Customers who like to talk 

Some customers will love to engage in conversation with you when they visit the pharmacy, especially if they live alone or do not have many other social interactions. This should not be viewed negatively as it shows the pharmacy team has built a good relationship with them, so where the environment and time allows this should be embraced. However, there will be occasions where you have other customers waiting to be served or heavy workloads to manage, so there needs to be a balance. Don't be afraid to let the customer know politely that it has been lovely speaking with them, but you need to deal with other customers now, if you are simply honest and give them a reason they will understand.

Although most customers will be embarrassed talking about sensitive subjects some people are the opposite and will happily talk about personal and sensitive health related matters openly in a public area. This might not embarrass them but could well embarrass other customers in the vicinity. With a customer like this, of course, we don't want to dampen their enthusiasm, but it might well be worth taking them to a quiet area e.g., the consultation room.

Another good technique to bring a personal conversation to an end is to move the conversation back to the business and ask something like "is there anything else I can assist you with today?" or direct an ending to the conversation in relation to the customer, "I know you said you had a lot of shopping to do today, so I won't keep you any longer, thanks for coming in".