COVENTRY, England, February 15, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Lloydspharmacy, the pharmacy retailer, has been recognised for its excellence in customer services following a recent nationwide customer satisfaction survey.

The Institute of Customer Service (ICS) awarded Lloydspharmacy second place in the Retail (non-food) sector behind John Lewis in the bi-annual UK Customer Satisfaction Index which is compiled from over 26,000 customer votes. The community pharmacy chain was ranked fifth overall, recognised as the best performing pharmacy (http://www.lloydspharmacy.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/TopCategoriesDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=90&catalogId=1008&homePage=Y) in its sector.

According to the ICS's latest research the services sector is the highest improving category despite the current economic climate. The survey asked customers to rate organisations on key areas such as complaint handling, professionalism, quality, value for money, and the competence and friendliness of staff.

Steve Howard, superintendent pharmacist at Lloydspharmacy commented: "This is an absolutely fantastic result for Lloydspharmacy and we feel very proud to have achieved such high praise from our customers, reinforcing our ethos of putting the customer at the heart of everything we do. This clearly demonstrates that we are well on the way to achieving our aim of being chosen by our customers over other pharmacies."

The UK Customer Satisfaction Awards recognise organisations which implement the best customer service strategies in the UK. There are eleven categories in the awards, including four People's Choice awards, which are based on the twice-yearly UK Customer Satisfaction Index results.

About Lloydspharmacy:

Lloydspharmacy has over 1650 pharmacies across the UK, employs over 17,000 staff and dispenses over 151 million prescription items annually.

Lloydspharmacy has primary care at the heart of its business. It has launched a range of products aimed at improving community health such as affordable blood pressure monitors, tens machine (http://www.lloydspharmacy.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=90&mpe_id=11182&productId=307101&intv_id=11133&evtype=CpgnClick&langId=-1&catalogId=1008) and allergy relievers, as well as a suite of convenient professional health check services including free blood pressure and diabetes testing, and cholesterol and heart checks in the comfort of a private consultation room. Lloydspharmacy also offers an online chemist (http://www.lloydspharmacy.com/) and an online doctor (https://onlinedoctor.lloydspharmacy.com/).

Lloydspharmacy is ranked second in the Institute of Customer Service UK Customer Satisfaction Index in the Retail, Non-Food sector, just behind John Lewis.

Lloydspharmacy is the trading name of Lloydspharmacy Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Celesio AG based in Stuttgart.

Notes to Editors:

The results for top performing companies in all sectors are freely available online at: http://www.ukcsi.com.

(Due to the length of the URLs, it may be necessary to copy and paste the hyperlinks into your Internet browser's URL address field. Remove the space if one exists.)

    
    For further media information please contact:
    Claire Connolly
    Lloydspharmacy Press Office
    Sapphire Court
    Walsgrave Triangle
    Coventry
    CV2 2TX
    +44(0)2476-432192
    http://www.lloydspharmacy.com

SOURCE Lloydspharmacy