Walgreens has enhanced its Balance Rewards loyalty program, targeting even more customer engagement while providing an even better customer experience.
During the Walgreens Boots Alliance third-quarter earnings conference call on July 9, George Fairweather, the company’s EVP, Global CFO and Principal Accounting Officer said the successful Balance Rewards program recently released Balanced Rewards with Everyday Points.
“We now provide our active customers with a more consistent platform to receive loyalty points on most pharmacy and retail product transactions,” Fairweather said, according to Seeking Alpha. “We also encourage healthy life style choices by awarding points for positive health and well-being decisions.”
Walgreens Boots Alliance CEO Stefano Pessina said, since the deal was consummated only six months ago, “we are still in the early stages of this process, but we have been working hard and fast to deliver on our plan, in fact better than our plan, and I am pleased to say that the benefits of this work are already beginning to be seen in our results with reasonable growth in revenues and margins and continuous strong cash generation. Really, the first avenues in which you can see the impact are tight cost control and disciplined financial management, but I want to assure you that we give our operations the investment they need to grow and prosper.”
Pessina said the company has focused on the cost reduction process and have reaped certain benefits earlier than expected.
“Of course, we cannot extract these benefits more than once,” he added, “however, the process of identifying benefits is ongoing, not final, so when we have completed this first wave of restructuring, we will reveal it and review all areas of our business to identify further potential cost saving.”
Alex Gourlay, EVP of Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. and President of Walgreens, said: “We have a lot of work to do and a lot of opportunity ahead of us and it will be step-by-step process, but the basic things we’re doing is reducing unprofitable promotions and making sure that we focus more investment in our best customers and more investments in our destination categories.”
Pessina is confident in the “immense potential” of the company as a global pharmacy-led, health and well-being enterprise.
“We are in markets that are changing, here in the U.S. where you are seeing this quite dramatically,” he explained. “But as I have said many times, we are at the beginning of a new chapter for our company and are actively reviewing every opportunity that the changing environment offers us as we work to deliver the true potential of our company. I strongly believe that we have a significant role to play in shaping the future of our industry.”
Walgreens Boots Alliance was created through the combination of Walgreens and Alliance Boots in December 2014. This transaction brought together two leading companies with iconic brands, complementary geographic footprints, shared values and a heritage of trusted healthcare services through pharmaceutical wholesaling and community pharmacy care, dating back more than 100 years.
The Company, with a presence in more than 25 countries, employs over 370,000 people and is the largest retail pharmacy, health and daily living destination in the U.S. and Europe.