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An attitude change is needed in community pharmacy if it is to reach the level of customer regard enjoyed by the likes of John Lewis, Andrew McMillan, former lead for customer service at the retail giant, told this year's SMART Conference.

He stated: €This is even more relevant given that people may be feeling vulnerable when they visit a pharmacy because they are unwell.€

Pharmacists and their staff need to focus on building relationships with their customers, explained Mr McMillan in his keynote speech at this year's SMART conference. Many organisations focus on making their business easy to access and ensuring they provide robust products or expert services to a high level of satisfaction. However pharmacy is already doing that, he said.

€It's about customer engagement, which can be defined as the experience delivered by the staff being so consistently good that the staff become the organisation or brand in the eyes of its customers.€

The benefits of adopting this ethos would extend way beyond customer satisfaction, Mr McMillan went on to say. Staff would find their jobs more fulfilling and enjoyable, which would lead to improved productively and lower staff turnover; customer loyalty and advocacy to others would increase; sales would grow; and complaints would fall because of the high level of trust that patients had in the business.

Andrew McMillan, who is currently principal at customer experience and employee engagement specialist Engaging Service, was basing his recommendations on the 28 years he spent at John Lewis. Although the company now has an excellent reputation for customer service, he said it wasn't always so.

€In 2000 John Lewis was good but not consistent, so we aimed to get everyone to work to the very best standard all the time.€ Moving the focus of staff from tasks to people and moving away from a €command and control€ management approach had been effective strategies, he explained.

However he stressed that cultural and behavioural changes stemmed from people and could not be taught. €Training can improve service by setting standards of behaviour, or by teaching a tangible process such as using a system or answering a query... [but] it cannot fundamentally change an organisation's culture or attitude towards its customers.€

Mr McMillan also warned against driving standards too hard. €Aiming for an impeccable appearance is good, but if you rush to tidy up behind customers, it is off-putting.€

€Leadership is critical,€ he continued. €People work for people, not organisations.€ Leadership was a very different concept to management. €Manage things, lead people... leadership is about setting standards by example, coaching and encouragement.€

Mr McMillan said it was important that managers were €out front, leading the customer experience, and not sitting in an office issuing an order and waiting for others to deliver it.€ Catching people doing something right, instead of reprimanding them for doing something wrong, was another way of leading, rather than managing, a team, he explained.

Andrew McMillan's six steps to success

1. Define what the organisation wants in terms of behaviour from both staff and customers, and articulate this clearly. Prime examples include John Lewis's €A great place to work, a great place to shop€ and Virgin Atlantic's €Flying in the face of ordinary€

2. Make this statement measurable and track progress at regular intervals

3. Communicate the organisation's vision so everyone understands what they are trying to do and why

4. Good leadership is vital. The leaders in an organisation have to provide consistent coaching, mentoring and support for staff wherever they are

5. Appraise, recognise and reward staff's efforts. This doesn't have to take the form of financial bonuses. Instead publicising someone's good work to their colleagues can be as effective at motivating staff as well as providing an opportunity to reinforce the organisation's vision

6. Recruit the right people and make sure their induction includes the organisation's vision. Similarly, get rid of those who don't have the right attitude and are resistant to changing to fit the organisation's vision.