Walgreens — Local services in Glen Ellyn

Walgreens has Zero regard for customers' time.

For any company out there, if one of your business goals is not to save your customer time, you have a limited future. (Just look at the corporate wreckage behind Amazon.)

Walgreen's phone bot accepts prescription refills, tells you they will be ready tomorrow. You wait 2 days and try to pick them up. Neither of them is ready and one of them has to be renewed. Then you get text messages for 3 days that one of them is ready and there is a problem with the other, but you better pick up the "ready" prescription before they restock it. (And, stupid me, I don't live next door to Walgreens - so I don't want to drive there twice.) So I call my clinic and they tell me that they had already been called by Walgreens and sent in the renewal. So I call Walgreens, and after 10 minutes screwing around with the phone bot, being filled in about the limited availability of the Covid shot (that I got last week) and being subjected to a long list of the times of their employee's lunch breaks, I finally got to talk to a real pharmacist who told me that she knows of no renewal of my prescription - they only see the prescription has been cancelled. I explain my discussion with the Eye Clinic and tell them - call the Clinic, they will be happy to talk to you. (And, when you call Wheaton Eye Clinic they actually resolve your problem. It's like magic.)

My Blue Cross Blue Shield required that I use this Walgreens. Otherwise I'd wouldn't. If you have no insurance restrictions, do yourself a favor, either get healthy or try another pharmacy.

How could Walgreens significantly improve service? Get a really state-of-art AI, with access to their databases, to manage their phone calls. We should be close to being able to do that. And start measuring things that have to do with their customer's time. Measure the times people come in to pick up a prescription (or drive up to the window) and leave without it. Measure how long people have to wait for service (shots, etc.) after showing up at their designated time. Measure the frequency and duration of computer outages at the store. With data like that they could significantly improve customer experience. Oh... and I just got a call that my prescriptions are ready. We'll see...

So I went to pick up the prescriptions. There are 2 drive through areas. I was first in line for mine. Waited 20m 24s (brought a stop watch) before someone came on the speaker. They had only 1 of my 2 prescriptions. The one they sent me the 3 msgs on - insisting I pick it up ? Well - they didn't have that. Told me come back in 20m. I gave them 32. (Bought groceries, went to Staples.)

Went inside this time (by this time the drive-through was about 6 or 7 car lengths long). Got up to the counter immediately. There was only an 8m20s wait while they searched for my mislaid eyedrops.

This doesn't seem to be a staffing problem. There were 9 people (I could count) in the pharmacy area. All seemed busy. The people I've dealt with have been nice, polite. So if it's not staffing, Walgreens issues must be either IT systems, Process, Training/Culture and/or the quality...

Nope nope, never again. I gave you 2 visits to form an opining. The pharmacy sucks at taking care of their customers.

VISIT #1 11/9/17 nothing like going to the doctors for a migraine, then to go to Walgreens to drop off a prescription and to be told to come back in 2 hours, then when the 2 hours is up I get an automated call saying there is a problem with my insurance. So then I call and they tell me my birthday is written wrong. Where I don't know because it's not wrong on the paperwork or my drivers license and it's not marked on my insurance card they asked for when I dropped the prescription off.(which is what they stated the problem was to begin with)

The lady asked me twice what my birthday was and then said she'd transfer me to the pharmacist. I then get hung up on, call again and they say again that they have my birthday written wrong and was about to transfer me again until I said I'm in pain and was just hung up on. He waited on the call with me until it's picked up, the pharmacist tells me their birthday mix up is why it can't be filled. ..now I gotta wait another 20 minutes before I can get drugs in my system. ...and maybe I'll get rid of this 41 hour migraine in another couple hours

VISIT #2: 11/16/17 I go straight here after an Emergency Care visit for still a headache and now a painful stiff/strained neck. I need new pain meds. I drop off my prescription at 12:15 and she said it will be ready in 2 hours. I go home and take a nap trying to forget the pain. Over 5 hours has passed, so it must be ready! It is now 5:45 and I am waiting at the drive thru for my pain meds.

They tell me, that they have nothing ready for me and nothing on file. I said I came here 5 and a half hours ago and handed them my paperwork. You guys have it! Then he leaves and searches somewhere and comes back with the paper and said it somehow got misplaced. Now I am still waiting another 15 minutes for them to fill it.

Ridiculous! Get your act together! People who are in pain, can't afford these mistakes. We just need to get our prescription to start making the pain go away.

I used to go to CVS until they didn't accept my insurance anymore and they would take 15 minutes to fill,...

DON'T EVER SHOP HERE!!!!!!

I bought a pre-paid T-Mobile card and that didn't work because the employee never activated the card when it was bought and paid for, they didn't refund my purchase. Months later I bought a PlayStation plus 12months card, the card didn't work and same thing they didn't activate the card and they didn't refund me. DON'T BUY CARDS FROM WALGREENS THEY WILL MAKE YOU DO CIRCLE AND NEVER HELP YOU!!! A year later came back here to buy a few items. After making a purchase at front counter I went to the food/snacks isle to buy some other items I was going to get and so I put the item I had already purchased with the receipt in my pocket and as I headed towards the snack isle one of the Employee's walking down an isle I past saw me so I smiled back at her. As I was walking/looking at food, the employee kept on following me around the store. Staying a few feet away from me while talking to another employee, repeating these few words "WOW, I can't believe it, really, and right in front of me" they kept repeating that over and over until that one employee finally came up to me with the manager and told me why she was following me and accused me of steeling an item in front of her and shoved it in my pocket. After a heated and uncomfortable conversation I showed the employee what they thought I stole, I pulled out the purchased item along with the receipt. after they saw that all they said was ok. They didn't apologize for the inconvenience and the employee continued to follow me around the store while still trying to talk to me and still accusing me of theft/steeling while I just wanted that employee to stop harassing and to stop following me even after proving them wrong they still followed me while I made my last few purchase's. NO FREAKING APOLOGIES AND LOTS OF HARASSMENT, NEVER GETTING HELP WHEN NEEDED, DON'T SHOP HERE!!!!!! If you have to buy from this store I'd suggest grab what your buying as fast as you can and as soon as it's paid for just leave, don't stay here...