I witnessed some ridiculous things during my time at the Walgreens Support Center. One of them was that of management purposefully slowing down sales because of a backlog in the order audit department. For the support center, Walgreens uses software by Interactive Intelligence called Interaction Client which is hooked up to an auto-dialer that makes all the calls for the reps. With the autodialer, the sales reps make no manual calls and they have no say-so in who gets called. They simply sit and wait for the next call to come to them. Reps receive a new call about a minute after dispositioning the last call, on average. The autodialer has a useful purpose of screening out most garbage calls, such as no answer, disconnected lines, and voicemails. Such calls are never sent to the reps; the reps only receive the calls when the line is picked up by someone on the other line. This makes for a more productive work day for the sales rep, as he goes from one customer to the next, and not having to waste time with busy, disconnected lines or lines with no answer.
For a couple days at a time, this autodialer was turned off by management. Was there a malfunction in the software? No. With the autodialer turned off, the sales rep receives the customer profile and then manually dials. Which in other contexts wouldn't be a problem except in this case it resulted in reps spending all day long getting nothing but no answers, voicemails, and disconnected lines - all the garbage calls that the autodialer had been in effect screening out. Sales went down dramatically. Whereas before you'd see a bunch of tallies on the board from the day's sales, now there were only a few sales total from around 20 reps. You can't make sales to disconnected lines or when there's no answer. So why was the autodialer turned off? Specifically to stop sales. It turns out that the sales department was making too many sales and the order audit department couldn't keep up. Which made me wonder again, why are we hiring another 40 this week, and next week, when evidently we're already selling too much? If we're selling too much now how could we ever keep up with sales in later weeks?
During this time, reps were told not to worry. The decrease in sales won't count against them towards their "conversion percentage" - a ratio that shows sales productivity per calls made. But however you slice it, it did practically stop everyone's sales for a few days, and even if the conversion rate was unchanged, less sales certainly does effect commission checks that employees rely on. This is secondary though to how dumb of a business move it was. At any real sales company, to see sales drop to practically zero would have had any sales manager sweating, but here everyone walked around calmly with no concern at all that no one was selling anything. It was the result they intended.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Walgreens Medicare Support Center: Scripts for the reps to follow
At the Walgreens Medicare Part B Support Center, everything is tightly controlled and reps are given calling scripts to use while calling customers. To manage calls, they use a program called Interaction Client, developed by Interactive Intelligence. Interaction Client works hand in hand with Interaction Scripter to manage calls, scripting, and to process information. Below is an example of what Interaction Client looks like:
Below is the script reps are to go by when making calls:
Hello this is ________ from Walgreens. I'm calling today to let you know there's a way that Walgreens can help you take advantage of your medicare part B benefits.
Before I continue, I must let you know that this call may be recorded for quality and training purposes.
This benefit is for medicare customers who are testing their blood sugar.
Mr. ________, does your doctor have you testing your blood sugar for diabetes?
[ yes ] [no ]
We want to let you know that Walgreens provides the option of going to your local walgreens for your testing supplies or walgreens can provide you a 90 day supply of
test strips, lancets, lancing device, and control solution delivered right to your door for free.
Do you have traditional medicare including part B? (red, white, and blue card)
[ yes ] [no ]
How are you currently receiving your test strips and lancets?
[Walgreens] [mail service] [other]
Do you have another insurance you take to the doctors office to cover your copay (supplemental or secondary insurance)
[ yes ] [no ]
What is the name of that plan? [ ]
Ok Great, based on what you've told me, we will bill medicare for 80% of the cost of supplies and bill your supplemental 20%, resulting in no out of pocket cost to you.
I can now verify your eligibility for the service, I just need your Medicare ID # on your medicare card, I will be happy to wait if you need a moment to locate it.
Medicare ID #: [ ]
-------------------------------
If the sales reps reach a voicemail, they are to leave this message:
Hello, this is the Walgreens support center, we are reaching out to our valued customers letting them know that there is a way that Walgreens can help you take advantage of your medicare part B benefits which includes letting Walgreens come to you with home delivery of medical testing supplies.
If you're interested in hearing more about how walgreens can help you with your benefits, you can give us a call at 888-380-8030.
Thank you for being a loyal Walgreens customer, we look forward to speaking with you.
Below is the script reps are to go by when making calls:
Hello this is ________ from Walgreens. I'm calling today to let you know there's a way that Walgreens can help you take advantage of your medicare part B benefits.
Before I continue, I must let you know that this call may be recorded for quality and training purposes.
This benefit is for medicare customers who are testing their blood sugar.
Mr. ________, does your doctor have you testing your blood sugar for diabetes?
