Sunday, August 03, 2008

Did any of the pharmacy staff address you by name?

One of the questions in the Shoppers Drug Mart customer survey is "Did any of the pharmacy staff address you by name?"

I'm really curious about which answer they're going for here. All the various customer service training I've had encourages you to address people by name, but as a customer at a pharmacy I'd prefer not to be addressed by name for privacy purposes. The pharmacy area is kind of out in the open, and I'd rather not give random people in the store the opportunity to match up my name with what medication I'm taking. Not that it's especially secret - I'm pretty sure I've mentioned every prescription I've ever had here - but it's the principle of the thing. They shouldn't be giving them customer service rules that could possibly compromise patient privacy.

But maybe they know that. I'd assume they're not entirely stupid. Maybe they're asking to make sure no one called me by name. At any rate, I don't want to be called by name and I don't want to get anyone in trouble, so I always mark it as no, no one addressed me by name, then clarify in the comments that that's what I prefer.

(Aside: because I know being called by name is a customer service technique, it always puts my shields up. Miss Manners says it's required by etiquette, but it just seems pure phoney to me. If someone addresses me by name when it isn't strictly necessary, I assume they're trying to play me somehow. And because of this, I rarely address other people by name when not necessary, except in customer service situations.)

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