Is the death of cashiers imminent?
I have been thinking about the customer experience at the checkout. How good can it be with a machine? The machine is not adaptable to me. It’s rather procedural and I have to follow the interaction that the machine wants. That makes the user experience pretty rigid. The occasions when there is an issue, I get frustrated. The machine is ignorant of my feelings. Not a good thing for the store.
When the purchase is only a few items and pricing and packaging are very clear, self-service check-out could be convenient. But I’m slower than a cashier and will be a bit uncertain that I did everything correctly. If there is a queue at the serviced checkout, and my purchase is simple then I might use it. But most of the time, I still want the kind of check-out experience only a live human being behind the cash register can give. And only a live human being can provide the services that encourage me to come back to that store: Good customer service and friendly interaction.
For that to happen, the check-out environment has to change. It cannot be a store employee that is placed behind a wall of machines. Checkout productivity and loyalty engagement is of course achieved by the support of machines. But it is support, not the main activity. The counter between the me – the customer – and the cashier should be low as well as the supporting machines. It should not be a wall of displays, scanners, card readers and cash recyclers/drawers. A low counter with nicely integrated machines enables great customer handling, something that the self-service check-out can never beat. For me as a customer it makes it easier to see and appreciate the service that I’m getting and it is easier for the cashier to treat me as customer. They are able to inform, perform upselling, involve in loyalty programs, and give a friendly experience so that I will choose to come back. This increases customer satisfaction and store revenue.
Furthermore, only a live human being can offer bagging service. I like bagging as a service.
Björn Eriksson CTO at CashGuard
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