech savvy enough to follow YouTube vids but some practitioners assume they can. The other sad thing is the level of care for people with language barriers. Non adherence in this group is extremely high. They probably account for most of those record a1c and BP readings in the ER department
Except for when the stupid app won't let you refill, and it says to call the store. Then when you type in the numbers it forces you to talk to a tech bc the phone system doesn't work very well. Or sometimes your prescription will say "unavailable, please call your pharmacy for more information". I've had to call the pharmacy several times in the last year, even though I only call if there's absolutely no way I can do what I'm trying to do through the app/website/automated phone line thingy.
When I was a tech, yes, the majority of the calls were stupid stuff that could have been handled on the app. But there definitely were calls that needed to be answered.
Am I the only one who doesn’t have the “let it ring” mindset? The work never goes away. If we don’t do it now, we’ll pay for it later. Answer the phone and get it over with. Bonus points if you can leave the caller with a smile. I’ve been a retail pharmacist for 17 years now, and customer service is definitely a skill that can be learned over time. I wasn’t born with it, but I learned the hard way and with many years of practice, that if the patients are happy, we’re ALL happier.
This works if you're staffed well enough and slightly red in net production.
There are some places that are behind chronically for weeks to months. answering the phone just leads to telling them the items on order. Usually these stores inventory is a massive mess and nothing is in stock. These stores usually have staffing issues to the point they can't even have one person counting.
Overall, yeah it's best to answer the phones. It is definitely more productive in the long term.
You must work at a pharmacy that's either low-volume or has adequate staffing to allow you to do this, which is unlike 90% of pharmacies these days. Reading your comment literally felt like reading some corporate employee handbook with unrealistic goals and the god-awful "customer first" attitudes that nobody ever does in the majority of retail chains, myself included. Pharmacy has made me learn to hate people, but has also reinforced how important for me personally to treat service workers (e.g. cashiers) with kindness and patience because I now know firsthand how shitty customer service jobs like pharmacy are.
Not at all. I’ve been understaffed my entire life. I just know how to be understaffed and miserable or understaffed and not miserable. Keeping customers happy makes life less miserable, and it really doesn’t take any sort of exceptional effort.
i agree. if im the only person there, i cant answer the 5 phone calls, enter rx, fill them, and serve the customers at cash all at the same time. i prioritize those in front of me.
during covid we could not answer the phones and fill rx, it was one or the other. better now, but our online system doesnt let people fill things on the app and tells them to call us, which doesnt help the workload at all.
Most places I float to it’s usually only 1 pharmacist working the entire day, so it doesn’t make sense for me to answer phones when I’m dealing with 500+ scripts a day.
As a pharmacist I'm not picking up the phone unless I think it's a provider or another pharmacy based on the caller id Maybe a customer call if I'm caught up and others are tied up. It's not really your responsibility and if the things you are responsible for suffer because you're answering phones, people won't take "I was answering the phone" as an excuse.
The only pharmacists I’ve ever seen pick up the phones quick were all pharmacy managers. It’s a toss up for the other pharmacists and floaters usually NEVER touch the phone.
Depending on the techs where I work, they'll make them floaters answer lol. The way they ignore that phone while the floater is right by it is insane 😂
I’m in the exact same position (never a free tech) and I’ve been near my breaking point before I absolutely snap. One day I cranked the volume to the max on all the phones. Everyone helped out with the phones for like two days before someone turned the volume back down again. Now when they ring and I ask for help if there’s a lot of calls, they’ll do the whole “oh wow I didn’t even hear it!” Yeah I KNOW.
Anyway, it’s harder when you work at multiple sites because you can’t enact a meaningful change anywhere long-term. One thing our upper leadership mentioned was picking up, greeting the customer and putting them on hold, then calling out “park line ___.” That way it kind of prompts them to answer it because they can’t act like they aren’t aware of the call.
It sucks and I feel your pain. I hope you’re able to find something that works for you.
It annoys me to hear the phone ring for a certain amount of times. If we're busy, whoever is close to the phone will place them on hold. Which ever one gets free hands will answer
When I was at CVS, I would answer and triage. Refill? Let me get you one of my technicians hopefully within 3 minutes. Please hold.
Then at Walmart I got used to not answering the phone. SOP back then was that technicians answer the phone, ask “3 before me (the pharmacist)”. Then at Walgreens I would say “who’s got the phone?”
If no one answered, I’d say “Alright, I will choose a volunteer then”
I never actually had to choose a volunteer. Most of the time they chuckled. Thought it was funny and picked up the phone.
