Ask yourself:

• Do you get as many new customers visiting your pharmacy as you would like?
• Do new pharmacy services or campaigns appear to have a good impact?
• Do you suspect that you need to promote your services more widely?

Pharmacists and their teams tend to be modest, getting on with what they do and providing services to their patients and customers without making too much of a fuss. This might be laudable, but it doesn’t help customers and consumers understand what they have to offer.

There is a cartoon where a patient complains, “How long does it take to put a label on a box?” The pharmacist replies, “Only a few seconds. It’s the making sure it doesn’t kill you that takes time.” Patients and customers often don’t appreciate the value that pharmacy teams add to dispensing and the wider value they could add to healthcare if customers engaged with the additional services that pharmacies offer.

I have often facilitated group meetings with pharmacists, doctors, nurses, NHS managers and patients, and when participants are asked to list all the services provided through community pharmacies, the lists are substantial. Without exception, the participants have been surprised at the range of services pharmacies provide. In fact, pharmacists themselves may also be surprised by the size of the list that is generated, mainly because there are so many things they do that they simply take for granted.

For pharmacies to be successful, customers and patients need to understand the value that is added to their health and lifestyle as well as the important supply function that is provided. For this to happen, pharmacists and their teams need to think differently about how they promote themselves to get this message across to customers and patients