Table of Contents
Overview 3
Identify the Organization 3
Aspect Technology Training Project 4
Defining The Problem 5
Analysis 6
Causes 6
Solution 7
References 11
2
Overview
CVS Pharmacy is considered one of the top pharmacy nationwide chains in the country. There are more
than 7,100 stores total, located in nearly every state. The stores retail medication, toiletries and sundry
merchandise that is purchased by consumers such as snacks, beverages, skin care and personal care items,
holiday merchandise and convenience goods. There is also an online site where products can be ordered
and shipped directly to consumers. Some of the CVS pharmacies have medical services that operate out
of the retail stores.
Identify the Organization
CVS recognizes the importance of establishing a culture that will have an effect on its people
and their performance. The organizational development functional management at CVS realized
that sharing a common vision would assist each individual in understanding what the company
stands for, commit to the same vision, and then work toward supporting the mission each and
every day.
The vision at CVS is simple “to strive to improve the quality of human life” (CVScaremark.com,
2010). Taking a look at two of the organization’s functional goals in the Technology and Human
Resource business areas, it is easy to see how CVS is an industry leader.
The organizational structure or team at CVS involved in working on this issue from the HR area
includes the Senior Vice President of HR, Training Specialist, and local HR managers. From
organizational operations there is a technology manager, and procurement managers.
The role of the organizational development team is to identify areas where issues remain
unresolved even though there have been some changes made to management or system
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processes. The goals of the technology department are to remain at the forefront of the industry
and continue to meet objectives set to improve operations quality with the organization.
As HR manager and part of the Organizational Development team, Mr. Ted has recognized that
the IT technical department is needed to assist in the problem task. In turn the technical
department has brought in Aspect Technology to assist in analyzing the issues relating to
customer complaints and the inefficiencies in the level of customer service from a systems
standpoint. A report completed on the systems in place at CVS help in identifying the problem
areas and providing insight into how to make changes to the system, applications and require
HR support for training that can improve the situation. The report was conducted by Mr. Ted and
is documented in CVS Pharmacy Aspect Technology Training Project.
Aspect Technology Training Project
Lastly Mr. Ted identified issues in the Human Resource department that contributed to the
problems with customer service. The ability to train and staff knowledgeable employees needs
to be addressed. This analysis reviews the issues and proposes a solution to getting well
trained staff that remains with the company for the long term. It is proposed by Mr. Ted who
worked with the Director of Government Services at CVS.
The problem question is how to improve the level of customer service at CVS reducing
complaints. The main goals of the leadership in the technology department were to retain the
position of industry leader while continuing to improve operations with a higher standard or
quality. This will mean addressing issues of slow response times and getting the HR and
technical solutions that correct the problems with order processing.
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Defining the problem
There are issues related to timeliness in responding to customer prescription orders. There are
also concerns that misinformation has resulted in customer dissatisfaction in getting updates as
to the status of their orders. There are too many cases being reported where customer’s orders
are misplaced or left unfulfilled. This too is an area that needs to be addressed.
How can CVS OD team, specifically HR work to leverage technology in order to improve
the organization by resolving issues of efficiency and responsiveness to customer
service?
1. The nature of the problem is rooted in technological processes.
2. Related problems are the hiring process.
As HR manager your role is to review the hiring process and become more proactive to aligning
with customer service needs. In addition HR needs to communicate with the IT department to
research how technology and training can improve the prescription order processing system.
HR can address the problem of improving customer satisfaction with better trained workers to
reduce the issues related to response times and error tracking using these systems. This will be
effective in improving the OD goals of raising the level of efficiency while reducing customer
service complaints to response and errors in processing orders.
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Analysis
CVS Technology
The OD Team including Team leader the HR manager, Mr. Ted at CVS has attempted to
improve customer service by working with the IT technical department to investigate
implementing several technological solutions. Mr. Ted has also reviewed how the call center
can update its resources through Voice Interaction Response to reduce customer complaints.
Some of the features recently under consideration are a Voice interaction response system
across all customer service platforms to accept incoming customer calls. Another resource may
be a voice response system to dial out to customers informing them of the status of their
pharmaceutical orders. In addition the team is looking into how to respond to online requests
from customers. Under consideration are automated and interactive email auto-response
handlers.
Causes
Each of these customer service response systems acts independently and often results in
customer complaints of poor service with many customer needs left unmet and others being lost
in the process. At CVS this was unacceptable and management was charged with devising an
organized approach to meeting the needs of customers that presents a single solution to handle
all aspects of customer service issues (Thies, 2010). The reporting generated by the different
systems failed to give an accurate picture of the volume and type of service necessary to
improve customer satisfaction. Because the systems were different they did not provide the data
required to make informed decisions of how to improve matters. The number of customer
service workers hired to service customers had high turnover due to the stress associated with
meeting the customer needs. The combination of high turnover and poor systems has
heightened the issues of errors and discrepancies of order tracking. Training was not provided
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in a consistent manner to new and existing employees as there was no formal training available.
