Independent Cardinal Health Pharmacy Automates Front-End with ECRS's Supplier Integration

An Interview with David Hoyle, Co-Owner and Front-End Manager of East Burke Pharmacy

Located in the foothills of Western North Carolina, East Burke Pharmacy serves the small community of Hildebran. The business was started in 2001 in conjunction with Burke Pharmacy, located approximately 20 miles away in Morganton, NC. After store renovations were completed in the fall of 2006, it was decided to install the pharmacy’s first retail automation system. Catapult was installed in both stores in October 2006. ECRS recently had the opportunity to speak with David Hoyle, co-owner and front-end manager of East Burke Pharmacy.

ECRS: Describe your customer base and how you serve them?

Hoyle: I would say 80% of our customers are elderly people from the local area. A lot of our customers are on Medicare or Medicaid. The pharmacy makes up the largest portion of our business, but we also have a front-end store and delivery service.

ECRS: Tell us about the retail system you had before Catapult, and about how the move to Catapult has let you better achieve your operational and customer service objectives.

Hoyle: We did not have a retail system before Catapult. We were using regular cash registers and manual entry for inventory. The benefits of Catapult were numerous and immediate. Our customer service has improved because of easier price changes and the ability to prevent pricing mistakes. Being able to scan bar codes at the register and credit card integration with Catapult speeds up the entire check out process for both the customer and cashier.

ECRS: What are some features in Catapult that have made the largest difference in your business?

Hoyle: Just the overall convenience of the system has made the biggest impact on our business. We are better able to manage front-end inventory, and are working towards 100% full replacement inventory with Catapult's integration to Cardinal Health. We can already tell a huge difference in the entire intentory control process. We order daily, which would take 45 minutes to 1 hour with our old process and now it takes 10 minutes. The interface with Cardinal is making a huge difference in our productivity and ordering process. The partnership between Cardinal Health and ECRS was one of the major selling points of the system.

The convenience and detail of Catapult's reports is one of the biggest benefits to me as a store manager. We run the cashier report daily, and I run other various reports throughout the week and at the end of the month. The financial reports are the most important. I know where money is coming and going. The reports tell me everything I need to know on a single page.

Signature Capture has also been very important to us. We use to have customers come in and claim they had not picked up their medication. Before Catapult, the only option for verifying such claims was to dig through piles of paperwork. But now with Catapult we are able to easily look up their electronic signature. Catapult's integrated video surveillance system also helps greatly with these types of security and fraud issues.

The customizable touch screen was important to our employees. We sat down together and decided how we wanted to design the POS screen to suit our needs and increase efficiency. This feature also helps in the ease of training. It has been very easy to train employees on Catapult.

ECRS: Have you used the Automatic POS Redundancy feature?

Hoyle: Yes, it’s great. We've had to rely on it several times. The POS terminal's ability to keep running on local data when the server connection is down is truly seamless.

ECRS: How would you rate the quality of support, service and training that you receive from ECRS?

Hoyle: The support that ECRS provides is excellent. We came to Catapult University before installing the system, which was very beneficial for helping us understand the range of Catapult's feature set. It’s a very powerful retail package, and I would definitely recommend Catapult University to any retailer who wants to leverage that power. I occasionally refer back to the manual, but once you learn the basics from the experts at ECRS, everything falls into place.

ECRS: Would you recommend Catapult to other retailers?

Hoyle: Absolutely. I highly recommend Catapult to retailers because of the seamless functionality and overall ease of use. The convenience of the system has been very beneficial for me as store manager, our employees, our customers, and the business in general.

>> Read about Pharmacy Front-End Automation by ECRS

>> Read the Cardinal Health/ECRS joint press release

>> View the Cardinal/ECRS video testimonials

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