Re: Fucking self-scan tills!
I don't use them.
I'm waiting for the companies that do to realise.
You put self-service into my bank. I still use the counter. But then I stopped paying in cheques to you entirely, signed up for an online-only account and you've had to send me all kinds of doodads to sign in electronically and maintain the payment app ever since.
You put self-service into my supermarket. So I stopped going in there on the most crowded evenings, fighting against people and/or repackers (depending on time of day), pushing stuff through checkouts myself (but, hell, even the normal checkouts I have to unload onto a conveyor belt, then repack, then wheel to my car, then repack into the boot, then unpack again when I'm at home! Instead, I get YOU to do all the packing and drive it to my house in the middle of peak hours and at my convenience, in a specialised refrigerated vehicle, pay you a pittance extra to do so and then use it as an opportunity to order 20 bottles of Coke at the same time which I'd never do if I was the one to have to unpack it. Hell, you have to bag it for me too. The odd substitution that I'm quite entitled to refuse is small-fry next to what you're having to do for your customer now.
I find this everywhere you go. Businesses are trying to push tasks that THEY used to do onto their own customers. I'm at a loss how this make their customers feel like they are getting good service. And it translates up to government level too. Now *I* have to sort the rubbish that I'm paying you to take away? So I've just make the hugest compost heap known to man in my back garden instead.
Sure, they might think they have "won" just as much as I have in most cases, through extra fees, moving of services, etc. but they have forgotten that they are supposed to be providing a service and that involves something more than the bare minimum to technically qualify. We just move elsewhere, where we get service we expect, and the infrastructure costs must be cutting into their profits like mad. How many self-service checkouts need their own dedicated person to stand there, check them, cope with errors etc?
I actually refuse to use self-service if that's all there is. If I need one item and there's queues on the "normal" checkouts, I might do it. But I tried to use the passport-control ones at Stansted once. Instead of a long-queue, a fleeting glance and "Where have you come from today, Sir?", I got a longer queue, stupid people not understanding the system, then when I got to the front it just refused to work for me (literally 5 minutes just standing still while it tried), then I had to talk to the woman who is there JUST FOR THIS EVENT (and was very busy with everyone it was refusing), walk back out, go back to the "normal" queues and suffer the same fleeting glance as normal. As such, I will never use them again.
I'm sure on paper it looks good, if you only look at one column of numbers. But overall they are losing my custom in all the places that try this rubbish on me. An option, yes. A cheque-paying-in machine in the corner is great when I don't want to have to queue. But MAKING me use it? No.
There's a reason that the large supermarkets are dropping profits. There's a reason that the banks are closing branches left, right and centre (and still haven't caught up with the 21st Century, or even most European banks, and do things like text you for EVERY transaction, for free). There's a reason that shops and supermarkets are losing out to firms that do things like deliver fresh food every week (Graze, etc.), or have a warehouse that stocks everything that you can order in one click online. It's not that Amazon are so fantastically wonderful. It's that it provides the service I'm looking for. And they get customer service when things go wrong. Have you ever SEEN the Amazon returns / warranty service? It's wonderful.
And, to be honest, I'd rather pay slightly more to get service than slightly less and be made to scan my own damn groceries in an inefficient and yet still-completely-untrusting way (You really think I'm going to put two oranges in the bag after scanning only one? Nice way to treat your paying customers of many years).
I've seen this all over, and the polarisation between "company that gets customer service" and "company that doesn't" that exists now is just making me change the way I do things more than ever before.