Case Study: How Wellcare Pharmacy cut counter queries and boosted flu jab bookings with PosterBooking

The Client

Wellcare Pharmacy is an independent, family-run community pharmacy on a busy high street in Cardiff. It serves around 400 to 500 customers a week, offering NHS prescriptions, over-the-counter advice, flu and travel vaccinations, and a small retail section of health and beauty products. The pharmacy employs a pharmacist-owner, two dispensing assistants and a part-time healthcare assistant who delivers vaccinations.

Like many independent pharmacies, Wellcare competes with larger chains nearby and relies heavily on local reputation, friendly service and clear communication to keep customers coming back. Seasonal campaigns such as flu jabs, Covid boosters and stop smoking services are a meaningful part of the pharmacy's income and community role, but only if customers actually know they are available.

Life Before PosterBooking

Before PosterBooking, Wellcare Pharmacy's communication system was almost entirely paper-based. The owner, Priya, would design simple posters in Microsoft Word or Canva, print them on the back-office inkjet printer, then laminate anything that was going up for more than a week so it survived being handled and wiped down. These posters were taped to the shop window, pinned to a corkboard behind the counter, and propped on a small stand near the till.

Every time something changed, which was often, a member of staff had to stop what they were doing, create a new sign, print it, cut it to size, laminate it and find a spare pin or bit of tape to put it up. Flu jab availability changed weekly depending on stock. Opening hours shifted around bank holidays. Prescription collection point changes needed urgent signage. Promotional offers on vitamins or skincare rotated every fortnight. Priya estimated that between designing, printing, laminating and physically displaying new notices, staff were spending around 4 to 5 hours a week on signage tasks alone, not including the time spent answering the same questions out loud at the counter.

The print and laminating costs added up too. Between ink cartridges, laminating pouches and the occasional emergency print run at a local shop when the laminator jammed, Wellcare was spending roughly £45 to £60 a month just keeping its in-store notices current. On top of that, out-of-date signs were a recurring embarrassment. More than once a customer pointed out that a flu jab poster was advertising a date that had already passed, or that a "closed for lunch" sign was still up at 3pm because nobody remembered to take it down.

There was also a quieter cost: repetition. Dispensing assistants were asked the same questions dozens of times a day. "Are you doing flu jabs this week?" "What time do you close on Saturdays?" "Do I need an appointment for the travel clinic?" Each interruption was small, but across a day they chipped away at the time staff had available for dispensing and advising customers on more complex queries. Priya reckoned these repeated counter questions cost the team another couple of hours a week in lost focus and slower service, especially during busy periods like Monday mornings and flu season.

Wellcare had also experimented briefly with a basic digital photo frame loaded from a USB stick, bought cheaply online. It displayed a looping slideshow of images, but updating it meant physically removing the USB stick, plugging it into the back-office computer, deleting old files, copying new ones across, and plugging it back in. There was no way to schedule content, no way to update it remotely if Priya was off sick or working from the pharmacy's second branch, and the frame itself was low resolution and looked more like a gadget than part of the shop. After a few months of frustration, it was switched off and left gathering dust under the counter.

The Solution

Priya had seen digital signage running smoothly in a local GP surgery and asked the practice manager what they used. That led her to PosterBooking, a cloud-based digital signage platform that lets businesses manage screens remotely from any web browser, without needing a dedicated IT person or expensive hardware.

What appealed to Priya was the simplicity: PosterBooking is free to use for up to 10 screens, which was far more than Wellcare needed, and the dashboard let her build playlists of images, short videos and simple text-based announcement slides that could be scheduled to appear at specific times or dates. Flu jab reminders could be set to run for exactly the weeks stock was available, and then automatically swapped out for the next campaign without anyone needing to remember to change anything.

Because the content lives in the cloud and is pushed to the screens automatically, Priya could update signage from home in the evening, from her phone between patients at the second branch, or from the pharmacy's office computer, and see the change reflected on screen within moments.

Where They Implemented It

Wellcare Pharmacy installed two screens, chosen carefully for where customers naturally look and wait.

The first screen went in the front window display area, angled to be visible from the pavement as well as from inside the shop. This screen plays a rotating loop of opening hours, current promotions on health and beauty products, and headline health campaign messages such as "Flu jabs now available, no appointment needed."

The second, smaller screen was mounted just behind the counter, at eye level with customers queuing to collect prescriptions. This screen carries more detailed, practical information: specific flu jab appointment slots and walk-in times, travel clinic details, NHS prescription charge reminders, and seasonal health advice such as hay fever tips in spring or cold and flu guidance in winter. Because it sits where customers naturally wait and look while the pharmacist prepares their order, it has become a genuinely useful way to answer questions before they are even asked.