[ yes ] [no ]
We want to let you know that Walgreens provides the option of going to your local walgreens for your testing supplies or walgreens can provide you a 90 day supply of
test strips, lancets, lancing device, and control solution delivered right to your door for free.
Do you have traditional medicare including part B? (red, white, and blue card)
[ yes ] [no ]
How are you currently receiving your test strips and lancets?
[Walgreens] [mail service] [other]
Do you have another insurance you take to the doctors office to cover your copay (supplemental or secondary insurance)
[ yes ] [no ]
What is the name of that plan? [ ]
Ok Great, based on what you've told me, we will bill medicare for 80% of the cost of supplies and bill your supplemental 20%, resulting in no out of pocket cost to you.
I can now verify your eligibility for the service, I just need your Medicare ID # on your medicare card, I will be happy to wait if you need a moment to locate it.
Medicare ID #: [ ]
-------------------------------
If the sales reps reach a voicemail, they are to leave this message:
Hello, this is the Walgreens support center, we are reaching out to our valued customers letting them know that there is a way that Walgreens can help you take advantage of your medicare part B benefits which includes letting Walgreens come to you with home delivery of medical testing supplies.
If you're interested in hearing more about how walgreens can help you with your benefits, you can give us a call at 888-380-8030.
Thank you for being a loyal Walgreens customer, we look forward to speaking with you.
Walgreens Medicare Part B Center Hiring Practices
Walgreens doesn't hire its employees for the Medicare Part B Center directly, they use several staffing companies: Staffmark, Aerotek, and Select Staffing. The staffing companies don't just funnel them to Walgreens and walk away, they continue to be an integral part of handling the employee's "assignment". Paychecks to these employees don't come from Walgreens but are taken care of by the staffing companies, and Walgreens also has these staffing companies take care of the firing of employees as well.
Every couple weeks, Walgreens hires roughly 40 people and puts them through a training class. On one of my first days there, I found out that there were only 50 reps in the call center. It makes one wonder, how can a company hire 40 new people every couple weeks and only end up with 50 reps? I know turnover is typically high in a call center environment, but not this bad.
One thing I found interesting was that in the initial employment ad and also in what reps are initially told, the training is said to last 4 or 5 weeks. I will attach below a copy of their employment ads for the call center positions. It turns out that the training class lasts only 1 week and then the reps begin selling on the phone. The government offers different types of incentives and tax credits to businesses for training they provide to new employees. Hiring 40 people every couple weeks only to lose most of them after a month seems like a huge waste of money and time. Are they receiving some sort of kickback in return for "training" that makes it all worth it? Question: when they file to receive these training incentives, do they tell the government that they trained employees for 1 week? or 4 or 5 weeks? If the incentive amount corresponds with the amount of time training, this could artificially quadruple the amount they're receiving from the government.
The position pays $11/hour. The staffing companies obviously take some sort of cut too from their services of providing employees, but that might just be taken from the commission bonuses and not the hourly. Employees are told that a 15% fee is taken out of bonuses for the staffing companies. If staffing companies are only paid a percentage of commission and not hourly, this would make good sense as it would encourage staffing companies to work hard to find highly talented candidates who can bring in the big commission checks. But back to that $11/hour. Walgreens hires 40 new people every couple weeks and has them sitting in a training class for a week. None of the employees are producing at this time, they're all just sitting in a class. $11 x 40 hours a week x 40 employees is $17,600. How can it make sense to shell out $17,600 every couple weeks for training of employees when 85% of them will be gone within a few months?
From a class of 20 people (classes are divided into 2, around 20 per class), only around 3 employees are remaining at the end of 3 months. What happened to the rest of the group, did they all get burned out? Well throughout the course of a few months, Walgreens fires them. They don't fire them all on one day, they spread it out so for a good amount of time it goes unnoticed. And none of the employees are told that their coworkers were fired. It's made to look like they just had a scheduling conflict or moved on. Even some of the managers and "coaches" are kept in the dark.
Below is the employment ad Staffmark put on Careerbuilder.com for the position:
Every couple weeks, Walgreens hires roughly 40 people and puts them through a training class. On one of my first days there, I found out that there were only 50 reps in the call center. It makes one wonder, how can a company hire 40 new people every couple weeks and only end up with 50 reps? I know turnover is typically high in a call center environment, but not this bad.
