Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Big Questions Answered helps us understand important CVS Health initiatives by taking a closer look at new products, powerful innovations and the big changes the company is making to achieve its strategic imperatives and build a world of health around every consumer. The company's senior leaders answer big questions from host Matt McGuire.
Matt McGuire
The enhanced CVS Health app is live! It’s been rebranded, redesigned, enhanced from top to bottom and packed with features you’ll find useful.
It’s your new home base for when you want to manage your health care.
The app gives you the ability to oversee your family’s prescriptions at CVS Pharmacy stores, through CVS Caremark mail order and CVS Specialty. And you’ll now have an excellent omnichannel experience while using the app — whether it’s to shop for an in-store pickup, book in-store vaccine appointments or schedule your prescriptions for home delivery.
On today’s episode, we’ll learn more about these features and others that are scheduled to launch later in 2025.
Welcome to Big Questions Answered, a podcast that helps us understand the important initiatives at CVS Health. I’m Matt McGuire from the Enterprise Communications team. I’ll be your host as we take a closer look at new products, powerful innovations and the big changes we’re making to achieve our strategic imperatives and build a world of health around every consumer. Thanks for joining me today as we get our big questions answered.
I'm here today with Tony Ambrozie from our Digital, Data, Analytics and Technology team. He is senior vice president and chief digital and technology officer, Pharmacy & Consumer Wellness. Tony has been working with his team and teams across the company to incorporate new features that bring together everything the company has for customers, members and patients in the redesigned CVS Health app.
Tony, thanks for joining me today.
Tony Ambrozie
Thanks for having me.
Matt McGuire
So, Tony, at the start, I should say I am really impressed by the app and all of its features. I've been following along as you and your team have been rolling them out over the past year, and it has been exciting to watch — and use. So, as an app user, I'm curious. What are the goals and strategy behind the enhancements to this rebranded and redesigned CVS Health app, and why is it so important that app users have a seamless omnichannel experience when they're using the CVS Health app?
Tony Ambrozie
Yeah, great question. As part of our vision for digital, there are really two strategies that we're pursuing, and in truth, one is flowing from the other. So, first we want to make the CVS Health app the center of our customer’s interactions with us. Store customers can always call to speak to an agent. There will always be the need to speak to a health care professional, whether that’s a pharmacist or a doctor. That's not going to go away. And we're going to make those sorts of interactions even easier. But the vast majority of interactions, which is the customers want something from us and we want to provide something to the customer, in a status update and things that are of that sort. They can be done better in a self-service digital way. And then, obviously, there are a lot of folks who prefer it that way, and that's where we're going to meet them. And that's kind of that self-service vision, if you want, is the is the second part of that strategy and we want to provide the ability to solve any need or any problem or any disruption, obviously short of medical advice. That still stays with the professionals, certified professionals. We want to provide that in a self-service manner as much as possible. We want the consumers and the members to be able to help themselves in all their interactions with us. Obviously, as with everything digital, the culture of digital, digital experiences, we want to make all that easy with minimal friction in order for consumers to move seamlessly between different channels for the same interaction. So, they could start in, let's say, in the app in a true self-service mode, and then if they want to, they can move into a two way text interaction with the CVS colleague, whether an agent or a pharmacist, and even go to a live call., while still being in the app, therefore having two channels at once to interact with us and service their needs.
Matt McGuire
Wow, that's great. And, so obviously, this is a new feature and not something that was available in the previous version of this app. Is that correct?
Tony Ambrozie
Will be available as much as possible this during this coming year. I should say during 2025.
Matt McGuire
Got it. So, this is a new feature that's going to be rolling out?
Tony Ambrozie
Correct. So, we're working incrementally. I don't like the big bang. So, we're adding features and sub features all the time.
Matt McGuire
And my understanding, too, is, that someone, an app user, whether that's a member a, you know, a customer, a patient, has the option to of sort of using the app in an omnichannel sense, whether they're looking for a home delivery, whether they're going to do an in-store pickup. Does the app serve have those features as well — enhanced features there?
Tony Ambrozie
Yes. So, we do want for all the different pharmacies that we have, we do want to provide, and that's possible today, to switch from different delivery models, from store to mail or the other way around. We want to really to meet the customers, our digital customers, our physical customers, anywhere they need us to meet them.
Matt McGuire
Nice. And another enhancement is that eligible Aetna members are now able to see their medical and dental spending on the home screen, and eligible Caremark members can see their deductible information there, too. What's the goal of this update, and how will these members find it useful?
Tony Ambrozie
The CVS Health app is for those customers who want to interact, and I should say interact in an easy and convenient way in one place with us for all their needs. Now obviously as an employee, I’m an Aetna and Caremark member, and I really like seeing things in one place. Not that I could not log in to multiple sites and multiple apps, but I really like to see them in one place. And the good thing is the following: If I go into the app for a different purpose, I want to order something from the deliver from the front store, for example, right, I still have the opportunity to see things or notifications or updates from the other business units that maybe otherwise I would miss, but I'd find useful. That's it’s an opportunity to give the customers the full visibility of what's happening in their lives in relation to CVS.
