CVS — Local services in Washington

Do yourself a favor and DO NOT come in this store 10 minutes before close unless you want to receive passive-aggressive behavior from the staff and/or get yelled at by a CVS employee.

I have been coming to this CVS regularly for the past few years. Unfortunately my experience this evening (6/17/24) was thoroughly disappointing. Understanding the store closed at 11pm, I walked in at 10:53 to buy a cup of yogurt, cereal, and a drink.

The moment I walked in the store the man behind the cash register, aggrevated and in an annoyed raised voice, said to me "Sir, we are about to close," all while checking out another customer in line. The tone clearly implied "why are you here?"

I thanked him for letting me know and continued my shopping. No less than 60 seconds later this same man says to me, clearly annoyed this time, "we close in 2 minutes" as I continue to shop for yogurt and my drink. (Mind you, it is now 10:55pm, and his statement is false).

I get my yogurt and continue toward the cereal isle. This time, this same man has an out of uniform private security officer approach and say from an aisle's length away to me, that they were closing in 2 minutes.

Now frustrated and feeling increasingly unwelcome, I thank him for letting me know and say "2 minutes is all I need." At this point, myself thoroughly frustrated, I return the yogurt and head to walk out of CVS and abandon my purchase.

This same man, turns to me in a raised voice, angry and reiterates to me as I walk past that they are closing in 2 minutes, visibly annoyed I was in the store and essentially wanting me (specifically) to leave. The CVS employee then starts to yell at me while I walk out of the store past another man at the register with his dog at the checkout counter and an additional customer behind him in line.

The man tells me his name is John, that he is a Manager, and would not provide the name or contact information of the General Manager when asked.

As I walk out of the store 3 young women walk in. I check my phone to see the time and now, it is actually 2 minutes until closing at 10:58pm.

Had the man not engaged so aggressively with me, I might have left the store well within 5 minutes fully completing my shopping and register transaction. I don't know what I did to receive this behavior. I walked in the store, acknowledged the man, and smiled warmly.

I will definitely think twice before spending any money here again. NEVER have I ever had an experience like this from any CVS employee, anwhere across America or really from any retail employee for that matter. The staff at the CVS down the street is much more pleasant.

Do better. How is this...

If you're going to put more and more of your merchandise in locked cabinets, then you also should put in place a system that works for allowing your customers to easily get in hand and buy this merchandise. As it is, the system of having your customers push a button that makes an announcement throughout the whole store is failing. To put the burden on the customer to search the whole store for an available employee and one who has the key is unfair to the customer (it's unfair that stores aren't telling the customers that the burden is on them).

I visited this location on June 11 to buy a single item, and trying to convince the manager that the system this store (and others) has in place is failing was a frustrating experience. The manager provided responses that were full of excuses, saying that: 1) employees don't hear the announcement when a customer pushes the button (then why use a store-wide audio announcement as part of your system?) 2) not all employees respond when there's an announcement because not all have keys (how are customers supposed to know which employees have keys to certain cabinets? or why don't the ones with keys respond - none did in my case) 3) It's a strange/novel/unnecessary thing to expect of any employee on the store floor to provide help if they see or hear of a customer in need of assistance (in my case, there was an employee within spitting distance of me when I pushed the button in front of the locked cabinet. He did nothing when the announcement was made/did not even look at me. At the very least, he could have told me, "I don't have a key to that cabinet, but I'll find the person who does and send them to you."). 4) It's essentially the responsibility of the customer to search the store and find an employee willing to help them and also one with the right key.

At least be upfront with customers about how they can get their hands on an item they want to buy - don't offer a button labeled "customer service" if you have absolutely no intention to respond to a customer who pushes that button. Can you instead provide a different set of instructions to customers that explains how to get a cabinet opened?

Also, if any/all employees feel it's a burden or inconvenience or annoying to provide customer service to people who visit your store, then be upfront...

The pharmacist was rude on the phone and me trying to prepare to get my prescription when I arrived I didn't want to wait until I got there to determine what the best course of action would be to make my prescription affordable she was not helpful at all and then when I got there she didn't look for the most affordable option to ensure that I got the medication that I needed I had to come up with all of the options in terms of looking for coupons or RX codes she was just going to charge me $300 and some odd dollars for a shampoo that wasn't covered by my insurance I understand that my insurance wasn't covering it however I've never been to a pharmacy that did not look for the most affordable option I was able to get my prescription for 30 some odd dollars but it was only after I insisted that she looked for an RX code at which she seemed annoyed by the request I just don't receive much compassion from CVS pharmacies at all if my employer did not require using a CVS Pharmacy I would never use CVS it has been my worst experience ever and I feel like since this location is particularly close to a college the employees feel like they can take advantage of young students knowing that we may not know better or we may not have as much experience advocating for ourselves lucky for me I had my mother on the phone the entire time and she was able to guide me as to my rights and responsibilities because the CVS pharmacist had no interest and...