Without proper training on the new systems tracking in operations, order processing was
inefficient and resulted in many complaints in the customer service area. The hope is that by
stabilizing the HR department with adequately trained technical and customer service staff, the
level of operations efficiency will improve. This will ultimately positively affect the customer
service. When we look at leadership and organization development, it was clear to leadership at
CVS that the traditional organizational structure of multiple systems to meet individual
managerial functionality was an inefficient and unsatisfactory manner to resolve the customer
service issues. They decided to implement a single technological system to handle all customer
service issues in an integrated delivery support system.
Solution
The solution was a vendor that has developed a single application with a unified approach to
handle multiple customer service functions. The product has integrated the administrative,
training, delivery, task flow and reporting functions. It also handles Internet, phones, email, and
fax customer requests under one technological platform, Aspect. CVS is now able to
consolidate customer service functions while providing an efficient service delivery application
(Thies, 2010).
CVS Corporation is the number one convenience and pharmacy retailer in the country. They
currently have more than 100,000 employees. In order to keep pace with a growing customer
base and aggressively achieve corporate leadership goals and objectives a Government Hiree
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Program was implemented at CVS. This Human Resource strategy allowed the company to
meet objectives while supplying a high level of quality customer service.
Alternative 1
Achieving Optimal Results - Technology
The result of using Aspect has been faster email response times ranging from 2 days to less
than an hour.
The costs of rolling out a new system have been lowered by over 50 percent.
A higher volume of calls can be handled in less time with minimal callbacks.
Fewer calls are being dropped due to long wait times which have been reduced 25%.
The ability to improve the level of customer service in areas of wait times, responding accurately
to customer concerns and lowering operating costs allowed CVS to maximize efficiency while
remaining effective in meeting organizational goals.
Alternative 2 HR at CVS
The HR program called the WelfareWork program initiated in the late 1990s.
There has been 21,000 hirees of former welfare recipients and as many as 12,500 have
remained with the company and received promotions.
Meaning the managers have trained these employees and supported the transition to a long
term career path for over 60% of workers. Compare this to many retailers experience
turnover rates of more than 150% annually. This rate is also higher than the entry level
recruitment of CVS workers from sources outside of the program by around 30% (Wing,
2006).
The difference according to Steve Wing, Director of HR Hiring Programs for CVS, is that
these employees realize the importance of teamwork and maintaining a high level of
customer satisfaction. In training keeping your position in the company depends on these
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two objectives (Wing, 2006). These workers also recognize the importance of employment
as they have experienced the alternatives. Once the workers realize this, they readily
commit to the training and many find high levels of job satisfaction as well.
Achieving Optimal Results - HR
While the opportunity to launch a career through the Welfare to Hire Program at CVS has been
instrumental in retaining employees. It is also a credit to the willingness of the CVS organization
to recognize the functional significance of partnering with governmental agencies in meeting
their business objectives. Although career paths get some of the credit for CVS’ inner-city
success, the real secret of success is CVS’ emphasis on developing partnerships with agencies
that supply workers and the top-down support of those partnerships.
The OD Team has taken a cooperative approach to organizational management at CVS. This
has allowed all the players to contribute to the analysis and resolution of the problem through a
collaborative approach. Sharing resources, applications, and knowledge management to gather
experience from the expertise of each business component (i.e. HR, IT, and OD leadership). By
each expecting to partner with the other in finding a way to meet the organizational goal of
streamlined processes, improved efficiency, and customer satisfaction. The results speak for
themselves.
HR
The CVS organization has found a way to maintain efficiency in the technological, hiring and
recruitment process based on a combined OD team strategy that meets the needs of CVS
business goals of order fulfillment, and customer satisfaction. In addition they have achieved
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beyond those objectives to be effective in supporting jobs for working families in local
communities.
According to Ted’s, Senior Vice President of HR, V. Ferdinandi, through partnerships to recruit
and retain better trained employees, these strategic partnerships have will help to alleviate
“current systems supporting human resources transactions (Emery, 2006). It is hoped that
through integration with HR, Aspect Technology and IBM, CVS Pharmacy can combine the
skills with the technology necessary to enhance HR capability. With a “well trained staff and the
order tracking and inventory systems” to assist employees, it is expected that this capability and
“level of efficiency will continue to grow“, he says (Emery, 2006). The need to re-evaluate
systems and HR processes is not totally a result of the need to reduce costs but also to make
the smart moves within the organizational structure and service delivery component that makes
sense to “achieve efficiencies for us”, V. Ferdinandi added.
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References
CVScaremark.com. (2010). CVS Caremark: Our vision, mission, and values. Retrieved July, 23,
2010 from http://info.cvscaremark.com/our-company/our- culture/vision-mission-values
Thies, G. (2006). CVS Pharmacy: Aspect Technology. Retrieved July 25, 2010 from
http://www.aspect.com/casestudies/Aspect_CVS-Pharmacy_CS.pdf
Wing, S. M. (2010). WinWin CVS Pharmacy Human Resources. Director of Government Hiring
Programs, CVS Corporation. Retrieved July 23, 2010 from http://winwinpartner.com/Human
%20Resources/ssCVSPharmacy.html
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