Real People Check-Outs

Redwurzel

Redwurzel

Well-known member
At last a MD of supermarket admits the self service tills are not better.

We have had 10 years of retailers chiefs saying self service tills are better for customers, now one says they are coming out and admits most customers prefer real people and prefer to be served at a till in his supermarket. So no more putting your hand up and asking for permission to buy 16 Aspirins or a bottle of Pils or asking what pastry is this and then trying to find it on their menu screens or complainining the yellow sticker item has gone through at full price or the till has not accepted your vouchers or a machine that will not accept some of your cash.

We had a classic at Boots recently, they had taken out every served till at a major branch. Half their loyalty cards can be scanned like an item but half have to put through the card payment machine, the poor customers didn't have a clue and there was no advice to help without asking a staff member. The staff member could tell from the age of the loyalty card. It ended up with the store manager having to man the self service tills, because they didn't have enough ordinary staff to help out.


www.bbc.co.uk

Self-service: Booths supermarket puts staff back behind its tills

Booths says removing its self-service checkouts is the right thing to do and what customers want.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
I use self check out 100% of the time where possible. Ideally I will use self scan as well so that when you get to the checkout you are just paying - Asda and Tesco do it. In your example even if the manager had to stay there the rest of his career that is still going to be cheaper than having a checkout assistant on every till, so in reality they will still go down that route.

Checkouts wont be around much longer imo - companies wont be able to afford not to use them because all the competition will be. Nice story, but with Booths having 28 branches they are a drop in the ocean.

Also from that article:
"We stock quite a lot of loose items - fruit and veg and bakery - and as soon as you go to a self-scan with those you've got to get a visual verification on them, and some customers don't know one different apple versus another for example," he added.
Frankly bizarre - at pretty much every supermarket I've used these on, there are machines in those areas that you push a touch screen and it weighs and prints a label which you then scan. No-one has to do a visual verification, and customers pick the item that they've just literally picked up - there's even a picture to help.

"There's all sorts of fussing about with that and then the minute you put any alcohol in your basket somebody's got to come and check that you're of the right age."
100% does happen but you usually have 2-3 people covering about 14 checkouts, age verification takes about 20 seconds to do and remove the alarm device.

Lets say a checkout assistant is on £20k, so with pension, benefits and everything added in we might give them a fully loaded cost of approx. £32k. If you have 14 tills, then you need 14 people to staff them. That's half a million pounds for 14 tills - but obviously them people aren't working all the time, they phone in sick, theyre on holiday or its their day off, so you need more than 14 people to man 14 tills at peak, as well as quieter periods where you have unused tills not being used so taking up floor space.

Them 14 tills covered by 3 members of staff costs £96000 - there's of course the cost of the self checkouts, but regular checkouts don't come for free so its fairly comparable. There's also no cash for errors to be made or staff theft as its all counted, someone cant pull a knife on a self checkout machine, and they're all recorded.

It is unhaltable progress - they've already gotten vastly better over the last few years, that will continue.
 
People don't shop at Booths because of the low prices. They are an expensive, upmarket supermarket. They still have proper deli counters, fishmongers and butchers. They even have manned curry stands in some. They are also usually quiet so queues are never really an issue. Lots of old people shop there as well, because they can afford to, and they choose the checkouts over the self service anyway.

Having 1 person manning 4 self service machines that aren't being used anyway is probably not that cost effective.
 
ThatFragranceGuy said:
I use self check out 100% of the time where possible. Ideally I will use self scan as well so that when you get to the checkout you are just paying - Asda and Tesco do it. In your example even if the manager had to stay there the rest of his career that is still going to be cheaper than having a checkout assistant on every till, so in reality they will still go down that route.

Checkouts wont be around much longer imo - companies wont be able to afford not to use them because all the competition will be. Nice story, but with Booths having 28 branches they are a drop in the ocean.

Also from that article:
"We stock quite a lot of loose items - fruit and veg and bakery - and as soon as you go to a self-scan with those you've got to get a visual verification on them, and some customers don't know one different apple versus another for example," he added.
Frankly bizarre - at pretty much every supermarket I've used these on, there are machines in those areas that you push a touch screen and it weighs and prints a label which you then scan. No-one has to do a visual verification, and customers pick the item that they've just literally picked up - there's even a picture to help.

"There's all sorts of fussing about with that and then the minute you put any alcohol in your basket somebody's got to come and check that you're of the right age."
100% does happen but you usually have 2-3 people covering about 14 checkouts, age verification takes about 20 seconds to do and remove the alarm device.

Lets say a checkout assistant is on £20k, so with pension, benefits and everything added in we might give them a fully loaded cost of approx. £32k. If you have 14 tills, then you need 14 people to staff them. That's half a million pounds for 14 tills - but obviously them people aren't working all the time, they phone in sick, theyre on holiday or its their day off, so you need more than 14 people to man 14 tills at peak, as well as quieter periods where you have unused tills not being used so taking up floor space.

Them 14 tills covered by 3 members of staff costs £96000 - there's of course the cost of the self checkouts, but regular checkouts don't come for free so its fairly comparable. There's also no cash for errors to be made or staff theft as its all counted, someone cant pull a knife on a self checkout machine, and they're all recorded.

It is unhaltable progress - they've already gotten vastly better over the last few years, that will continue.
Click to expand...
Have you seen prices reduced because of the self service check out. I haven't.
 
ThatFragranceGuy said:
I use self check out 100% of the time where possible. Ideally I will use self scan as well so that when you get to the checkout you are just paying - Asda and Tesco do it. In your example even if the manager had to stay there the rest of his career that is still going to be cheaper than having a checkout assistant on every till, so in reality they will still go down that route.

