Article
Informal poll bodes well for kiosks in retail
Better economy and improved public opinion are pushing more retailers to self-service.
March 30, 2010
While some deployments haven't been the most customer friendly, and not everyone loves self-checkout, industry watchers expect deeper adoption and expanded technology use as businesses move forward on projects this year — all while concerns about job displacement fail to take root.
When it comes to using self-service kiosks, whether it's self-checkout at the supermarket or choosing a movie from a DVD station, there is still diverse and passionate public opinion about their value.
Just take a quick gander at feedback at Consumerist.com to get an idea on how varied public response is regarding self-service technology despite the fact it's hardly new stuff.
Consumers who like full-service claim that it's more trouble free, offers up better quality of service and is more reliable. Many users say they embrace it for quick purchases, love the speedier transaction capability and some even enjoy the lack of human interaction.
While psychologists may have a field day with that latter feedback, greater efficiency, having control and the ability to verify item pricing are top benefits cited in the Consumerist's informal poll about self-service.
Speed, convenience and fun were the top three benefits cited by consumers in the 2009 Self-Service Consumer Survey, published by SelfServiceWorld.com, and the survey indicates satisfaction levels are increasing as the technology continues to improve.
Yet not everyone's enthralled about being put to work in the shopping environment. Many like the idea of a cashier to help with coupon issues and the tedious bagging process, and some worry the technology could put the retail cashier occupation out to pasture.
As Consumer Reports blogger Anthony Giorgianni wrote in a recent post, "self-checkout scanners at supermarkets, home improvement stores and elsewhere have just made paying for your merchandise more frustrating."
While admitting he may be reviled as a Luddite, he predicts stores soon will eliminate cashiers "and we'll have row after row of miffed shoppers in constant battle with machines, mechanical versions of Seinfeld's Soup Nazi, proclaiming, ‘No produce for you!'"
But industry watchers believe the scale will continue to dip in favor of self-service adoration as companies get smarter about making kiosks more customer-friendly, more accessible and more valuable to users.
"Customers like them provided that they work," said Francie Mendelsohn, president of Summit Research Associates, a Maryland-based industry research firm."They'll even stand in line to use them when there is no line at the cashier's checkout station."
While adoption is nowhere near 100 percent, and it will never become a de facto customer service tool for all businesses, the love for self-service is growing as reliability improves and businesses overcome customer-facing issues.
"The technology fits depending on the nature of the business," Mendelsohn said.
And if it's not a neat initial fit, then businesses must provide workarounds and remove hurdles, she adds.
One example is within the financial user base where ATMs are now a very popular self-service activity. Yet recent advanced options, such as video conferencing teller stations in banks, have gained little traction due to the lack of privacy afforded to customers. People don't want others to eavesdrop on banking issues, and so they still head to the cashier, explains Mendelsohn.
But those types of hurdles will be cleared, and new self-service kiosk strategies are in the planning stages.
"As the economy recovers, a lot of companies are taking self-service projects off the back burner and planning to move forward as there's a lot of renewed interest in making self-service a viable customer service tool," Mendelsohn said.
As Janet Webster, president of Creative Solutions Consulting, points out, self service technology is here and here to stay.
"There are more and more ways to do self-service coming into play every day, and we're starting to see it really blossom around the healthcare industry," said Webster, who serves as president of the Self-Service & Kiosk Association, an industry group focused on supporting technology advancement through advocacy, education and networking initiatives.
"There is still a lot of room for growth and for acceptance. The focus for business is making sure the technology provides value from the customer perspective and explaining the value to customers so they embrace it."
Taking jobs
One would think given record unemployment, a continuing dearth in job opportunities and a slower-than-expected recovery from the worst recession since WWII that consumers would be eyeing self-service kiosks as evil workplace technology that are snatching jobs from cashiers and customer service ranks.
Yet a recent survey on consumer opinion on self-service applications indicates that nearly no one seems very concerned.
In fact, feedback on ShopSmart's recent informal survey on whether consumers like or loathe self-service kiosks only had one direct comment regarding the job replacement issue.
Alex Cole wrote that he refuses to use the "hateful automated systems" in an economy where people need jobs. Cole dismisses any cost savings being passed onto consumers and says cashiers provide needed service.
But fellow survey respondent Andrew is quick to rebut Cole's claim, noting that while one type of job may be lost when a kiosk gets plugged in, the technology is creating other career opportunities. (He openly admits to working for a self-service vendor).
"Let's be realistic. The grocery business has a razor-thin margin. ... When managers need to cut back on something to make their budget, the first place they cut is labor. So, would you rather wait in line for one of two cashiers?" he wrote in his post.
"Keep in mind, this device does bring jobs: mine. The self checkout has many moving parts, and they eventually fail. Someone has to fix them. The common argument is that they fire cashiers when they put this in. This is false. It does however add additional jobs in the form of people who fix them," he wrote.
At least one industry expert agrees with Andrew and his contention that self-service kiosks are neither a job opportunity killer nor pose a legitimate threat to retail career occupations.
Not only hasn't Francie Mendelsohn seen any backlash against the technology during the recession period, she believes the technology is helping foster better workplace opportunities.
"They have been around a long time and maybe early on were seen as replacing jobs, but smart companies deploy this technology and shift human resources to other roles in the company, and it allows them better use of staff resources," Mendolsohn said.
She provided an anecdote of a national gas service filling station chain that deployed kiosks for customer food orders. The company didn't fire the staff that had been taking orders but retrained them for the back-end fulfillment area of food preparation.
"I wish we were seeing more of that, and we will as companies see how this technology can put their workforce on more critical tasks and efforts," she said.
Mendelsohn does acknowledge, however, that in some situations kiosks have replaced workforce needs — but typically it's a situation where layoffs were happening already. An example is the time period shortly after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon when airlines faced a devastating drop in bookings and business.
"The airlines pulled in the kiosks for customers to keep business operating, as they knew they were going to have to lay off staff due to the drop in business," she said. The technology's cost-saving factor played a role in helping airlines get through the tough economic environment, she added.
And in many cases self-service kiosks are used to open new sales channels where there are no jobs to take away, she says.
Mendelsohn pointed to the standalone kiosks that offer up a new additional product or service to a retail's customer base, a deployment she says is creating more jobs around kiosk support and maintenance.
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