In Lucedale, Miss., population 3,077, Edwards Discount Drugs/Live Oak Medical Equipment and Supplies is where it's happening.
The combination pharmacy-home medical equipment company-gift shop-diner gives new meaning to the term "one-stop shop." At Edwards/Live Oak, you can buy everything from prescriptions and guns (this is hunting country, after all) to high-end gifts, a sandwich and lift chairs.
Folks would have to travel about an hour one way to get what the store offers. Tucked in southeast Mississippi, Lucedale is 45 miles from Mobile, Ala., or Pascagoula, Miss., and 40 miles east of Hattiesburg, Miss.
"We just want to offer the service and the products for [our customers] so they don't have to travel 40 miles to get what they need," says owner and pharmacist Rocky McGarrity.
At McGarrity's store, it's all about people, the ones he serves and those who work there. In fact, it's the people who have dictated what Edwards/Live Oak has become — and likely what it will be in the future.
Build It and They Will Come
McGarrity bought Edwards Discount Drugs in 1997 from the original owner, Hank Edwards, after working there for eight years.
"It was just a drugstore at the time," McGarrity says, adding that there were some gifts, and Edwards had had the idea to sell guns to draw men to the store. By 2001, McGarrity knew he had to expand.
"I've always wanted to supply everyone with everything they would need," he says. "We would always get prescriptions for wheelchairs and we'd have to send people 40 or 50 miles away. And for elderly people, they did not want to drive into a big town.
"One day," he recalls, "an elderly gentleman came in crying. He was one-legged and had a wheelchair, but another company had kept his wheelchair to repair and they had it for six weeks. It kind of angered me a little bit, so I just went ahead and built a building and had faith it would take off. And it has."
That building became Live Oak Medical Equipment and Supplies, and it housed a full line of home medical equipment, everything from diabetic supplies, walkers and canes to wheelchairs and mastectomy products.
In 2008, McGarrity began construction on a 13,000-square-foot location that would include both the pharmacy and the HME business, as well as an expanded upscale gift department. That was supposed to be it. But there was the people factor.
"A lady who had been in the cafe business closed and asked for a job," he recalls. It was three months before McGarrity would break ground on the new store, so he asked her if she would run "a little deli" if he put one in. A diner in a pharmacy/HME store was nothing new to McGarrity. He'd worked for a pharmacy in Pascagoula that had a diner.
"I saw then that people came in with a prescription and, if we were behind, they might go over and have a Coke or a sandwich or something."
That seemed like good business to him. And it seemed hospitable, too.
"I want you to feel as welcome as I did at my grandmother's house," he says. "I want you to know that it's customers first and quality always. And we're going to offer you a smile if you let us."
The diner took on a character all its own. Styled in 1950s decor with a black-and-white checkered floor, white countertops and Coca-Cola memorabilia, "it gives you that old nostalgia of the '50s and '60s for folks who remember that," says McGarrity, whose not-so-secret passion is doing Elvis impersonations.
Customers come in for a wheelchair or a commode, then often head to the diner to grab a hamburger, a bowl of homemade soup or an ice cream cone. Or vice versa.
Other drawing cards are a train track that runs all the way around the perimeter of the store and on which chugs, depending on the season, Thomas the Tank Engine or the Polar Express; and an array of signed footballs and football photos (McGarrity is also a huge football fan).
With the guns and the gifts, he draws both men and women, and with the trains and the diner, he draws young people, too.
"We're trying to bring in the after-school crowd," he says. "They get a discount if they get good grades."
Anyone who works for the area's schools can also get a card that pays their school 10 percent of their purchases.
"We just started this six months ago," McGarrity says, "and it's going to be beneficial. It brings people into the store, and it gives extra money back to the schools."
If it all sounds like light-hearted fun, that's the way McGarrity wants it. People come to his store with mobility problems and other health issues, and he believes it's his and his employees' jobs to make them feel better by the time they leave.
"We always try to wear our smiles," he says. "We always try to make you feel like you're home. We don't just have a set of patients or customers, we have family members who are walking in that door … I try to get to know people as much as I can. I try to learn peoples' names. I want to know who they are related to, their children and grandchildren."
All About People
But friendliness and fun aren't all that Edwards/Live Oak offers. McGarrity has a well-trained staff of 50 full- and part-time employees, with 13 of them on the HME side.
"All of our people have gone to classes to learn to do fittings and things like that," he says, adding that each person is vital to the company's success.
"You have to have the right people at the right locale in your DME business," he says. "You've got to have the right managers. The right person is the right person is the right person."
For example, he says, the company's mastectomy fitter has had breast cancer herself.
"She knows what these ladies are going through," McGarrity says. "Someone like myself, who has diabetes, I know where you're going and I wear the same shoes you do."
When he hires delivery techs, he looks for people who are caring and compassionate, and he makes sure they are prompt and accommodating.
"The delivery people are the people your customers see outside of the store, and they give the impression of what your company is about," he says.
"If we have a delivery, we call and tell [customers] it is on its way. We get it to them as quickly as possible. We ask them when they want it there, and we make every attempt to get it there when they want it.
"Our delivery people will help move beds or furniture if they need to [do that to] accommodate the equipment," he adds.
Nothing is a problem for an Edwards/Live Oak employee. That's an idea McGarrity borrowed from Disneyland.
"When I went to Disneyland, everybody said, 'No problem,'" he recalls, adding that what stood out to him was "their hospitality and their cleanliness."
"I go to places like Disneyland and see what makes them successful, and I try to copy them. What Disneyland showed me is that the person at the top is not the most important person. It's the person that makes me feel [good], the person picking up the trash. Every person in your organization is the most important person," he says.
Creating an attractive, welcoming, interesting destination is paying off, McGarrity says. Customers who come in to pick up a prescription wander over to the HME area and try out the lift chairs. Someone who comes in for a gift grabs a bite to eat at the diner — and remembers the HME section when they or a loved one requires such an item.
McGarrity expects that will continue, even after competitive bidding. His HME company is accredited, and about 50 percent of its business is Medicare, he estimates. He knows there will be some rough times ahead.
"We're going to have to deal with reimbursement cuts. But people have got to be taken care of … and somebody's got to do it. When all is said and done, the [legislators are] going to have to fix it so people can take care of people," he says.
But McGarrity doesn't consider regulatory or legislative issues to be his biggest challenge.
"My biggest challenge is … insurance companies will tell you one thing and do another. It's not me that is setting the prices; it's not me that is preventing you from getting your prescriptions. The biggest challenge is to overcome the accounting principles of the insurance companies when I am trying to take care of people. I'm the one they see face-to-face — and I'm the one they can chew out."
The challenges will always be in there, McGarrity believes, but so will the joy of the HME business. "I see a bright future," he says.
"It is challenging, but it's also fun and it's greatly rewarding, not just financially, but when people tell you thanks for helping them take care of mom — those pats on the back and the compliments you get," he says.
Sometimes, those are worth more than gold.
5 Tips for Building Customer Loyalty
In his rural Lucedale, Miss., HME, Rocky McGarrity puts his customers first. "I want to treat everybody just like I want to be treated," he says. Here are some other principles he does business by:
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Whatever the customer needs, make sure he or she believes you feel there is no problem in getting it done. "Always use a phrase like, 'We'll handle it,'" McGarrity says.
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Don't mislead the customer.
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Go the extra mile to put the customer at ease.
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Make sure the customer feels that you're on their side and you're going to do everything you can to take care of them.
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Always listen to the customer. "Let them say everything they need to say," McGarrity says. "A lot of times, they just need to be encouraged to take care of their own health."