Matt McGuire
Yeah, for sure. You know, in looking at the app, one of the one of the updates that really kind of stands out is the ability for users to manage all of their prescriptions. You know whether that's Standard or Specialty as well as their Caremark prescriptions in one place. And that includes a seamless pick-up experience at CVS Pharmacy locations. How would you say this is an improvement from the process consumers had to follow before this enhancement?
Tony Ambrozie
I would say that, you know, consumers just wanted their prescriptions. And some of them, obviously, are life-saving, and they want, they they're getting those prescriptions from us in multiple ways. But for consumers, the different type of prescription, the segmentation in different categories is not very necessarily very intuitive. You know, sometimes you need something on an occasional basis and you just pick it up from the store. You know, after a visit to your PCP, other times you have prescriptions for chronic afflictions, maybe, you know blood pressure or cholesterol, high cholesterol or things like that. And that's usually you can get through mail on a regular basis. And sometimes, unfortunately, there is a need for medication that we call Specialty for more serious conditions, but at the end of the day, they're all prescriptions, they're all medications that they need for, for their needs and they, which is we, the patients, the consumers, absolutely want to manage them in one place because we don't see the necessary the difference between different categories. And, frankly, as I said earlier, sometimes, it's easier for consumers to switch how they obtain on how they pick up, or how they get delivered these prescriptions in a way that it's convenient for their life. One thing that you mentioned, I think it was mentioned, you know the seamless pick up in store, I think what you're referring to.
Matt McGuire
Yeah.
Tony Ambrozie
The ability to enroll again the users have we give the users the options to they can enroll in the ability to do a fast pick up, which means they will see in the app a barcode for their prescription. Just go to the point of sale, the pharmacy, they can, that barcodes and if there is anything to be paid, it's automatically charged to their card on file that they put on their own. And it's a lot a lot easier. That's how. Obviously, it's easy in the store, but it's a lot easier in if if they they pick up through and drive through.
Matt McGuire
So, Tony, your teams are always looking for ways to solve customer problems and, you know, and a part of that is removing the friction from the customer journey. One pain point for customers is the in-store locked cabinets. The solution that your team developed, the smart lockers, are live in three New York City stores, and they're giving verified and trusted ExtraCare customers a self-service option. Can you tell me, what's been the early feedback on this capability?
Tony Ambrozie
The ability to open a closed cabinet using the app, it's something that's something that consumers really like. And it's certainly a lot better than what exists today across multiple multiple stores and multiple vendor multiple companies, which is you have to call a store colleague, the store employee, to come and open that cabinet for you if you need something from that cabinet, and obviously that that takes more time, which, you know we call more friction, and therefore a solution, again, a self-service solution with somebody using their phone, it's a lot better.
For now, it's in a limited number of stores. We're we're expanding in January, I believe, and we will continue to expand. Does it make sense to more stores in 2025. We start small and iterate and grow from where we start. This is an opportunity for us to learn and tune — not just the experience, but learn more about how customers use this type of capability.
I would say, that from my, from our perspective, the icing on the cake. So, what I just described is purely customer focused, maniacal focused on improving the customer experience. But colleagues, our colleagues, the employees are super important. And so the icing on the cake is that the store colleagues also love it because they have, you know, they don't need to necessarily go and service these folks, these kind of customers. And so that's one thing. But also because, we gave the colleagues the ability to unlock these cabinets using their own in store devices. They have these fantastic devices that provide a lot of functionality and therefore they don't need to carry keys around them, and it's easy.
Matt McGuire
Yeah, I can, imagine, you know, they appreciate it as well. And that this will be a something that a lot of customers are going to appreciate some of the folks in New York City, I'm sure, are and it'll be interesting to see where you go next. And if I can make that case for the Chicago area, I will now, because that's where I'm located. So, you know, Tony, one more for you. You know, you've hinted at this a little bit, and you've shared, you know, some of these, shared a couple things that are, you know, on the horizon for 2025, but, can you give us a little bit of a sneak peek at what else is coming — a couple more enhancements that are coming this year that people will find particularly helpful in the CVS Health app?
Tony Ambrozie
Ah, sure. I will focus on one in particular, and I think there will be interesting for a lot of folks. Which is, we as consumers, the public, we've seen this explosion of AI capabilities in the last two years. And, it’s true, it's even before that we've had sustained capabilities, what we used to call machine learning for a number of years that that we deployed for certain experiences. And what I think we're going to see a lot more, is bringing these AI-based experiences, the kind of the chat bots, but also the voice, and the traditional digital — and it's funny to say traditional digital because it's only 10 to 15 years old. We're going to see those in a hybrid that where you're going to be able to converse with an application in natural language, so to speak, and navigate through that application. And so, for example, you could say, “Show me my prescriptions,” or, “Show me my blood pressure prescriptions,” and you'll the app will just show you exactly what that that list is. And then from there they say, “OK refill for me,” or you tap and it's a hybrid experience like that.
Matt McGuire
Sounds very interesting. I'm going to keep my eyes out for this. Thank you, Tony, for stopping by and walking me through all of these incredible updates — the ones that are coming and the ones that exist right now. I really appreciate it. Thanks a lot.
Tony Ambrozie
Well, thank you and keep your app updated all the time and on auto updates please.
Matt McGuire
Absolutely. And a big thanks to you for tuning into this episode. Until next time, I'm Matt McGuire. I look forward to joining you again to get more big questions answered.