Self-service does not mean customers are servants

The drive for efficiency leads companies to eliminate employees. Sometimes they do this under the guise of "self-service" machines or kiosks.

For example, banks eliminated tellers by using ATMs.

Now grocery stores are eliminating checkout clerks with self-service checkout kiosks. These are small, unmanned stations at which a customer can scan and bag their purchases without the assistance of a store employee. It is a way for grocery stores to reduce work -- at least from their point of view. In effect, the store has not reduced work but transferred it to the customer. The work is "off the books" as far as the corporate accountants are concerned -- but not to the customers.

Perhaps it is beneficial to review the actions that occur at a grocery store:

• A customer enters the store
• The customer travels through the store and selects items from shelves, placing them in a cart
• The customer brings the items to the checkout counter
• The customer (or sometimes the checkout clerk) removes the items from the cart
• The checkout clerk reviews each item and records the price
• The checkout clerk informs the customer of the total
• The customer pays for the items
• The customer (or sometimes the checkout clerk, or the bagger) puts the items back into the cart
• The customer leaves with the purchased items

There is a lot of "adding to the cart" and "taking out of the cart". More than is necessary, perhaps.

At the manned counter, especially before the days of bar codes and on-line inventory systems, a customer had to take all of their items and let the checkout clerk hold them, one at a time. This was necessary for the clerk to calculate the proper payment amount.

Over time, the checkout process has become more efficient. Instead of manually tabulating the result, a register was used to perform the calculations. Instead of handing items to the clerk one at a time, a moving belt was introduced, allowing one customer to put items in place while the previous customer paid. Bar codes eliminated the need for clerks to hunt for and read a price tag, and eliminated the need for the clerk to key-punch the amount.

But despite all improvements, the general process of "items from shelf to cart", "from cart to clerk", and "from clerk to cart (again)" remain. The self-service checkout kiosks keep these steps; the change is that the customer acts also as the checkout clerk.

Perhaps there is a simpler process. Why should the customer remove the items from the cart only to put them back into the cart (albeit this time in bags)?

The answer to that question is, of course, so that the register can tally the cost of the items. Implied in that answer is the assumption that the checkout kiosk must be the item to tally the items.

But must the kiosk be the tally-er?

Suppose we let the cart perform the tallying. As a customer adds an item to a cart, the cart could record the event, look up the price, and display a running tally for the customer. The cart could even have a slot for payment cards or NFC equipment for cell phone payments.

With such an arrangement, the customer could simply walk around the store, select items, and when finished swipe a credit card and leave the store. There would be no un-pack/re-pack step.

This idea is requires work:

• We need some way for carts to identify that items have been placed inside them. (And not simply nearby, perhaps in an adjacent cart.)
• Carts will also need a way to identify when an item has been removed
• Carts must have some connection (perhaps wi-fi) to the store's point-of-sale control system, to look up prices
• Some items are sold by weight (deli items and some fruits and vegetables) and the cart would have to weigh the item

This idea is not perfect:

• All of these features make carts more expensive
• By constantly displaying the total, "smart carts" may discourage purchases

Yet there are advantages:

• Store gain floor space, as they do not need checkout kiosks
• There are no lines for checkout (not even for the self-service kiosks, which we got rid of in the previous item)
• As a customer selects an item, smart carts can recommend other items (or perhaps offer coupons) in real time

So maybe we can look at self-service in a new light. Instead of pushing the work onto the customer, perhaps we can eliminate the work completely. Banks eliminated tellers by using ATMs, but they eliminated many more positions by using a different technology: credit cards.

Credit cards made it possible for people to purchase without checks or cash. After their introduction, banks saw fewer people withdrawing cash for purchases (fewer people at teller windows) and fewer checks for purchases (fewer checks to be processed).

And the ability to use a credit card to purchase items was something that made the internet and web a useful thing for many people. And drove more business.

I think that the successful technologies will be the ones that:

• Eliminate tasks, or greatly reduce their effort
• Enable people to do new things

The technologies that turn customers into servants? Those, I think, will have a short life.