Ian Royall: Have self-serve check-outs destroyed the customer experience?

The beeping red light, the call of “unexpected item in the bagging area”, the sigh of a staff member coming to reset my terminal — is there anyone who truly likes the self-serve checkout?

We all have personal ambitions in life. For some people, it’s to learn another language, or run a marathon, or maybe play a musical instrument.

Mine is to successfully load my groceries at the self-serve checkout without the red light coming on to halt proceedings.

One day it will happen. After dozens of attempts, it hasn’t yet. But one day.

It’s not just the frustration at not being able to swipe and pay for three items without incident, it’s enduring the sigh of a staff member who has to reset my terminal because I failed Retail 101.

Then there’s the stress of entering the right type of tomato or mandarin. What does an afourer even look like?

My personal goal is to successfully load my groceries at the self-serve checkout without the red light coming on to halt proceedings. Picture: Carla Gottgens

And then there’s the anxiety of being watched by the little CCTV atop each terminal.

So what am I doing wrong? Most times I don’t even know. But it’s probably a wrong bag, wrong item or something. “Unexpected item in the bagging area.’’ Yes, that would be my dignity.

All of us reluctant cashiers are corralled into this self-service checkout hell because there is usually a maximum of one actual checkout staffed by a real human.

The self-service option might just about be tolerable if supermarkets offered us a modest discount for doing the job of an employee.

Maybe supermarkets are looking to get customers to do everything online in the hope of closing down actual shopfronts. Picture: NCA NewsWire

And don’t even start me on the ironically named “express lanes” and their grammatically flawed “12 items or less” signs. (For those playing at home, it should be “12 items or fewer”.)

All this frustration is only equalled by the failure to actually get a trolley. Because who the heck carries coins anymore to unlock a cart? I can barely remember to bring shopping bags, but loose change? Forget it.

So I can only buy what I can carry — what a great consumer strategy that is.

Maybe supermarkets are going down the same road as the banks. Get customers to do everything online and close down actual shopfronts and not have to deal with pesky customers.

Yes, online orders are great until you need something for dinner tonight. And sure, there are express or Uber or something fast delivery thingys but that’s another world of potential frustration.

In the meantime, I live in hope of getting through this whole miserable self-service experience with a series of green lights. One day.

Originally published as Ian Royall: Have self-serve check-outs destroyed the customer experience?