WOONSOCKET – CVS/Caremark Corp. ranked No. 1 among mail-order pharmacy businesses and No. 2 among retail pharmacy chains in the J.D. Power and Associates 2007 Retail Pharmacy Satisfaction Study, released this week.
The company is “thrilled with the strong showing,” said Thomas M. Ryan, CVS/Caremark’s president and CEO. “The study shows that consumers are making careful evaluations of the services that they receive when they fill prescriptions based on important criteria such as convenience, availability of medication and interaction with the pharmacist – all areas in which CVS/Caremark scored well.”
Because the study was conducted last fall, well in advance of the CVS/Caremark merger, results for Caremark Rx Inc. and CVS Corp.’s PharmaCare and CVS/pharmacy subsidiaries are reported separately.
Caremark Rx ranked No. 1 overall in the mail-order segment. It also was the highest ranking company in two of the five categories used to indicate customer satisfaction, and tied for first in two other categories: convenience and availability of medication and information.
PharmaCare – now part of the combined company’s Caremark Pharmacy Services division – ranked No. 2 overall in the mail-order segment, and was rated highest on non-pharmacist staff and competitiveness of pricing.
Among national retail chain pharmacies, CVS/pharmacy ranked second overall, after No. 1 Medicine Shoppe, and also ranked second in the pharmacist performance, non-pharmacist staff, medication availability and information categories.
“This study shows that CVS/Caremark is well-positioned among consumers,” Ryan said, “not only because of its strong study performance, but also because the specific areas that are recommended by J.D. Power and Associates as ways to improve customer satisfaction – such as making the pharmacist connection, engaging the customer, and providing in-store clinics – are all areas on which CVS/Caremark is focusing.”
CVS/Caremark Corp. (NYSE: CVS) – formed by the March 22 merger of CVS Corp. and Caremark Rx – includes 6,200 CVS/pharmacy stores, the CVS.com online pharmacy, pharmacy benefit manager and mail-order and specialty pharmacy Caremark Pharmacy Services and retail-based health care provider MinuteClinic. Additional information is available at investor.cvs.com and www.cvs.com/pressroom.