The Implementation

Wellcare's set-up used two Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K devices, plugged directly into the HDMI port of each existing screen the pharmacy already owned, one of which was repurposed from the old USB photo frame setup. Priya downloaded the PosterBooking app onto each Fire TV Stick from the app store, logged in with the pharmacy's PosterBooking account, and paired each stick to the cloud dashboard. The whole process took roughly two minutes per screen, with no cabling changes and no need to call in an installer.

Once both screens were registered, Priya spent an afternoon building a content library: she uploaded existing promotional images, created a handful of simple announcement slides directly in the dashboard's template editor, and set up two separate playlists, one for the window screen and one for the counter screen, since they needed to show different content to different audiences.

Staff training took about 20 minutes. The two dispensing assistants were shown how to log into the dashboard, add a quick announcement slide (such as "closed early today for staff training") and assign it to the right screen, and how to check that scheduled content was queued up correctly for the week ahead. Because the interface is a straightforward web dashboard rather than specialist software, both assistants were comfortable making basic changes unsupervised within their first week.

Life With PosterBooking

Today, updating Wellcare's signage looks nothing like it used to. When a new batch of flu vaccines arrives, Priya opens the dashboard, edits the existing flu campaign slide with updated availability, and sets it to start playing immediately on both screens. There is no printing, no laminating and no climbing onto a chair to pin something up.

Scheduled playlists mean most of the day-to-day work is already done in advance. Opening hours for upcoming bank holidays are scheduled weeks ahead of time and appear automatically on the correct date, then revert back afterwards without anyone needing to remember. Seasonal health messages are planned out a few months at a time, so the screens always feel current even during busy weeks when nobody has time to think about signage.

Staff have noticed a real difference at the counter. Fewer customers ask about flu jab timing or opening hours because the answer is already on screen in front of them while they wait. The healthcare assistant who runs the vaccination clinic says the counter screen has become an informal booking tool in itself, since customers often point at the screen and ask to book the slot they can see advertised.

The Results: Time and Money Saved

Switching from paper notices and a USB photo frame to PosterBooking has given Wellcare Pharmacy measurable time and cost savings, along with a noticeable lift in flu jab engagement during the autumn campaign.

• Weekly signage admin time cut from around 4 to 5 hours to roughly 45 minutes, a saving of over 4 hours a week
• Annualised, that is more than 200 staff hours a year redirected back to dispensing and customer care
• Monthly print and laminating spend reduced from £45 to £60 down to effectively £0
• Counter interruptions for routine questions (hours, flu jab availability) down by an estimated 30 to 40%, based on staff observation
• Flu jab bookings during the autumn campaign period rose noticeably once the counter screen began actively promoting walk-in slots, with staff crediting the screen for a steady stream of on-the-spot bookings
• Zero recorded instances of out-of-date signage being displayed since the switch, compared with a regular occurrence beforehand

Beyond the numbers, Priya says the pharmacy simply looks and feels more professional. New customers walking past the window are more likely to notice a clean, modern screen than a sun-faded poster taped to the glass, and that first impression matters on a high street where customers have other pharmacies to choose from.

Testimonial

Before PosterBooking, half my week felt like it disappeared into printing and sticking up bits of paper that were out of date within days. Now I update both screens from my phone in less time than it takes to make a coffee, and our flu jab bookings have genuinely picked up because people can see straight away that slots are available. It has taken a job I dreaded off my plate completely.

Priya Shah, Owner and Superintendent Pharmacist

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does PosterBooking cost for a small pharmacy like Wellcare?

PosterBooking is free to use for up to 10 screens, which comfortably covers most independent pharmacies running one or two displays. A small watermark appears on free screens after an initial 3 month trial period, and pharmacies that later grow beyond 10 screens pay $6.49 per screen per month from the 11th screen onwards.

What hardware do we need to get started?

Wellcare used two Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K devices, which plug into any HDMI-equipped screen or television. PosterBooking also runs on the Amazon Signage Stick or Display, Android TV devices, Windows PCs, Chromebox units and Raspberry Pi, so most pharmacies can use equipment they already have or buy inexpensive add-on devices.

How long does it take to set up a new screen?

Installing the PosterBooking app and pairing a device to the cloud dashboard takes about 2 minutes per screen. Building out a content library and playlists takes longer on the first day, but adding a new screen later is just as quick as the first.

Can staff update content without technical knowledge?

Yes. The PosterBooking dashboard is a straightforward web interface, and Wellcare's dispensing assistants were comfortable adding and scheduling their own announcement slides after a 20 minute training session. No design or IT background is needed.

What happens if the internet connection drops in the pharmacy?

PosterBooking screens cache content locally, so if the pharmacy's internet connection drops briefly, the screens keep playing the most recently downloaded playlist without interruption. Once the connection is restored, any new updates sync through automatically.

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