One thing I found interesting was that in the initial employment ad and also in what reps are initially told, the training is said to last 4 or 5 weeks. I will attach below a copy of their employment ads for the call center positions. It turns out that the training class lasts only 1 week and then the reps begin selling on the phone. The government offers different types of incentives and tax credits to businesses for training they provide to new employees. Hiring 40 people every couple weeks only to lose most of them after a month seems like a huge waste of money and time. Are they receiving some sort of kickback in return for "training" that makes it all worth it? Question: when they file to receive these training incentives, do they tell the government that they trained employees for 1 week? or 4 or 5 weeks? If the incentive amount corresponds with the amount of time training, this could artificially quadruple the amount they're receiving from the government.
The position pays $11/hour. The staffing companies obviously take some sort of cut too from their services of providing employees, but that might just be taken from the commission bonuses and not the hourly. Employees are told that a 15% fee is taken out of bonuses for the staffing companies. If staffing companies are only paid a percentage of commission and not hourly, this would make good sense as it would encourage staffing companies to work hard to find highly talented candidates who can bring in the big commission checks. But back to that $11/hour. Walgreens hires 40 new people every couple weeks and has them sitting in a training class for a week. None of the employees are producing at this time, they're all just sitting in a class. $11 x 40 hours a week x 40 employees is $17,600. How can it make sense to shell out $17,600 every couple weeks for training of employees when 85% of them will be gone within a few months?
From a class of 20 people (classes are divided into 2, around 20 per class), only around 3 employees are remaining at the end of 3 months. What happened to the rest of the group, did they all get burned out? Well throughout the course of a few months, Walgreens fires them. They don't fire them all on one day, they spread it out so for a good amount of time it goes unnoticed. And none of the employees are told that their coworkers were fired. It's made to look like they just had a scheduling conflict or moved on. Even some of the managers and "coaches" are kept in the dark.
Below is the employment ad Staffmark put on Careerbuilder.com for the position:
Job Description
Walgreens Medicare Part B Call Center in West Chester, Ohio, which is part of Walgreens Co., a well established company in the Pharmacy Industry focusing on health and wellness solutions, consumer goods and convenient services, is currently seeking money motivated experienced Inside Sales / Call Center Representatives to work in a fast paced outbound sales call center environment.
Walgreens is among one of the leaders in the food and drug industry, and is ranked in the Fortune's Global 500 list for largest companies in the world.
Job Description:
Walgreens is among one of the leaders in the food and drug industry, and is ranked in the Fortune's Global 500 list for largest companies in the world.
Job Description:
- Making outbound calls to sell diabetes testing supplies to current and potential customers.
- Shift is 12:30pm – 9:00pm Mon thru Fri (Training is 4 weeks from 9:00am – 5:30pm)
- Pay is $11/hr plus eligibility for an unlimited sales incentive bonus potential!
- With incentives, potential weekly gross earnings can range from $440-$800 (+).
- This is a contract-to-hire opportunity (we are looking for dependable long term employees with a strong work ethic)
- Must be able to pass a drug test / criminal background check
Job Requirements
Candidates Must Have: - High School Diploma or GED certificate
- Proof of previous Sales Achievements and a strong dependable attendance record
- Ability to be persistent with strong persuasion skills
- Excellent listening, communication, and probing skills
- Minimum 1-2 years outbound call center experience is required (ex: collections, telemarketing, inside sales, up selling)
- Good computer skills (data entry, navigating multiple screens, etc.)
- Self-motivated and organized with great follow-up, willingness to work very hard and get the job done
- Be professional and have a great personality that works well with people over the phone
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Only Medicare customers qualify for home delivery of diabetic supplies at Walgreens
Two things are required to be eligible for the mail order home delivery service at Walgreens: 1) that the customer be testing their blood sugar on a daily basis (actually this rule is bent to include those testing just 3 times a week), and 2) the customer must have Medicare as their primary coverage. This second qualifier is curious, why would Walgreens only let Medicare customers take advantage of their home delivery service? If a customer is willing to pay all in cash, if a customer just has private insurance, if a customer has an advantage plan, or if a customer just has medicare as their secondary insurance because they're still working none of these customers are "eligible" for the home delivery service. Why not?
I took a look at Liberty Medical's FAQ and found that they do accept customers that don't have medicare as their primary insurance:
Does Medicare, government run insurance for those over 65, pay out more per box of test strips than other insurance coverage? Is the government being taken advantage of here due to their lack of ability to keep their finger on the pulse of market conditions? Or is it simply a matter of it being easier to process medicare claims in comparison to private insurance companies where coverage may vary? Whichever the case may be, from a customer's perspective Liberty Medical is much more flexible and open to working with different coverages. Liberty also has hardship programs for those with low income and may cover the 20% copay remaining whereas Walgreens has no such program. I spoke to many Liberty customers who only had Medicare with no supplemental insurance but told me they paid nothing out of pocket. Whereas with Walgreens, they'd be paying the 20% copay. One thing Walgreens severely lacks is a benefit over the competition, their main draw is that they have a trusted name. A comparison of benefits will show no real advantage and in many cases they fall behind Liberty.
