We the employees of Walgreens hereby alert our corporate leaders that we stand as a united force against the new "Extraordinary Customer Care" initiative that is being imposed upon us.

We understand that the original intent of the "Extraordinary Customer Care" initiative was to brand employee-customer interactions as well as to standardize them at all locations and levels of the company. However, this initiative is invading our relationship as employees with our valued customers.

We recently were told that our business model was transitioning from transactional to relational. This idea, we embraced. We have worked hard getting to know each and every one of our patients - most by first name. For many patients, it is the highlight of their day to visit our store and chat with us. We communicate with our customers on a personal basis and converse with many as if they are family.

With the "Extraordinary Customer Care" initiative, and the mandated verbiage that we must all use, we have lost the ability to connect with patients on a personal level. By mandating that every interaction begin with "Welcome to Walgreens..." and ends with "Be Well!", this initiative sets its self up as the antithesis of our goal of relational vs transactional. All conversations seem cold to patients as well as a lack of genuine interest in if the patient is even "well".

Therefore, we the employees of Walgreens declare that we will do not agree with the "Extraordinary Customer Care" initiative and its invasion into our relationships that we have built with our customers. As an alternative we recommend this simple rule for how we conduct ourselves, "Love our customers". From this all customers will not only be cared for, but feel cared for.