Patients' satisfaction with pharmaceutical services at independent community pharmacies and chain community pharmacies was studied. An interviewer administered the Pharmacy Encounter Survey (PES) face-to-face to 260 consecutive people immediately after their visits to randomly selected chain pharmacies (n = 10) or independent pharmacies (n = 16) in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania. The 15-item PES gathers demographic data and asks respondents to rate their satisfaction with the time it took for prescriptions to be filled, the technical skills and courtesy of pharmacy personnel, the convenience of the pharmacy's location, and other aspects of the experience. An aggregate of responses across the two pharmacy types showed an excellent or very good rating given by most respondents for all items. Respondents were most satisfied with pharmacy location and least satisfied with time spent waiting for prescriptions to be filled. However, for each item rated, and for the overall visit, respondents rated independent pharmacies better than chain pharmacies. The PES was a practical, easy-to-administer tool for measuring satisfaction, an increasingly important dimension of quality in managed care organizations. People interviewed with the PES at independent and chain community pharmacies in Philadelphia County rated the pharmacies highly, with higher ratings being given to the independent pharmacies.