I took a look at Liberty Medical's FAQ and found that they do accept customers that don't have medicare as their primary insurance:
"Can I use your online form to enroll even if Medicare is not my primary insurance plan?
Yes
Is Medicare the only insurance plan Liberty accepts?
No. In addition to Medicare, Liberty accepts insurance plans. We also accept Medicaid in most states, as well as a variety of prescription drug cards."
Does Medicare, government run insurance for those over 65, pay out more per box of test strips than other insurance coverage? Is the government being taken advantage of here due to their lack of ability to keep their finger on the pulse of market conditions? Or is it simply a matter of it being easier to process medicare claims in comparison to private insurance companies where coverage may vary? Whichever the case may be, from a customer's perspective Liberty Medical is much more flexible and open to working with different coverages. Liberty also has hardship programs for those with low income and may cover the 20% copay remaining whereas Walgreens has no such program. I spoke to many Liberty customers who only had Medicare with no supplemental insurance but told me they paid nothing out of pocket. Whereas with Walgreens, they'd be paying the 20% copay. One thing Walgreens severely lacks is a benefit over the competition, their main draw is that they have a trusted name. A comparison of benefits will show no real advantage and in many cases they fall behind Liberty.
What is The Walgreens Medicare Part B Support Center?
Hello everyone, this is our first post. We worked at the Walgreens support center for diabetic testing supplies a couple months ago and thought it would be kind of fun to make a blog about it and see if we can have some other employees and ex-employees coming to share things as well. Walgreens has some...interesting ways of doing things that make us go "hmmmm" so we'd like to hear from others to see if we can make sense of it all.
So what is the Walgreens medicare Part B Support Center? Ok, you've all seen those commercials with Wilford Brimley telling those with diabetes (pronounced "diabeetus") to test their blood sugar and check it often, right? Well that commercial is selling Liberty Medical's home delivery service for diabetic testing supplies. They've been in business for years now signing up people who see a convenience in having their test strips mailed out to them as opposed to them having to go to the store to get it. In the meantime, Walgreens, who sells diabetic testing supplies in their stores, has seen sales lost to mail order companies like Liberty because a good chunk of customers prefer to have it delivered.
So now Walgreens is in the mail order game and has a call center in West Chester (9025 Centre Point Dr in the Contech building) to get the word out and get people switching back from Liberty and other mail order companies to Walgreens. One funny thing is that Walgreens gets its prospecting list from its 8,000 local pharmacies so the majority of people they're calling are already getting their testing supplies from Walgreens. It appears that this has caused a bit of intracompany tension being that one division is stealing sales away from its core retail side. Store managers and pharmacists are wondering why people claiming to be Walgreens are calling all their customers and in effect encouraging them away from the store. Of course, the "official policy" of the support center is to not push the service to those who are currently getting their supplies from the local Walgreens stores, but that rule must be broken by any serious rep that wants to keep their job. Again, they're prospecting from their own customer database so 90% of them are already getting supplies from Walgreens.
More entries to come, stay tuned...
So what is the Walgreens medicare Part B Support Center? Ok, you've all seen those commercials with Wilford Brimley telling those with diabetes (pronounced "diabeetus") to test their blood sugar and check it often, right? Well that commercial is selling Liberty Medical's home delivery service for diabetic testing supplies. They've been in business for years now signing up people who see a convenience in having their test strips mailed out to them as opposed to them having to go to the store to get it. In the meantime, Walgreens, who sells diabetic testing supplies in their stores, has seen sales lost to mail order companies like Liberty because a good chunk of customers prefer to have it delivered.
So now Walgreens is in the mail order game and has a call center in West Chester (9025 Centre Point Dr in the Contech building) to get the word out and get people switching back from Liberty and other mail order companies to Walgreens. One funny thing is that Walgreens gets its prospecting list from its 8,000 local pharmacies so the majority of people they're calling are already getting their testing supplies from Walgreens. It appears that this has caused a bit of intracompany tension being that one division is stealing sales away from its core retail side. Store managers and pharmacists are wondering why people claiming to be Walgreens are calling all their customers and in effect encouraging them away from the store. Of course, the "official policy" of the support center is to not push the service to those who are currently getting their supplies from the local Walgreens stores, but that rule must be broken by any serious rep that wants to keep their job. Again, they're prospecting from their own customer database so 90% of them are already getting supplies from Walgreens.
More entries to come, stay tuned...
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