Win or Lose Customers Technology Risk.

Before you read this I would just like to say that the staff in the places I mention have been very good. Retail is difficult and not something I would consider doing or trying. I don't think I would be very good. It takes a special type of person to do it well, knowledgeable, helpful, polite, considerate and kind. It is not necessary for the person to have them all in abundance but if they have, two at least as strengths, the others will be developed along the way. Do retailers run the risk of winning or lose customers for the sake of a technology win.

We all think shopping has changed and indeed some of the methods, by which we shop, have changed but fundamentally we like to choose and then pay for the chosen item/s easily.

Over the last 10 days or so I have found that the big stores/names have lost the plot or the basic requirements of the customer.

Examples:

I was recently at Bicester Village you know the Designer Outlet Park. Whilst the area amenities were great, the stores all with the exception of the street vendor type failed to follow the basic concept at the beginning of this piece.

Gucci, had to wait for service, to see the item of interest then had to wait in a queue to pay for the item.

Less glamorous than Gucci. Asda 10% of checkouts replaced by self service type. The previous week I had tried the self service checkout and it was dreadful. I spoke more with the member of staff monitoring the checkout than my partner. This time I had less than 10 items but chose to join the queue of the check out with a person on it. The couple in front had a full trolley and the self service areas had two or three in line at each. I still managed to leave the store at the same time or before those that joined self service checkouts when I joined mine.

There is one exception to the generalisation of big store shopping and that is John Lewis. More often than not when I have joined a queue at John Lewis and the cashier sees it is getting too long they will ring a bell. You know a good old fashioned "ding dong" no sensor equipped smart device. The checkouts are immediately attended and usually out number the customers in the queue. There is no unpaid training in using the shop's new technology. No unpaid work by the customer packing the item to take away.

The experience at John Lewis is usually a good one.

Oh that's customer service, isn't it !

A survey I read highlighted two things the customer hates the most.

• Coin release shopping trollies.
• Self service 'dumb' checkouts.

These are the two most introduced retail experiences.

There are 3 basic ways by which you can grow your business.

1. Charge more.
2. More customers.
3. Get your customers to buy more.

If you are lucky enough to have a paying customers do the polite thing and take their hard earned money as quickly and as pleasnatly as possible.

It makes great business sense.

An article in the Telegraph suggests that retailers are losing £1.6 billion a year due to theft through these machines follow link to article.

The top five reasons given for stealing were.

1. Gave up trying to scan something that wouldn’t register – 57%
2. Less likely to get caught – 51%
3. The machine is easy to fool – 47%
4. Didn’t have enough money – 32%
5. At the time I didn’t realise it hadn’t scanned – 6%

A former Chief Constable Crispian Strachan says stealing from self service tills is no different from hiding goods in a handbag or taking a purse from a table.

Morally he is right of course but when a supermarket incorrectly scans an item in your shopping are they also stealing from you and if they forget to scan an item are you still viewed as Mr Strachan believes. Or are these all put down to unfortunate errors rather than deliberate acts as he would have us believe. It seems a very poor management decision to have invested in technology that leaves the store more vulnerable to risk of theft than employing good staff. If the business does employ a bad member of staff they can of course dismiss them. The outlay on this piece of poor technology is not so easily despatched the consumer will eventually pay for it by higher prices even if it is scrapped and the old method returns.

Yet another smart device that isn't very smart. (More later on smart phones, Google and Microsoft Edge)

Or could that be another smart manager that isn't very smart.

The percentages arrived at in the article suggest that 1 in 3 people who use self service checkouts are thieves. So if you want to avoid being falsely accused, shop somewhere else or refuse to use this piece of rubbish. You could alternatively ask for at least the minimum wage for having to do the job of a checkout operator.

Gerry