What’s In Store
New York City drug store chain Duane Reade embarks on an ambitious re-branding campaign that aims to increase customer and employee satisfaction.
By Katie Lee

Duane Reade has been a fixture in New York City since 1960. Today the retailer has 255 locations.

When John Yodice arrived at Duane Reade nearly a year ago as senior director of construction and facilities, he knew he’d be in for more than just a change of company. The iconic New York City drug store chain — a ubiquitous fixture in the Big Apple since 1960 — was undergoing a change of its own, in the form of a major company-wide re-branding.

Yodice dived right in, eager for the challenge. “Every day offers a different challenge,” he says. “I enjoy being part of an organization that takes such pride in their brand that we’re now reimaging and renovating our stores to be ‘New York City’s Drug Store.’ That makes it a very good place to be.”

So far in 2009, numerous have been renovated, with more planned for 2010. The goal is to transform many of the chain’s 255 stores into more customer- and employee-friendly facilities. From wider aisles to totally revamped pharmacies, the new stores will also be lighter and brighter, many with floor-to-ceiling windows that allow sunlight in — instead of being piled high with cramped racks of merchandise. New, sleek signage is also part of Duane Reade’s reimaging campaign.

One thing that has not changed is the retailer’s commitment to New York City. “We are New York,” Yodice says. “We’re the largest drug store chain in the New York area, unique in that, at this point, we’re not a national chain. We cater to New Yorkers.”

The goal is to transform many of the chain’s 255 stores into more customer- and employee-friendly facilities. From wider aisles to totally revamped pharmacies, the new stores will also be lighter and brighter, many with floor-to-ceiling windows that allow sunlight in.

Catering to the customer — and employee — has its advantages, as any retailer will tell you. The facilities maintenance department at Duane Reade keeps this priority top of mind.

“The importance of maintaining a facility and keeping it customer- and employee-friendly has a direct correlation to the ability [of the retailer] to drive more sales,” Yodice explains. “It’s our responsibility to provide store operators a highly efficient working environment. Customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction — those two initiatives alone create a happy employee, create a happy customer, and generate the sales and profit.”

Duane Reade’s facilities maintenance department led by Yodice, employs a director, full-time service technicians who handle minor repair work in the field. Project managers handle construction and renovations, as well some of the larger maintenance repairs and facilities managers. The department also has a design person who handles all signage and sign coordination, including both interior graphics and exterior signage.

The team handles the maintenance needs of all 255 stores. Each maintenance call from goes directly to Duane Reade’s corporate office in New York City, and is then dispatched accordingly. Facility managers are able to see every call that comes in. Calls are logged in a database, which tracks all calls and issues work orders.

“We invoice on a monthly basis to make sure we match up the work orders with the invoices,” Yodice says. “It’s followed through from the initial point of contact from the store and the facility manager, right on through completion.”

Emergency calls are handled in a similar fashion, only even faster. “We have a 24-hour response time for emergency calls,” Yodice says. “Somebody’s on call at all times.”

Inside a newly remodeled Duane Reade store.

When choosing vendors, Yodice likes to stay close to home. “I like to keep local vendors because of their familiarity with the market,” he says. “We assign our jobs to the vendors based on geography, knowing which vendor can get to the stores quicker. New York City is unique in that many of our vendors need to navigate a number of different areas to get to the particular piece of equipment they’re working on.”

For example, he says, imagine the problems if an HVAC repairman didn’t know where the air-conditioning unit is located when Duane Reade is situated in the ground floor of a high-rise office building? Or what if he doesn’t know where the access to that particular A/C unit is located? He could spend two hours trying to find it, Yodice says.

Using local vendors familiar with the access points of each store save a lot of headaches. “With the national vendors, you don’t know who they’re going to send — it might be somebody new,” Yodice says. “Most of our vendor base is very familiar with all of our stores, and they know just what to do when they get there.”

“As big as we are, we stay small when it comes to service to our operators,” Yodice continues. “We want our operators to be familiar with our vendors so when the vendors arrive at the store, there’s a comfort level there.”

In addition to familiarity with the stores and the city itself, other key traits Duane Reade looks for when hiring vendors include financial stability and service reputation. “We want to make sure vendors have a proven track record in the city,” says Yodice. “We get references; we get financial statements. And we make assessments based on the clients they’ve had before.”

Duane Reade’s current re-branding efforts have allowed the maintenance department to make some upgrades of its own, such as replacing older equipment with more current, energy-efficient models. “The renovating allows us to be more comprehensive in evaluating what the store’s condition is,” Yodice says. “At that point we take advantage of the opportunity to go in and do upgrades, such as revisiting our HVAC equipment, and energy management monitoring programs.”

Though he jokes that facilities is a “necessary evil,” Yodice knows that you have to keep your equipment current, keep preventative maintenance programs in place, and spend some money up front to avoid paying more later. “If the PM programs are in place and working the way they should be working, then it should be relatively quiet [on the facilities front],” he says. “When the facilities department is not known, that means we’re doing our job.”

He continues: “Operations people understand the importance of the facilities department and, of course, the facilities department understands the importance of maintaining the confidence of our client — our client being the operations people running the store. We give them a safe, clean, efficient working environment so they can provide the same for the customers.”