Parkview Drug Store: Adding the “Personal Touch”

For 36 years, Bert and Barbara English have owned and operated Parkview Drug Store in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Although not as high profile as Tuscaloosa’s two main institutions—University of Alabama football and Dreamland Ribs—Parkview Drug Store is an institution.

The Englishes believe it is the “personal touch” that keeps customers coming back. “Big business has its place, but this is still the place for the personal touch,” says Bert.

“We really thrive on the people and the relationships with families we’ve made throughout the years. Most people who come here know us on a first-name basis,” adds Barbara.

Their “personal touch” philosophy definitely does not ring hollow like the marketing ploys and ad campaigns of many big businesses. Bert and Barbara truly foster a family atmosphere, and the effects of this approach are readily evident in their long-term relationship with customers. For example, the great-grandchildren of some of their original customers still patronize the store. Remarkably, five generations of one family have been—and still are—customers of the Englishes.

The bond between the owners and their customers is so strong, in fact, that over the years many customers have joined the Parkview family as employees. “Several of our customers’ children have come back to work for us,” says Barbara. “One time we had a grandmother and her three grandchildren working here at the same time.”

One aspect of the Englishes’ business and personal philosophy of establishing relationships with customers is their policy of never turning away a college student who needs medicine. “There’s nothing worse than being in an unfamiliar place, sick, and alone,” says Bert. “We decided a long time ago that we would not turn away any student who needed medicine. If a student can’t pay for a prescription or over-the-counter medicine, we set up an account and bill the parents. We’ve been doing that for 35 years, and we’ve never been burned.”

The Englishes were recently awarded a Community Service Award by the family pharmacy division of Amerisource Health Corporation.

Fittingly, Bert and Barbara met at Brown’s Drug Store in Selma, Alabama, in 1959, when Bert was the young pharmacist, and Barbara was a college student who worked on weekends Page 215and during the summers. Bert says it was a whirlwind courtship. “We met that winter, I gave her a ring on Mother’s Day, and married her in July. She didn’t get a chance to think about it.”

In September of that year, J. W. Brown, the store owner, made Bert an offer he couldn’t refuse: Brown would buy Parkview Drug Store in Tuscaloosa if Bert would operate it. “I didn’t have any money,” Bert explains, “but I had the sweat. He had a lot of faith in me; I was so young and inexperienced.” So the young couple was off, and the rest is history.

No success story, though, is complete without a recounting of “the hard times.” Those came for the Englishes only two years after they moved to Tuscaloosa. For an entire year, the street facing Parkview Drug was closed to widen it to four lanes. “It was very difficult for anyone to get to us,” Bert recalls. “We’d sit here a couple of hours and no one would come in the store.” Things got so bad that friends began encouraging the young couple to declare bankruptcy and cut their losses. But Bert says they enjoyed what they were doing. “I figured we were young, our life was before us, and we had a great future mapped out for ourselves. We didn’t want to give it up. We just tightened our belts and did a lot of praying and refinancing.” Soon “the hard times” were over—they had made it through.

At 59, Bert says he is more than up to the challenges that face a small pharmacy in today’s market, namely, insurance policies that require participants to purchase medicine by mail and large chain stores with in-house pharmacies. Because Bert and Barbara are not ready to retire just yet, their son recently suggested that they hire another pharmacist to help out. True to his “personal touch” business approach, Bert responded, “I don’t want another pharmacist. I want to deal with my customers myself.”

In 2004, Bert and Barbara, ages 68 and 64, realized their children were not interested in taking over the pharmacy, and decided it was time to look after themselves, and get to know the grandchildren better. Bert and Barbara English sold the pharmacy to CVS. Bert said, “You can't turn off and leave after 45 years without feeling a little bit like you're betraying them. This store was like an extended family.” Bert never forgot the words that he uttered many years ago, the words that are still true: “You treat people the way you want to be treated, and they’ll remember you.”

Questions

1) Do you think the “personal touch” is still feasible in today’s mass-merchandising climate? Explain.

2) What are your thoughts on hiring customers? What are the strengths and weaknesses of this practice?

3) Is the policy of letting students without funds have medicine a practical one?

4) How do you explain the owners’ success in using the Golden Rule as an operating philosophy?