Caring for the Customer The Cajun Coast Way

It’s just a small operation — three stores serving a 40-mile radius of the Cajun Coast — but Fournet’s Pharmacy & Professional Home Medical of Franklin, La., is making a big splash in that small pond.

Fournet’s has been around for 45 years and, in spite of the changes churning in the home medical equipment industry, it expects to be here at least another 45 years by continuing to do what it does best: finding ways to provide exemplary customer service.

“There is a lot of creativity in keeping the customer happy. That’s the focus of our business. That’s how we roll,” says Derrick

Sonnier, RN, BSN, home medical manager and director of information services.

It’s a tough order these days, providing extraordinary customer service. Sliced and diced reimbursement and governmental legislation and regulation have put such stresses on HME companies that many have closed up shop altogether. Others are struggling. And most say they have no choice if they want to survive but to cut patient services.

Not Fournet’s. The company is currently going through the accreditation process (with the Healthcare Quality Association on Accreditation) in order to meet CMS’ mandatory Sept. 30 deadline. It continues to seek better ways to buy quality items for cheaper prices so its customers are never short-changed when it comes to the caliber of their equipment. Always, it is the customers who are at the forefront of Fournet’s focus.

“Miss Gladys says that DME is a medical job, not a sales job,” says Sonnier, referring to Gladys Fournet who, with her husband Jerry, a pharmacist, founded Fournet’s. “Our number one goal is to love and take care of people.”

The Nurse Connection

There are two things in particular that stand out about Fournet’s: The company hires only nurses to sell HME, either licensed practical nurses or registered nurses. And it has such a detailed disaster plan that the state of Louisiana has adopted some of the precepts for its own plan.

Hiring nurses “is one of the big things we do,” says Sonnier. “I have never seen any other DME that hired just nurses.” Fournet’s also hires only nursing assistants as support staff “so everybody speaks a little medical,” he says.

Hiring medical personnel was Gladys Fournet’s idea when the pharmacy took on HME some 20 years ago.

“She’s very concerned about the care of the patient,” Sonnier says, adding that Gladys Fournet went back to school at age 61, took nurse’s training and graduated with a degree in health care management.

With the company’s 25 employees, Sonnier acknowledges that it is more expensive to have such highly trained personnel, but, he says, “we feel it has paid off. It really broadens the scope of our business. We feel like it has given us loyalty.”

While they do not provide nursing care such as shots, the nurses are an invaluable resource for customers who might have medical and equipment questions, Sonnier says.

“People always feel like they can call and ask a question. Mr. Jerry and Miss Gladys take calls at home and make deliveries on the weekend. We treat people as people all the time. It’s a personal touch,” Sonnier says.

Fournet’s staff often speaks with physicians on behalf of customers to get questions answered or situations clarified or resolved, Sonnier says. “We’ve always tried to make sure that we take care of the whole person,” he says. “We get involved with their lives.

“Most people say the customer is always right,” he adds. “We go a bit further. We make sure they always feel like they are our friends. If you make everybody feel like they are important, they are going to return the favor. We’ve got a lot of customer loyalty.”

That counts in an area like Franklin. Located southeast of Lafayette, Franklin has only about 9,000 residents. It doesn’t grow much.

“Where we live, it is very difficult to increase volume [of patients],” says Sonnier. “You have to take very good care of the patients you do have. There are only so many thousands of people who live here. We can’t invent new people.”

So, he says, the staff needs to sell “breadth-wise.” Sell a hospital bed, sell a gel mattress, too. Sell diabetic shoes, sell another pair of shoelaces.

“We are trying to sell the accessories,” Sonnier says, adding that Fournet’s doesn’t sell its customers items they don’t need or don’t want, but its employees will point out accessories that can make lives easier or more comfortable.

Fournet’s carries a broad selection of products, he says, and if the store doesn’t have something, it can be ordered.