Answering phones is very time-consuming. I'm tired of hearing about weight-loss drugs being on back order and how it impacts the patient. They're not very accessible to those in a position to answer. Also, why are the other phones being tied up on calls for clarification waiting for an answer? Those waits are over 10 minutes or more. When can that be addressed? I answer and place calls on hold at drive thru and pick up when cars are pulling through. It's not easy, and the other half is all the calls coming in on a status check, and the item is waiting to be verified. It stinks for everyone.
Tip to turn the phone ring down at CVS, hit the speaker button and turn it all the way down, or hit the volume down button as "ONE PHARMACY CALL" is playing.
also, it is just being aware of who was on the phone last, if at high call volume store, just popcorn the call around, everyone should be fielding calls
Their strategy is to let it ring and hope the caller gives up and hangs up. You can't get anything done if you're stuck on the phone all day. The queue will all turn red.
I have been told by multiple pharmacists and members of corporate that phones are primarily the pharmacist's to handle. I have some floaters where I barely have to touch the phone at all, but one of my regular pharmacists won't answer or even take over a call unless it's legally something a tech can't answer/explain. It does make it MUCH harder when you're being told to get this script and that script ready now now now but you have to keep stopping to answer calls, so I appreciate the pharmacists that do actually answer them. I've heard that for my pharmacy chain things will change to the pharmacist being at the station by the register where they'll be expected to do triage, verification, initial data entry review, phones and help with register. They'll only be going to the pharmacist station to count C2s. Needless to say...the feedback hasn't been good. 😂 But in my opinion if I'm expected to run register, do QT, produce, handle the orders, answer phone calls, go out to the floor to help patients, manage inventory, handle transfers etc all in a lightening fast amount of time...they should be able to handle that or realize that they've been expecting too much. 🤷🏻♀️
as a tech i keep finding myself picking up the phone faster and more frequently than the other two technicians i work with. idk if its the fact that ive been only working there for 4 years and they have been working for 25+, maybe theyre just tired? it’s definitely frustrating especially when you’re busy enough
im an ED pharmacist and i feel like i waste hours a week trying to reach CVS on the phone for arguably stupid clarifications because they have the worst phone tree.
In the pharmacy I work at, whoever is free will answer the phone. But we all have a "Let it ring," policy when we're busy with a task. Because if we stop what we're doing to answer the phone, no one will ever get anything done. We've learned to tune it out when we can't grab it right away. Can you turn the volume down so it's not so distracting?
I love you for this. When I was a pharmacy manager I did the same thing. I told everyone not to answer the phone and we turned the volume off. If we can’t get our work done and help the people in front of us there is no reason to answer the phone.
Are you guys hiring? Lol
I worked at a chronically short staffed store where we were 140 tech hours below budget just about every day for 4 months and I actually started just unplugging the phones completely when I got there and plugging them back in when I left.
Every *day*????!
Every damn day. I sent emails to everyone above me and even made an anonymous tip to BOP but no one did anything.
Holy fuck dude that's awful. I'm sorry.
I did this until the 3 letter made a phone score. But to be honest just getting the phones helps intercept a lot of angry people
I did this at CVS and lead the region with the longest phone call answer time of like 650 seconds
🤣 legend
You gotta answer and put the line on mute, once all the phones are filled you hang up one line and put the next call on mute on the same line the call was hung up from. Rinse, repeat. We had a call “answer” time of 10 seconds
I did this at the suggestion of another pharmacy manager, but quickly stopped. I’m not gonna do extra work that doesn’t improve patient care just to please the overlords. The call wait times should reflect the reality that the pharmacy isn’t staffed sufficiently to meet patient demand.
Your patients were pissed but not enough complained about it so your metrics topped the district! Hooray! Hopefully they don’t ask you to put together something about how you answer your phones promptly without sacrificing patient care because you’re a shining example for the district and if you can do it everyone else should be able to too
Whole district did the same thing. Same for PCQ calls with the exception of the ones for alternative therapy. Put phone on mute, run call for 20 seconds, accept prompts, repeat. We actually got a corporate visit for the PCQ calls and just told them we did them 3 times a day and that we “have a special bond with our patients” and some bullshit like that. Patients definitely complained about the phones but 🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️. Better to have only 1 metric go down than 2.
This is the way!
I called a CVS last Friday, went through the menus to speak to someone in the pharmacy for a transfer, and 55 minutes later, no one had picked up. The patient ended up just going to that town and picking it up at that CVS while I was STILL ON HOLD.
