Dear Customers,
My older brother, Sam, used to get extremely upset if he had to wait in line. He also got just as mad if he stopped into the supermarket and witnessed our customers waiting in line. So much so that he often insisted that we schedule more help than was needed – just so that didn’t happen.
On occasion, I’ve been in bigger stores, particularly when I’m traveling or visiting another town. I can’t understand why they have cash register lanes stretching out towards the horizon – 20 or more – with only one or two open!
Several years ago, when our country was in the death grip of Covid 19, it was nearly impossible to get enough healthy bodies to staff the supermarket. Faced with continual staffing problems, we made, at least for some customers, the unpopular decision to buy 4 – self checkouts.
As it always is with new technology or change of any kind, there are those who readily embrace it and others who absolutely refuse change. Upon installation of the self-checkouts, I heard many, many comments from my perch up in the office above checkouts #2.
“Well, I’m not using them, some cashier just lost her job!” or “I don’t work for Costa’s Supermarket, I’m not checking myself out!” These reactions are typical of many people’s reaction to change. We had the same resistance when we began offering debit and credit card payment at the cash register many years ago. A lot of people still hadn’t gotten used to using a checking account and here we were advocating plastic cards!
The proof is in the pudding, as they say. At Thanksgiving and again at Christmas our customers had 7 available stations at which they could check out their groceries. In the old days, holidays created a lot of congestion at the registers. Not anymore. I can safely say we handled the influx of customers with nary a hitch. “Ain’t technology wunderful?” As long as it’s working!