“Every medical need [customers] have, they can get it here,” Sonnier says confidently. “You have to have a wide range. You don’t want them going into someone else’s store. Don’t give them a reason to.”

Dealing with Disaster

Franklin, where Fournet’s is located, is a place of grand old sugar plantations, mansions — and hurricanes.

The latter are regular visitors every year, coming through just long enough to bring devastation and chaos. While Fournet’s community wasn’t part of the Katrina catastrophe, last year’s Gustav and Ike wreaked their own havoc on the area.

“We got hit pretty hard,” Sonnier says, adding that there was mandatory evacuation in Franklin. “After the hurricanes, a lot of people were distraught. But our [customers] were very satisfied.”

The reason: Fournet’s disaster plan, designed by the elder Fournets’ son Freddy, general manager of the pharmacy and vice president of marketing and sales. The plan, Sonnier says, touches “every base.”

“Everybody knows what they have to do during an emergency at all times, before, during and after,” he says. “We don’t have to call everybody. We know that when the news says this, you do this. When it says this, you do this.”

Interestingly, they get few, if any, calls from respiratory patients, who most often have the most critical needs following a disaster. “It’s all taken care of before,” Sonnier says. “We give [patients] enough supply to take care of them. We know how long the storm is going to last. Our delivery drivers deliver an extra supply [of oxygen] to our patients.”

Fournet’s staff knows the oxygen patients are very likely to be without electricity, he added, so respiratory therapists work with the patients beforehand to get them on portable oxygen. “There’s not going to be electricity when a hurricane comes, so we can’t count on electricity. It’s just not an option,” Sonnier says.

Practical application has proven the Fournet disaster plan works. “People [who were not Fournet’s customers] came to us for assistance, and word got around that we had our act together,” Sonnier says about the response after Gustav and Ike.

The plan has worked so well, in fact, that the state of Louisiana appropriated some of Fournet’s ideas for its disaster plan, he says proudly.

The same painstaking planning that has gone into the disaster plan also has gone into Fournet’s plan for the future. Some of the company’s competitors are “going to tap out,” Sonnier says. But once Fournet’s is accredited, he says, it will be the only accredited HME business in 70 miles.

The company has also expanded its reach by servicing nursing homes, and it continues to seek good-quality equipment at cheaper prices as a way of combating declining reimbursement.

Already, thanks to Jerry Fournet’s forward-thinking, it is part of Louisiana Wholesale Drug, a coalition of independent pharmacists that he pulled together years ago so they could get a break on the cost of medications.

The company has a proactive mindset because, Sonnier says, the future looks as challenging as the present, if not more so, with Medicare a large portion of Fournet’s business. “It’s a tough challenge,” Sonnier adds. “It’s all about adaptation. Those who can adapt, survive. And those who don’t, get eaten.”

5 Tips from Fournet’s

At Fournet’s Pharmacy & Professional Home Medical in Franklin, La., there are five constants that make business — and life — a lot easier for employees and customers alike, according to Derrick Sonnier, RN, BSN, home medical manager and director of information services.

1. Treat the customer like family “If you don’t make people feel like they are special, you’ll never see them again,” Sonnier says.
2. Diversify your business Fournet’s started out as a pharmacy and added DME. Now, it also services local nursing homes. By diversifying its services, it can ride much more easily the waves of change.
3. Adapt, adapt, adapt “You can’t change what the government is going to do to you. You have to adapt,” says Sonnier.
4. Invest in technology While technology can be expensive, says Sonnier, it pays off in the end. “Our computer system is phenomenal,” he says. “We use cutting-edge technology. We reinvest into the business. We spend plenty of money on computers and software because we don’t want any impediments to optimal patient care.”
5. Train so everyone works the same way “Nothing is more irritating than when a form is filled out in different ways by two different people,” says Sonnier, adding that a cookie-cutter approach to, say, renting out a concentrator, works very well. It cuts down on errors and misunderstandings, he says. “We’ve invented a filing system so that anyone can substitute for anybody,” he notes.