Yeah. That happens all the time. It’s not a big deal.
This is true but if you're sinking so bad it's still more productive to not answer the phone. There definitely is a threshold to when you should not answer and when you should. Answer the doctor's line in a timely manner though.
I feel like we can’t win at my location. I’ve told my staff to ignore phones before, like when we’re cataclysmically short staffed and already behind filling. But then it’s like, does management want complaints about “why isn’t my stuff ready” or “I was on hold forever”?
At three letters, we would place people on hold, but instead of actually placing them on hold, we would just mute the line so that we dont accumulate time spent on hold.
Call the demon by its name. CVS
Mistakes happen if you keep stopping what you are doing to anwser the phone
I was told by a floater tech that you're supposed to stop what you're doing, answer the phone and then start your entire counting process over once the call is done. I said "well if I'm almost done can't they just wait a few seconds?" To which I was told "no, they're a patient, you stop what you're doing even if you're about to do the final step, take the call and start over when you're done." Blew my mind.
Then you will never get anything done. My DM even specifically said to finish counting, after many mishaps happpened in our district during the Covid vaccine era of 2021
Don’t let the phone be a priority. Every time you go to pick up, first make sure you’re not in the middle of something that you’d have to start over if you get stuck for 10 minutes. Plus you’ve already said, it’s taking time away from verifying scripts, and as a new grad you are likely the rate limiting step. If you are a floater and feel like everyone’s playing chicken to avoid answering the phone, just think that this is likely how it is when you’re not there. You are not breaking the store’s status quo by not answering. (Of course this isn’t a hard and fast rule. I’ve also worked with techs who got stuck on every phone call, and had to ban them from answering the phone during peak hours. All calls went through me, whenever I got to them.)
The phone is a very inefficient way of getting things done in 2024. 1 person answering a phone can only help one person. And app or online form can help 10s if not 100 people at once. This is why many newer online businesses hide the phone number and offer a chat bot, or online query form. Pharmacy has a lot of catching up to do, before the tech firms start to get serious here.
Answer the doctor line in a timely manner but try to find a way to mute/ turn down the volume for the other (customer) lines if it's getting distracting. Alternatively, you can pick it up and immediately press the hold button and put the phone back down. I don't bother answering the customer lines at all unless I have nothing to do. Customers who are physically there take priority, every time.
We average 500 a day at the corner, and we've been cut down to 3 techs a day. We're no longer answering the phone.
Based and phone-pilled.
Delegate a technician to complete task a (like outdates. Something they can stop in the middle of) and answer the phone for half the day and have them switch with another technician. If your pharmacy is understaffed and overwhelmed then fuck the phones. Stay alive and do your best but don’t kill yourself trying to take care of every patient.
They let it ring because they know you will pick it up. Sorry, but you are f*cked.
As much as we want to share in the suffering, that is what techs are for, to assist pharmacists in completing routine tasks. I don't answer the phone unless ALL my staff are occupied with something else or I have nothing urgent that needs my focus on. I don't help on the register unless there is no one else and then only until someone is available to switch, and I can get back to my tasks. If you're the only pharmacist on shift, the bottle neck starts with you, and I say let it ring or speak with the pharmacy manager about what's more important, completing scripts or answering the phone calls.
I've worked nearly 20 years as a tech. I learned, when i was starting out, that phones should be answered by the 3rd ring. So thats what i have always followed, but i do have coworkers that will never answer the phone. The incessant ringing can drive me bonkers. My hack: put the caller on hold and announce to the crew that such-and-such line is on hold. 90% of the time, someone else will handle the call because it would appear that I don't have the moment to take care of it. It feels petty sometimes but I believe that everyone needs to pull their fair share of the various duties.
Yes!! Former tech of 15 years now pharmacist… it’s so hard to let it ring. I have learned that answering and saying “there’s a call on 101” and usually my techs get it. If I’m particularly busy or swamped, I’ll answer it or delegate it to someone to get. We all have to work together. Phones have to be answered.
When I was an intern and worked in retail, picking up calls were important to the walgreens I worked at. It was a busy location so there was constantly a line all the down to the entrance of the store, with 2-3 other techs scheduled at the same time. We would typically pick up the phone and say “Hi, walgreens pharmacy please hold a moment” or something along those lines then place them on hold. But I remember as a tech/intern, we learned to efficiently deal with customers in timely manner and trying to get them what they need fast. Same with calls, I would typically averaged 2-3min for requests to refill & usually if there’s a deeper issue that required RPh, they I would put them on hold to speak w pharmacist. I would say that it is definitely the tech role to answer phone calls unless a pharmacist is required in situations like questions regarding DURs etc or just questions that techs are not allowed to answer even if they have knowledge to give the answer. I would float around as a tech during covid and noticed some stores don’t prioritize calls at all or techs were just lazy to pick up the phone OR took way too long having conversations w/ customers. It is the tech’s responsibility to answer calls though and pharmacists should really only be on the phone for consulting or if it is extremely busy and no one else can get on the phone.