Checkouts wont be around much longer imo - companies wont be able to afford not to use them because all the competition will be. Nice story, but with Booths having 28 branches they are a drop in the ocean.

Also from that article:
"We stock quite a lot of loose items - fruit and veg and bakery - and as soon as you go to a self-scan with those you've got to get a visual verification on them, and some customers don't know one different apple versus another for example," he added.
Frankly bizarre - at pretty much every supermarket I've used these on, there are machines in those areas that you push a touch screen and it weighs and prints a label which you then scan. No-one has to do a visual verification, and customers pick the item that they've just literally picked up - there's even a picture to help.

"There's all sorts of fussing about with that and then the minute you put any alcohol in your basket somebody's got to come and check that you're of the right age."
100% does happen but you usually have 2-3 people covering about 14 checkouts, age verification takes about 20 seconds to do and remove the alarm device.

Lets say a checkout assistant is on £20k, so with pension, benefits and everything added in we might give them a fully loaded cost of approx. £32k. If you have 14 tills, then you need 14 people to staff them. That's half a million pounds for 14 tills - but obviously them people aren't working all the time, they phone in sick, theyre on holiday or its their day off, so you need more than 14 people to man 14 tills at peak, as well as quieter periods where you have unused tills not being used so taking up floor space.

Them 14 tills covered by 3 members of staff costs £96000 - there's of course the cost of the self checkouts, but regular checkouts don't come for free so its fairly comparable. There's also no cash for errors to be made or staff theft as its all counted, someone cant pull a knife on a self checkout machine, and they're all recorded.

It is unhaltable progress - they've already gotten vastly better over the last few years, that will continue.
Click to expand...

I hope you never slow down and get confused at the self-service checkouts like some of our elderly folk do.
 
Trug said:
Have you seen prices reduced because of the self service check out. I haven't.
Click to expand...
No, but you might have seen prices go up slower as a result.

Norman_Conquest said:
I hope you never slow down and get confused at the self-service checkouts like some of our elderly folk do.
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If I ever slow down to the point that I can't work a checkout I'll probably not be doing my own shopping.
 
ThePrisoner said:
This Booths place must be well upmarket. Never heard of it. Mind you Morrisons is upmarket for me, but I will starve before I ever use a self-checkout for anything more than a carton of milk so Morrisons better not introduce any more. Hate them.
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The Morrisons self check outs are the worst I have ever used, they might have changed them now as I stopped using them years ago as they were absolutely s****.

The ones is asda are loads better, rarely have any issues apart from buying booze or drugs, sometimes can be waiting ages to get verified if they are busy. For that reason I go to a traditional check out when buying age restricted products.
 
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ThatFragranceGuy said:
If I ever slow down to the point that I can't work a checkout I'll probably not be doing my own shopping.
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That is the most lame reply you have ever come out with and not one I would expect from you. You certainly wouldn't have made it if you had ever had to care for someone who has become confused over the simplest of matters. Not everyone is lucky enough to have someone to care for them in their dotage.
 
Norman_Conquest said:
That is the most lame reply you have ever come out with and not one I would expect from you. You certainly wouldn't have made it if you had ever had to care for someone who has become confused over the simplest of matters. Not everyone is lucky enough to have someone to care for them in their dotage.
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I agree.... I find that comment heartless
 
Norman_Conquest said:
That is the most lame reply you have ever come out with and not one I would expect from you. You certainly wouldn't have made it if you had ever had to care for someone who has become confused over the simplest of matters. Not everyone is lucky enough to have someone to care for them in their dotage.
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Then surely they won't be using self checkouts or would speak to a member of staff to help them in the unlikely event that they do?

I've never been into a supermarket with no tills at all.

But they're not going to stop doing them because a few people don't like them or old people exist.

They'll have more of them, with maybe one or two max regular tills if people want to queue for those.

Just like banks will have less branches and the ones they do have will mostly be filled with self service tills because people don't go to banks much anymore and staffing cash desks is inefficient.

Have cared for several relatives with mental capacity issues, two grandmothers with Alzheimer's. My mum died in a hospice. But thanks for the assessment 👌🏻
 
Try the self checkouts in the Coop at Stokesley. They have one member of staff covering them, and they're serving on the kiosk counter and gassing to all and sundry. They are crap, but you have to use them as there's that or 1 manned till if you're lucky.
Customer service in the small Coop down the High Street is a million times.better.
 
ThatFragranceGuy said:
Then surely they won't be using self checkouts or would speak to a member of staff to help them in the unlikely event that they do?

I've never been into a supermarket with no tills at all.

But they're not going to stop doing them because a few people don't like them or old people exist.

They'll have more of them, with maybe one or two max regular tills if people want to queue for those.

Just like banks will have less branches and the ones they do have will mostly be filled with self service tills because people don't go to banks much anymore and staffing cash desks is inefficient.

Have cared for several relatives with mental capacity issues, two grandmothers with Alzheimer's. My mum died in a hospice. But thanks for the assessment 👌🏻
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Your first reply to me is quite crass and something you should be ashamed of. You are normally better than that.

As for self-service, I don't believe for one moment they will get rid of them but I've never met anyone, other than yourself, who thinks they bring something to the party.

Good night, I'm off to bed.
 
Self service I can handle. Asking for a carrier bag and having it brought over to the checkout and scanned boils my ****. Apparently I'm can be trusted to scan a trolley full of shopping, but a carrier bag? No. Apparently when it comes to carrier bags I look like a cleptomaniac.
 
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