The main drivers of customer choice for a community pharmacy are convenience and service. Convenience, or location, is the primary driver for customer choice of a pharmacy. Convenience is a more appropriate term as it puts context to the location (not merely proximity to home or surgery) and recognises access issues such as parking.

Service relates to the range of products and services, pricing, speed of service, customer service from staff, advice from staff and the pharmacist and overall standards of presentation and housekeeping. Individuals will weight these different factors individually, depending on their needs and preferences.

Customers balance these two factors when choosing to be loyal to one pharmacy. While convenience is the major driver, it does not overwhelm service and if a customer values a particular element of service enough they will choose a less convenient pharmacy in order to receive it.

Businesses fail when they focus on attracting new customers without successfully managing their current loyal customer base. The simple reason for this is that it is easier and cheaper to retain customers than to attract new customers, which in turn is easier and cheaper than re-attracting customers who have switched allegiance.