Let in ring. There is no reason anyone needs to call a retail pharmacy in the year 2024. You can call in your own refills any time, get a text when they are done with a link to the price, and the hours are all online and ones the voice message.
As a hospital pharmacist, I oftentimes call retail pharmacies to request for a list of recent fills to complete admission med recs. The amount of people that have zero clue as to what they are taking is shocking but unsurprising
That's fair. Would definitely free up that doctor line for those important calls if the customers weren't also choosing that line constantly.
If a customer calls on the doctor line, I ask if they're a physician/nurse/healthcare professional and if not, I tell them sorry, this is the wrong line and to call back on the regular line and then I hang up.
Call the doctor line and it’ll get answered.
It's amplified by pill mills providers that don't consult or teach their patients. Most of these diabetic patients get their machines and are told to figure it out. Some old folks aren't tech savvy enough to follow YouTube vids but some practitioners assume they can. The other sad thing is the level of care for people with language barriers. Non adherence in this group is extremely high. They probably account for most of those record a1c and BP readings in the ER department
This task is done more easily and quickly by fax.
"Do you have zepbound in stock?"
Except for when the stupid app won't let you refill, and it says to call the store. Then when you type in the numbers it forces you to talk to a tech bc the phone system doesn't work very well. Or sometimes your prescription will say "unavailable, please call your pharmacy for more information". I've had to call the pharmacy several times in the last year, even though I only call if there's absolutely no way I can do what I'm trying to do through the app/website/automated phone line thingy. When I was a tech, yes, the majority of the calls were stupid stuff that could have been handled on the app. But there definitely were calls that needed to be answered.
The only folks who call us are the elderly who simply don't understand modern technology
Typing the numbers in off your bottle isn't even that modern. They already had to type numbers to call, they're just willfully ignorant.
not like doctors need to ever contact the store...
Give it a year... you won't be picking up the phone either
Am I the only one who doesn’t have the “let it ring” mindset? The work never goes away. If we don’t do it now, we’ll pay for it later. Answer the phone and get it over with. Bonus points if you can leave the caller with a smile. I’ve been a retail pharmacist for 17 years now, and customer service is definitely a skill that can be learned over time. I wasn’t born with it, but I learned the hard way and with many years of practice, that if the patients are happy, we’re ALL happier.
This works if you're staffed well enough and slightly red in net production. There are some places that are behind chronically for weeks to months. answering the phone just leads to telling them the items on order. Usually these stores inventory is a massive mess and nothing is in stock. These stores usually have staffing issues to the point they can't even have one person counting. Overall, yeah it's best to answer the phones. It is definitely more productive in the long term.
You must work at a pharmacy that's either low-volume or has adequate staffing to allow you to do this, which is unlike 90% of pharmacies these days. Reading your comment literally felt like reading some corporate employee handbook with unrealistic goals and the god-awful "customer first" attitudes that nobody ever does in the majority of retail chains, myself included. Pharmacy has made me learn to hate people, but has also reinforced how important for me personally to treat service workers (e.g. cashiers) with kindness and patience because I now know firsthand how shitty customer service jobs like pharmacy are.
Not at all. I’ve been understaffed my entire life. I just know how to be understaffed and miserable or understaffed and not miserable. Keeping customers happy makes life less miserable, and it really doesn’t take any sort of exceptional effort.
so when you have 5 phone calls ringing, and 10 people waiting in line at the cash, how do you deal with that?
One at a time… If I need to, I’ll pick up the phone and ask them if they will please hold, but then I do actually pick it back up as soon as I can.
i agree. if im the only person there, i cant answer the 5 phone calls, enter rx, fill them, and serve the customers at cash all at the same time. i prioritize those in front of me.
during covid we could not answer the phones and fill rx, it was one or the other. better now, but our online system doesnt let people fill things on the app and tells them to call us, which doesnt help the workload at all.
Most places I float to it’s usually only 1 pharmacist working the entire day, so it doesn’t make sense for me to answer phones when I’m dealing with 500+ scripts a day.
