WeCare benefits at full blast -November 2021

Hello Member,

WeCare and ComputAssist have been closely associated with the pharmacy industry for many years and we have prided ourselves in the quality of the products we supply. However, no matter how good the product is it’s not worth much if there is no back up service in the event of a crisis or any other incident that may occur once the product has been acquired.

The recent spate of unrest that flared up in some parts of the country caught most if not all businesses by surprise. The damage and the associated costs of those dark days are still being assessed. But South Africans in general are a tough breed and given even just half a chance will pick themselves up, regroup and rebuild.

Many pharmacies were unfortunate to be caught up in the spate of wanton looting that took place. Some have recovered and are back in business once more. One of those is Westham Pharmacy. WeCare spoke to them about their recovery and what follows is the gist of that conversation.

When and how exactly did you get the notification that your store was being looted?

It was on Sunday night the 11th of July. The grocery store in our complex was attacked and the security company alerted us via the Whatsapp group that we business owners belong to. The various business owners and members of the local community got together to see if they could save any of the other shops between the 11th July, and early hours of Monday the 12th July, but there were simply too many people.

How soon were you able to get to your store to assess the damage?

Due to the continuing unrest and the fact that the authorities had declared the area to be high risk it was only about ten days after the attack. Areas were not safe, and access to Phoenix was restricted.

Apart from the physical loss, the emotional impact must have been devastating.

I am actually at a loss for words to describe the emotions. Westham Pharmacy has been a community pharmacy, and a family business for over 35 years. It is totally disheartening to see one’s life’s work being destroyed in a day.

Once the initial shock had worn off a bit there were obviously a number of calls that you needed to make – insurance brokers and so on. Who all did you call?

Once the emotions had settled down I started to list the priorities. My first concern was that of chronic medication. I needed to look after those customers as my first priority. So one of the first calls was to Computassist, and what an amazing, swift response from the team. I had a personal laptop and in no time the support crew had installed the necessary software for me to operate again to dispense chronic medication

When you did contact WeCare to communicate with your customers, what was that outcome?

That was lifesaving, LITERALLY, I am not exaggerating. The reason I say that, is if you don’t have something to start with, from a chronic medication management perspective, then it is very difficult for anyone to dispense, you don’t have contact details or patient profiles. We were using most of the WeCare tools including Loyalty, SMS’s etc. As a result of the loyalty card program – we have over 20 000 customers signed up, and the reason I have so many, is because I can SEE the benefits. The WeCare data showed our repeats due in June & July 2021 which allowed us to help chronic medication patients and they were exceptionally grateful.

There was assistance, not only with SMS’s, but Facebook posts as well?

There has been slow but steady daily increment of growth. Each day we have communicated via SMS messages, Face Book posts, new signage showing where the new premises are and a branded delivery vehicle… These have all helped to drive the return of the business. It’s been slow but it has been steady, we are as I mentioned earlier a community service based pharmacy. And it was shown that when the community stands together in this country amazing things happen.

Thank you to the WeCare & ComputAssist Team for helping us get to the position we are in. There was no delay, it was like a SWAT team came in and got things done.

For more information, call us: 0878022621

📣 Email:contactus@we-care.co.za
🌏Website:we-care.co.za