Walmart Health: You Could Die Waiting on the Phone to Get Through

Gary North - August 01, 2020

I was an early cheerleader for Walmart Health. I wrote about it two days after the launch of the first Walmart Health facility. I published my article on September 16, 2019: https://www.garynorth.com/public/19961.cfm

I have just had my first experience with the operation. It was an unmitigated disaster.

Yesterday morning, I tried to get an appointment for an eye examination. I called the Walmart vision service. I asked if there was an optometrist associated with the vision center. I was assured that there was. But, I was told, I could not schedule an appointment through the vision center. The man said he would forward the call to the optometrist.

He did. I got on the most ghastly voicemail service I have ever heard. It was unbelievable. The sound faded in and out. It had ghastly music that was grating to my ear. I waited and waited and waited. Nothing.

So, I called back. The person at the vision center told me what was wrong. All calls are routed through Walmart Health. When the phones get jammed, you can't get through. He said it was really bad. He was right. It was.

He told me he would give me the telephone number of the optometrist. I could call directly. So, I called. No good. I was right back in the voicemail of the Walmart Health system. I waited and waited and waited. Nothing.

Then I decided to write this article.

These people are not remotely ready for primetime. They spent all that money to re-structure my local Walmart Supercenter. The CEO of Walmart came out to cut the ribbon. But the munchkins deep in the bowels of the Walmart Health communications system have screwed the pooch. They don't know what they're doing.

Anybody with a lick of sense would not stay on the phone listening to ghastly music. He would hang up, and would then drive to a local walk-in clinic. Or he would call it. Someone will answer the phone at the walk-in clinic. The clinic wants your money. It makes it easy for you to spend your money.

Walmart became the largest retail operation in the world by making it easy for shoppers to give Walmart their money. But nobody seems to have run any beta tests on the incomparable foul-up that constitutes Walmart Health's system to get an appointment.

I'm sure Walmart's CEO has never called to try to get an appointment. He needs a Vice President to do it for him.

One of the basic rules of business is this: run beta tests. Run them all the time. If you have a big operation, you probably should hire people who do nothing except spend their days running beta tests. That is how you find out where the foul-ups are before they become a real embarrassment to the company.

Small companies should do it, too. Start out doing it. Don't stop doing it. If you assume that everything is running fine, something will blow up at an inopportune time. Count on it. Murphy's Law is always lurking in the background, ready to embarrass you.