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No Delight

The self-checkout machine at grocery stores is a solution to a problem most customers did not have. So it is no wonder that it does not work that well. The "Just walk out" model makes much better sense if it reliably works 

Could we ever see a world without self-checkouts? Yes, if customers refuse. “Businesses are looking for creative ways to cut labor costs, and if they can figure out how to convince customers to do more of the work, they’ll do it,” says Andrews. “I tell people to vote with your pocketbook. I went to my local supermarket the other night after work and filled up my cart. The staff said to go to self-checkout – and I just walked away. Because my thinking was, ‘I’m not going to sit here and scan 60 items. It’s just not worth my time.’”

This is exactly the opposite of great customer service. The store wants the customer to do extra work and waste their time in the checkout line, so they can cut their costs. The employees at the register these days have a lot let experience doing their job compared to the pre self-checkout generation. There are fewer of them and they work shorter hours. Now the customer has no winning scenario - the cashier at the register will struggle with different parts of the process than they would have had at the self-checkout line. Neither experience will come anywhere close to producing delight.

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