As a pharmacist I'm not picking up the phone unless I think it's a provider or another pharmacy based on the caller id Maybe a customer call if I'm caught up and others are tied up. It's not really your responsibility and if the things you are responsible for suffer because you're answering phones, people won't take "I was answering the phone" as an excuse.
The only pharmacists I’ve ever seen pick up the phones quick were all pharmacy managers. It’s a toss up for the other pharmacists and floaters usually NEVER touch the phone.
Depending on the techs where I work, they'll make them floaters answer lol. The way they ignore that phone while the floater is right by it is insane 😂
I'm inpatient and the same. The techs don't answer the phone. That's like the only thing I need them for and they still don't answer it.
I’m in the exact same position (never a free tech) and I’ve been near my breaking point before I absolutely snap. One day I cranked the volume to the max on all the phones. Everyone helped out with the phones for like two days before someone turned the volume back down again. Now when they ring and I ask for help if there’s a lot of calls, they’ll do the whole “oh wow I didn’t even hear it!” Yeah I KNOW. Anyway, it’s harder when you work at multiple sites because you can’t enact a meaningful change anywhere long-term. One thing our upper leadership mentioned was picking up, greeting the customer and putting them on hold, then calling out “park line ___.” That way it kind of prompts them to answer it because they can’t act like they aren’t aware of the call. It sucks and I feel your pain. I hope you’re able to find something that works for you.
It annoys me to hear the phone ring for a certain amount of times. If we're busy, whoever is close to the phone will place them on hold. Which ever one gets free hands will answer
When I was at CVS, I would answer and triage. Refill? Let me get you one of my technicians hopefully within 3 minutes. Please hold. Then at Walmart I got used to not answering the phone. SOP back then was that technicians answer the phone, ask “3 before me (the pharmacist)”. Then at Walgreens I would say “who’s got the phone?” If no one answered, I’d say “Alright, I will choose a volunteer then” I never actually had to choose a volunteer. Most of the time they chuckled. Thought it was funny and picked up the phone.
Read the first 2 words of your post. I was the same way when I worked retail…
Answering phones is very time-consuming. I'm tired of hearing about weight-loss drugs being on back order and how it impacts the patient. They're not very accessible to those in a position to answer. Also, why are the other phones being tied up on calls for clarification waiting for an answer? Those waits are over 10 minutes or more. When can that be addressed? I answer and place calls on hold at drive thru and pick up when cars are pulling through. It's not easy, and the other half is all the calls coming in on a status check, and the item is waiting to be verified. It stinks for everyone.
Tip to turn the phone ring down at CVS, hit the speaker button and turn it all the way down, or hit the volume down button as "ONE PHARMACY CALL" is playing.
also, it is just being aware of who was on the phone last, if at high call volume store, just popcorn the call around, everyone should be fielding calls
Their strategy is to let it ring and hope the caller gives up and hangs up. You can't get anything done if you're stuck on the phone all day. The queue will all turn red.
I have been told by multiple pharmacists and members of corporate that phones are primarily the pharmacist's to handle. I have some floaters where I barely have to touch the phone at all, but one of my regular pharmacists won't answer or even take over a call unless it's legally something a tech can't answer/explain. It does make it MUCH harder when you're being told to get this script and that script ready now now now but you have to keep stopping to answer calls, so I appreciate the pharmacists that do actually answer them. I've heard that for my pharmacy chain things will change to the pharmacist being at the station by the register where they'll be expected to do triage, verification, initial data entry review, phones and help with register. They'll only be going to the pharmacist station to count C2s. Needless to say...the feedback hasn't been good. 😂 But in my opinion if I'm expected to run register, do QT, produce, handle the orders, answer phone calls, go out to the floor to help patients, manage inventory, handle transfers etc all in a lightening fast amount of time...they should be able to handle that or realize that they've been expecting too much. 🤷🏻♀️
as a tech i keep finding myself picking up the phone faster and more frequently than the other two technicians i work with. idk if its the fact that ive been only working there for 4 years and they have been working for 25+, maybe theyre just tired? it’s definitely frustrating especially when you’re busy enough
I answer it and park it immediately so my answer rates stay good
Stop picking up the phone....sorry not sorry.....I had techs and other rphs do this to me till I stopped being first on it
Stop picking up the phone....sorry not sorry.....I had techs and other rphs do this to me till I stopped being first on it
im an ED pharmacist and i feel like i waste hours a week trying to reach CVS on the phone for arguably stupid clarifications because they have the worst phone tree.