Self-Checkout... Are You Kidding?

I was asked to write an article about the effects of self-checkout for retailers. My first comment was "are you kidding me?" Why would any specialty retailer even consider investing money into a self-checkout system? After all, isn’t that an extension of or the heart of customer service? We are judged on how effectively and efficiently the checkout process is.

As I wrote that last sentence, I realized that many of the store employees who are responsible for checking the customer out do not necessarily leave the customer with that warm and fuzzy feeling of knowing they want to return. Many times the rapport can be built with the salesperson as opposed to the person who is checking us out. How many times have we experienced great salespeople only to have our sale in jeopardy because of an impatient and rude cashier who takes the thrill out of buying? Having said that isn’t the checkout process the place where we can cement a lifetime relationship with that customer?

The first question is – are our staffs who are responsible for checking out our customers doing their job and enhancing the customers’ experience or using Shep Hyken’s phrase “is it a moment of magic or a moment of misery?” The next question is can a machine do a better job checking out a customer than we can do? When you think about those two questions and then consider the use of the internet and its meteoric growth, then why wouldn’t we consider automating the process? The obvious answer would be the cost to add these systems to our store.

The rebuttal is that the cost is falling faster for this technology than real estate values in Florida. Then consider how much it costs us to have a cashier or someone processing these transactions. Of course, you are going to have the little old lady who is petrified of technology saying "I don’t want to do that."And we shouldn’t expect her to have to do that. This system would have to be added to the traditional way of checking out.

What would be the cost to pay a cashier as opposed to having an automated system? Anytime we can effectively reduce payroll costs we should do it. What I am really saying is that as foreign as an idea it might have appeared at first, maybe it’s not so foreign after all. I know that I will have my critics who will be telling me how ridiculous this idea is for the independent specialty store and in many cases I agree. However, there were just as many people five years ago who said to me "no one will ever buy apparel online because you have to see it, hold it and touch it." We all know that is the farthest thing from the truth today.

Before any of us reject the whole idea at face value, think about the graphics that are available to the kid playing a video game or a penny machine at a casino that mesmerize the youngest kid and the oldest senior citizen pushing buttons on a slot machine. The real issue is can we enhance the customer’s experience in a cost effective way without losing the touchy feely aspects of customer engagement in the retail environment?

As foreign and as crazy of an idea I first thought, maybe it’s not so foreign and maybe we will be seeing lots of these devices in places we never expected... including your store. I am not a futurist so I may be wrong, but it’s interesting to think about. The best part is self-checkouts don’t take coffee breaks, lunch breaks, get paid overtime and there is absolutely and positively no issue whatsoever about what portion of their health insurance we have to cover. Would I rush out to buy a system? Not yet but I might just keep my mind open and see what the future brings.

You need to admit one thing to yourself – how many situations have you been through in the last month that you would have rather dealt with a machine than to have dealt with an undertrained, inefficient, and rude cashier?