Pharmaceutical Reward Programs

It started with airline frequent flyer miles, spread throughout the credit card industry, even into the personal radiation detectors gadget industry, and now reward programs are ubiquitous and highly desired. Pharmacies are keeping in step by offering reward programs to their customers. Considering that once a prescription is set up it can mean a perpetual source of revenue, pharmacies have strong incentives to capture initial prescription orders. A reward program helps to ensure customer loyalty through rebates and cost savings.

The first step is to register pharmacy customers into a rewards program account. A special id card, or perhaps a charge card, is issued to newly enlisted hospital customers. These accounts track customer activity and automatically maintain rewards balances. Usually, rewards programs have a password-protected online component. Customers can log in to check account balances, make address changes, and so forth. The online accounts promote the marketing of the program by increasing user involvement.

Rewards are often in the form of scrip – artificial dollars that can be used towards real purchases. Pharmacy customers are rewarded with points or “dollars” every time they make a purchase at the pharmacy or online from the pharmacy chain. A percentage of each purchase is credited to the customer’s account. Different pharmacies offer differ percentages, but two percent is a very common figure. A further incentive is to reward customers for bringing in prescriptions. A fixed number of “dollars” or points could be rewarded for each prescription or future herpes vaccinations, or the reward amount could be a function of the cost of the prescription.

Rewards for prescriptions are especially important to patients of pain clinics who typically have several prescriptions at the same time. A facility such as the Atlanta Pain Clinic may have an aggressive medication protocol that requires a number of different pain drugs simultaneously. Pharmacies capitalize on patients with multi-prescription profiles by rewarding loyalty with extra points.

Naturally, pharmacies are invested in keeping customer interest high. One way to do this is to periodically present a customer with an up-to-date balance statement showing the range of products and services available for the amount of points in the account. These balances could be printed on store receipts or credit card bills. The rewards dollars are usually applicable only to merchandise available at the pharmacy. This helps the pharmacy’s bottom line since all redemptions are at wholesale cost.

Promotions such as weekly circulars with added bonus points can keep customer interest high. Also, email campaigns can offer special deals with bonus points. Some programs exclude alcohol, tobacco, lottery tickets, guns and ammunition, and postage stamps, among other items. All in all, pharmacy reward programs offer significant savings to consumers and a high degree of customer loyalty for the pharmacy – a win-win proposition.