Who is your customer?

Targeting your business to the right customer

Imagine a pharmacist going through the decision process of where to locate a new pharmacy. As they look at the candidates for the location, the most probable question would be, “Who lives and works around here that would be a customer of my pharmacy?”

Researching the answer to that question, the pharmacist will make decisions about what to stock, and in what quantities for both the pharmacy and the over the counter products. The logic behind this is that the pharmacist wants to have plenty of the products he will sell on hand so that the staff does not have to send customers to the competition. At the same time, the pharmacist does not want to have money tied up by having too much inventory on hand for customers that are not likely to be shopping in his pharmacy.

While not the only component of the successful operation of a pharmacy, understanding the customer base is one of the main components in having a profitable pharmacy. In reading this article you most likely are not the person being described as opening a new pharmacy.

However, performing the exercise should not be restricted to those that are opening a new pharmacy. It is an exercise that every pharmacy should perform, and with a plan to review it every year – just to make sure you are on target for a potentially changing market.

The process is actually easier for an existing pharmacy. Thinking of the existing customer base, the pharmacist will want to consider which customers frequent the pharmacy the most. Consideration should be given to those that spend the most; those customers that contribute the most profit to the pharmacy, and perhaps even those that are the easiest to deal with.

Using a road map of your area and push pins of various colors, you can begin to ask customers a series of questions to learn more about them. As an example, to learn what hours you should be open you can ask each customer, “How far is your commute to work or school?”

If the customer’s answer is 10 minutes or less you give them a push pin of a certain color. For answers of 10 to 30 minutes you give them a second color. For 30 minutes to 45 minutes you use another color, continuing this process for as many time categories as necessary. Then ask the customer to put the pin in the map where they live.

Repeating this process for several days, you will have information that will help you to decide how early you should open and how late you should be open each day. What else would you like to know about your customer?

How about learning how many children are in their home? What if you asked if they used coupons? Do you take vitamins? Perhaps you could ask if they have ever had a need for a cane or wheel chair.

Without asking questions that delve into very personal information, you can learn about your customer so that you can tailor your pharmacy to your customer base.

Do you need to offer DME products? How about compounding services? Do you offer to make deliveries to homes or work nearby? The more you can answer these questions, and any other questions that are relevant to your pharmacy and your customers will help you to better target your business.

Why should you do this? Because when you can sell more items to each customer, as compared to selling a single product or service to many customers, you will find it much easier to do your marketing. You will also find that when customers are more dependent on you, because you sell more of the products and services they need, the customer becomes less likely to be wooed by your competition to do business with them, and less likely to leave your business.

Who is your customer?

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This article is copyrighted by Tom Shay and Profits Plus Solutions, who can be reached at: PO Box 128, Dardanelle, AR. 72834. Phone 727-823-7205. It may be printed for an individual to read, but not duplicated or distributed without expressed written consent of the copyright owner.