Self service checkouts are on the rise, if you went to your local supermarket im almost certain they would have some form of self service machine. Some may look at them as positive and convienient machines to buy their weekly shopping faster especially when you only have a few bits and not a full months worth of shopping, however, there is a large portion fo the public who disagree and feel like these machines are taking away us as humans communicating and interacting with eachother.
Replacing people with machines decreases opportunities for social interactions helping many feel integrated. Self-service in shops, libraries, banks and other places means people can go all day without conversation with a “real” person. It is set to worsen, to the detriment of contact and service quality.
It is no coincidence that Lidl, the fastest growing supermarket, resisted moves to self-service tills until recently. Self-service remains widely disliked. Nor does replacing staff with machines always improve service. Virgin Trains plans to replace its knowledgeable and efficient station ticket office staff with machines. It’s an unpopular move opposed by over 3,000 petitioners, but Virgin ploughs on like the American railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who reputedly said “the public be damned”.
Observation shows that staff are usually far quicker at issuing tickets, especially in complex ticket orders. Machines (when not all out of order) cannot answer the variety of questions the public ask. Nor can they help the many still suffering functional illiteracy.
So many people are still neutral when it comes to the machines and alot of people still will be, we can all wonder what the future holds for human interaction and retail moving forward. Will machines replace people? Who knows?
