Triple S-- Sh!t, Sh!t and even more Sh!t

So for those of you who may not be familiar with Triple S let me give you the 411. The 3 S's stand for stock, shop and service. What it's about is that little survey that shows up sometimes on the bottom of your sales receipt where you get to call in to a toll-free number and answer some questions, most of which are a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest. The incentive to call is the chance to win $1000. Funny, 8 years or so ago it was $10,000, then a few years later it went down to $2500, now it's down to $1000. By the way, does anyone know anyone who has ever won the money?

What employees have to deal with is the dirty little (not so) secret that if someone gives a 4 CVS counts it as a ZERO! What is the point in that? I don't know about you, but I'm not someone who throws around perfect scores, even when I'm very satisfied with service. So that means that I would doom a hard-working, well run store to a ZERO if I didn't know the rules.The funny thing is that even though the claim from corporate is that they want to know what our customers really think of us field management spends an unbelievable amount of time and energy trying to get the stores to manipulate the scores to be higher. This is in large part due to the inherent unfairness of the survey scores, but it's pretty obvious that corporate doesn't care about fair.

Just check out this extract from an article that ran in the publication Drug Store News, coming from CVS executive vice president of strategic planning and business development Deborah Ellinger:  And there is no such thing as getting a perfect score. Nothing would irritate Ellinger--who describes herself as the "What If" person at CVS--more. "I am always dissatisfied when we get 'good' ratings," she said. "You might not be setting the bar high enough We should be continually looking at ourselves in the mirror and make sure that we don't get satisfied just because customers tell us we are doing fine."


Now, knowing that a store's "success" (read: bonuses for managers and pharmacists) is largely based on the results of these totally subjective ratings is there any doubt that it's corporate management's goal to make the bonuses unattainable, thereby saving them millions by not actually having to pay up on bonuses? The previous quotes from a corporate mucky-muck pretty much proves that it's the classic carrot on a stick being dangled in front of the horse. And it's no longer limited to Triple S. Now they have a whole bunch of other stats called "Key Performance Measures" or KPM for short. It's just another way for management to screw the management teams both in front store and pharmacy. Pretty much all the KPMs have to do with getting customers to buy into CVS's programs, all of which are aimed at increasing sales and profits under the guise of "patient care."


Part of what CVS uses to recruit management team and pharmacists is the promise of bonuses based on the store's performance. What they don't tell them is that even if they do everything right at store level their chance of bonusing is dependent on the results of a subjective questionnaire that is weighted against the stores. The previous quote shows that even if you do well at store level corporate is conspiring to make sure that the goals stay unattainable. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy if you're an employee. If that's the way they treat their store managers what chance do the rank-and-file employees stand?

Don't piss on my head and tell me it's raining!

Anyone who works for a CVS retail location has been listening for the last couple years about how the economy is having such a negative impact and that's why you're not able to actually staff your stores sufficiently. It also explains those insulting pay raises that have dribbled out of corporate's overstuffed mouths. That being said let's take a look at the real numbers. Since I come from the pharmacy end I will concentrate on those numbers rather than front store, although front store was still ahead for the year.

Every quarter of 2010 showed sales growth in the retail pharmacy; Q1 3.6%, Q2 4.2%, Q3 4.1% and Q4 3.1%, all numbers representing increases over the previous year's quarterly results. Those are overall sales numbers, which include new stores that didn't exist the year before. The REAL tale is in same-store sales, or a direct comparison of existing stores and how they grew or declined compared to last year.

Every quarter AGAIN showed growth in same-store sales; Q1 3.7%, Q2 2.9%, Q3 3.0% and Q4 2.0%. And the real topper is that they claim that sales were hurt by new generics on the market! So imagine what the numbers would have been. Of course what they don't mention is that while generics cost less and therefore drive down gross sales numbers the mark-up on generics is many times GREATER than brand-name, meaning profit margin goes up exponentially on generics. So every time your district managers tell you that sales are down you know they are completely full of shit. Your efforts are increasing sales while you are doing it with fewer hours. What they don't talk about is the 800 pound gorilla in the room-CAREMARK!


CVS is losing their shirts on Caremark's PBM, or pharmacy business management. You know, the Caremark prescription service where you can't talk to anyone on American soil because it's all handled by call centers in Sri Lanka or some other God-forsaken place. The company is trying to get blood out of the stores to cover for the fact that they fucked up by buying Caremark and continue to lose on the deal. If you Google the overall numbers it looks like the company is really having a hard time with the economy, but a little break down of the numbers shows that it's Caremark that is the rock around the neck of the company. The stores are doing well. In fact Retail Pharmacy Quarterly, a trade publication, says that CVS's retail operations had a better year in 2010 than their two main competitors Walgreen's and Rite Aid when compared to 2009.

Next time you have to call Caremark because of a problem with insurance you should tell the Indian on the other end (who probably goes by the name of Billy or Sally or Steve or Peggy while you can practically hear the sitar music playing in the background and smell the curry through the phone line) that they owe you a great big thank you because the stores are carrying the PBM segment on their collective backs.

To my fellow retail pharmacy grunts I say enjoy your 2% raises, bitches.