As APP2016 fast approaches, we’re getting excited here in the Queensland Branch!
The new Retail Excellence Stream on Saturday 19 March has been designed with pharmacy assistants in mind. The APP team have put together a range of sessions to help you in the pharmacy every day. We spoke to the training team to see what they were most looking forward to in the stream, so you can plan your time at APP.
Sharyn McErlean: I am really looking forward to the session on breaking down the barriers to Pharmacist Only medicines (2:00pm-3:00pm). I know that it can be a challenge for new pharmacy staff because they often find it difficult to ask customers all the right questions and sometimes the customer is in a hurry, has had the medication numerous times before or they don’t want to be asked the questions.
The session on social media (3:30pm-4:30pm) will also be interesting because there are a few pharmacies I’ve spoken to that have awesome Facebook pages. I think this session will be really useful for them and pharmacies who are keen to set up a page, but are a bit scared to do it.
Katy Duldig: It’s such a diverse range of subjects! It will be an action-packed day because all of the sessions are so relevant and will help pharmacy assistants at work, and personally. I’m really interested in the social media session, because I’ve never really thought about the ramifications of using social media in much depth, but I know it’s so important!
Linden Pirrone: The Retail Excellence Stream program touches on all of the hot topics that retail managers and supervisors deal with every day. I love that the stream promotes a number of high level discussions and plenty of opportunity to look at the operations of pharmacies, inside and out! Personally, I’m looking forward to the ‘Breaking down the barriers to Pharmacist Only Medicines’ session, because I know it will answer a lot of questions pharmacy assistants have regarding handling customers with S3 enquiries. It think it will give pharmacy assistants more confidence knowing they are not alone when dealing with some of the issues that surround some S3 sales and hopefully some take-home strategies to help with scheduled medicine enquires.
We hope you’re as excited as the Trainers are about the APP Retail Excellence Stream! You can take a look at the program in detail here and register to attend here.