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gripe session
Jun. 28th, 2006 09:28 pmthe more I'm working with CVS, the gladder I am that I don't work for them. I canNOT believe they are as big as they are, if what we have dealt with over the past couple of weeks is typical of how they do business.
In this day, they do not communicate with their stores by e-mail. They communicate with their stores by fax. >6000 stores, communicated with by fax... and what is worse (and this part I am uncertain of) it is my understanding that they communicate with the district managers by email, then the District managers fax the stuff to the stores. Excuse me?!
While our old stores still have our email, we have been begging CVS to communicate with them using our email IDs to communicate with the stores. We have given them the store IDs and mailing lists that we use for the various ad versions. From what we understand, CVS is not using them.
I have seen stated in print that CVS was planning on keeping pretty much the same mix of product that are currently in our stores, including fairly large liquor departments in many of them... now we are hearing that they are planning on cutting liquor down to maybe 30 feet. ummm... can you say they are shooting themselves in the foot?
They are not converting stores to CVS systems in any type of order, they are jumping around the country. I think they should convert in groups. Especially in Chicago! our chicago customers are used to seeing the same ads in both the Jewel/Osco combo stores and the Osco freestanders. Starting on Thursday and ending on the following Wednesday. The last ad we are supporting for them ends today. The CVS ad does not start until Sunday! The Chicago market stores are going to be without an ad for 3 days. And when did this FINALLY get communicated to them? TODAY!! After we pounded it into CVS's collective skull that we were getting inundated with questions from the stores asking when they were going to be getting ad batches and labels.
(Of course, the Jewel side of the business didn't help, by the fact that they didn't turn off their ad that starts tomorrow, so stores got labels and batches for the Jewel ad... Took a bit of scrambling on our part to get that shut off.....)
With something like this, we would have been communicating the info to our stores by a week at the latest, and we would have been giving the info several times for something of this magnitude.
CVS runs the same ad companywide. All 6000+ stores, get the same ad. «shakes head in disbelief»
supper was most of the remains of Jos's chili, the last of my chunk of Brie, some red cabbage, and a PB&J.
Currently reading A Time to Kill by John Grisham. One of Jos's books. I think I like Grisham's work.
Friday evening, I think I am going to go a meeting of the Central Arizona Speculative Fiction Society.
In this day, they do not communicate with their stores by e-mail. They communicate with their stores by fax. >6000 stores, communicated with by fax... and what is worse (and this part I am uncertain of) it is my understanding that they communicate with the district managers by email, then the District managers fax the stuff to the stores. Excuse me?!
While our old stores still have our email, we have been begging CVS to communicate with them using our email IDs to communicate with the stores. We have given them the store IDs and mailing lists that we use for the various ad versions. From what we understand, CVS is not using them.
I have seen stated in print that CVS was planning on keeping pretty much the same mix of product that are currently in our stores, including fairly large liquor departments in many of them... now we are hearing that they are planning on cutting liquor down to maybe 30 feet. ummm... can you say they are shooting themselves in the foot?
They are not converting stores to CVS systems in any type of order, they are jumping around the country. I think they should convert in groups. Especially in Chicago! our chicago customers are used to seeing the same ads in both the Jewel/Osco combo stores and the Osco freestanders. Starting on Thursday and ending on the following Wednesday. The last ad we are supporting for them ends today. The CVS ad does not start until Sunday! The Chicago market stores are going to be without an ad for 3 days. And when did this FINALLY get communicated to them? TODAY!! After we pounded it into CVS's collective skull that we were getting inundated with questions from the stores asking when they were going to be getting ad batches and labels.
(Of course, the Jewel side of the business didn't help, by the fact that they didn't turn off their ad that starts tomorrow, so stores got labels and batches for the Jewel ad... Took a bit of scrambling on our part to get that shut off.....)
With something like this, we would have been communicating the info to our stores by a week at the latest, and we would have been giving the info several times for something of this magnitude.
CVS runs the same ad companywide. All 6000+ stores, get the same ad. «shakes head in disbelief»
supper was most of the remains of Jos's chili, the last of my chunk of Brie, some red cabbage, and a PB&J.
Currently reading A Time to Kill by John Grisham. One of Jos's books. I think I like Grisham's work.
Friday evening, I think I am going to go a meeting of the Central Arizona Speculative Fiction Society.
