There was a recent programme on Channel 4 about how much help or not the automated world is to us. There was a focus on automated supermarket checkouts, the upshot was that they were more useless than a cashier, checkout times were slower ant that overall we don't like them. I consider myself quite intelligent, yet the amount of times a barcode has gained the upper hand on me is ludicrous. Also I recently purchased some sweet potatoes (I'm dead posh me!) and took them to an automated checkout, I had to look them up to weigh them. Obviously they'll be under s for sweet, oh no, they're under p, for potato sweet, surely it can't be beyond the remit of Sainsbury's (told you I was posh) programmers to have them under both. Other items to look up are even more difficult, I've still no idea what an apple and blackberry danish is under, I gave up and went to a human.
There seems to be a gulf between what people want and what the large retailers think we want. I personally don't want to be told "thanks for waiting", every time I shop in a certain store, if I have been waiting it often sounds insincere, especially as they say it when you get to the checkout with one item, with no one on front of you. They then make it more ludicrous when they ask if you need any help with your packing with your one item.
I can remember when staff in food stores had to remember the price of everything, those days before barcodes, I can't say this was a bygone age I remember with rose tinted specs, in fact I remember the staff being quite rude, throwing carrier bags at you (and there were always shops that charged for bags, back when only the Wombles did recycling!). Plenty of people get nostalgic for Woolworths, but in some parallel universe I'm probably still waiting to get the disc for an Oasis CD from the surly teenager that worked there.
So certain aspects of retail have changed and as I've previously mentioned customer service in internet times needs to really be stepped up, but personal customer service and not automated. Telephone support for major companies should not use numbers that most of us have to pay for, who else gets irked by having to pay to call an 0800 number on a mobile? I always use saynoto0870.com but it doesn't always come up with the goods, my last phone bill had a £1.20 charge for a 2 minute call registering a new debit card, great customer service, I didn't have any other way to register the charge, thanks bank. I've probably got a few hundred blogs on banks so I'll probably leave them there, except a new trend in banks to ask if they can "help you with anything else today?" when you have gone to a cashier, a weird attempt to be personable and friendly, as though you would have thought they could only help you with one thing if they didn't ask. Despite that though the face of banks is a whole lot friendlier than it used to be (whether they actually are is open to debate), old banks were sterile and stern looking environments.
My customer service number outside office hours gets diverted to my mobile at my expense and trust me, I'm not approaching Lord Sugar levels any time soon!
Ebay have recently stepped up their own customer service, ten years late, but they have finally learnt that employing people who answer questions is useful, and who knows, one day soon they may employ people who even give the right answers ALL the time.
Can you remember a better or worse service in days gone by?
Which automated services are better and quicker than using a human?
There seems to be a gulf between what people want and what the large retailers think we want. I personally don't want to be told "thanks for waiting", every time I shop in a certain store, if I have been waiting it often sounds insincere, especially as they say it when you get to the checkout with one item, with no one on front of you. They then make it more ludicrous when they ask if you need any help with your packing with your one item.
I can remember when staff in food stores had to remember the price of everything, those days before barcodes, I can't say this was a bygone age I remember with rose tinted specs, in fact I remember the staff being quite rude, throwing carrier bags at you (and there were always shops that charged for bags, back when only the Wombles did recycling!). Plenty of people get nostalgic for Woolworths, but in some parallel universe I'm probably still waiting to get the disc for an Oasis CD from the surly teenager that worked there.
So certain aspects of retail have changed and as I've previously mentioned customer service in internet times needs to really be stepped up, but personal customer service and not automated. Telephone support for major companies should not use numbers that most of us have to pay for, who else gets irked by having to pay to call an 0800 number on a mobile? I always use saynoto0870.com but it doesn't always come up with the goods, my last phone bill had a £1.20 charge for a 2 minute call registering a new debit card, great customer service, I didn't have any other way to register the charge, thanks bank. I've probably got a few hundred blogs on banks so I'll probably leave them there, except a new trend in banks to ask if they can "help you with anything else today?" when you have gone to a cashier, a weird attempt to be personable and friendly, as though you would have thought they could only help you with one thing if they didn't ask. Despite that though the face of banks is a whole lot friendlier than it used to be (whether they actually are is open to debate), old banks were sterile and stern looking environments.
My customer service number outside office hours gets diverted to my mobile at my expense and trust me, I'm not approaching Lord Sugar levels any time soon!
Ebay have recently stepped up their own customer service, ten years late, but they have finally learnt that employing people who answer questions is useful, and who knows, one day soon they may employ people who even give the right answers ALL the time.
Can you remember a better or worse service in days gone by?
Which automated services are better and quicker than using a human?
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