Rx Delivery
Kroger Pharmacy delivers prescriptions to your door!
Background
Rx Delivery has been progressively rolling out across the Kroger divisions since Aug. 2019. In 2020 we kicked off our journey to offering same day prescription delivery across the enterprise with two delivery partners. Patients could learn about this service through signs posted in the pharmacy or associates informing patients. Patients using this service enjoyed not having to always go to the pharmacy to get their prescriptions and the top feedback was “when can we order prescription delivery online or via app!” With the process set up for the past few years the company was primed to try a customer facing product.
The WHY behind Rx Delivery
We need to create a consistent customer experience: All but five divisions (Cincinnati, Fred Meyer, Houston, Dallas, and Smiths) offer some type of Prescription Delivery service, resulting in varying customer experiences as well as pricing)
Many competitors lack a digital solution for requesting, scheduling, and paying for Prescription Delivery via web or mobile app
94% of patients care about convenience above all else
Pharmacy is following grocery trend, shifting towards digital solutions
•Shift towards mail order prescriptions with 25% market share and growing***
Current Rx Delivery Journey
Problem
Customers can’t request that their prescription be delivered, or pay for the delivery fee, online.
Goal
To empower our pharmacy customers to conveniently order prescriptions for delivery. We believe that adding convenience will improve medication adherence and ultimately patient outcomes.
Our Customer
Both young and old would desire a service to request delivery. We looked at the patient more from a needs perspective, where they regularly take a maintenance medication(ex. Lipitor or a child’s asthma medication). What type of medication and how often they are coming to the pharmacy is much more telling if a customer would be interested in Rx Delivery. These stats came from out current service that helped drive these insights.
Of the medication that was delivered, 76.5% was maintenance (Compared to all fills where 68.8% is maintenance)
Peaks in the 45-65+ age range
Notable 25-45 age range, with some getting for their children of 1-9 ages
User Research:
In collaboration with a user researcher, I conducted a 143 customer and 151 competitor survey through UserZoom to better understand their expectations for the Rx Delivery product. Key insights like this help set the stage for a workshop to solutioning. Insights included the confirmation that maintenance med users would want delivery as a way to receive medication and they would prefer to do so why ordering their medication in refills.
Anecdotes:
An overarching theme of Convenience, cost, and security are primary motivators.
“I was too busy to get out and pick up, not feeling well, or just lazy that day”
“No extra charge or $5 or less”
“I only wish that I didn’t have to call every time to have them delivered.”
“If it was offered in my rural area. I can get certain drugs mailed from insurance but others not covered still need to pick up.”
Research Summary for Customer Expectations
People far prefer to get their Rx delivered to their door
Prefer to select delivery when ordering Rx (even more pop. In 65+)
Timing: prefer same day but potentially willing to wait for if free
Verification: Being present for delivery is sometimes important or could be a deterrent
Discovery Workshops ( 2 day solution sprint)
I was part of both the customer facing work and the associate facing work that would be required to make customer delivery a reality.
Setting Requirements
Due to technical limitations our MVP of delivery would available after prescriptions are “ready” at the pharmacy to ensure accurate billing and delivery times.
We needed to accommodate a multiple address scenario because 20% of our customers have a shared account with family members
We would have a set delivery window of 2-6pm, and to order same-day cut off for customer is 12pm to give enough route it to delivery
Focused only on Native solution (but keeping responsive in mind at the moment because our web team was still 100% on Vaccine Scheduling.
Service Mapping
In collaboration with the associate facing platform developers and our developers, we mapped how a delivery order would flow from start to finish. Using multiple colors of stickies to keep the user or platform straight. This helped us determine what dependancies we had from the associate platform to successfully complete the experience.
Inspiration
There is an opportunity to learn from CVS, as they have the most robust Rx delivery available. I also looking as adjacent industries that have mastered the same-day delivery service, such as food delivery, car services apps or e-commerce shopping sites.
Highlights:
Text confirmation link
Add items to delivery order
Toggle between pickup and delivery
Clear step by step process
Good use of cards and space to separate tasks and information
Request delivery digitally clearly advertised
Sketches
Final Designs Implemented (post-usability tests)
Associate Application
To successfully implement Rx Delivery for our customers it was imperative to align with associate facing dependance so that when a customer requests a delivery the order is sent to a the specific store, packed and sent out for delivery at the promise time. For our pilot program we were able to work with the associate facing platform, EPRN, to create delivery status and tracking.
Next Steps
I believe this is just the beginning of how we might integrate delivery into our customer facing pharmacy products. The next steps would be to iteration as we learn about the current design and also run another design sprint how we might integrate delivery at point of refilling the customers prescriptions. We know that is the most likely place customer expect to elect for prescription delivery and I look forward to when we can provide that!