Adventures at the self checkout

Let me begin by saying that I am a very loyal Coles supermarket shopper. When they introduced the "You'll love Coles" line (since discontinued) my view was:

Yes. I do love Coles. And I like your confidence that I will continue to love you.

Woolworths, IGA and Foodworks have done nothing to offend or upset me but, somehow, through the mysterious powers of marketing and branding, Coles has won my loyal custom.

I should also say that I take pleasure in supermarket shopping. For me, it provides the retail therapy without any level of guilt. My mum can justify almost any food-based purchase with "it's cheaper than takeaway" and I follow her lead on this one.

Last Sunday morning, I was enjoying a visit to our local Coles as I did our weekly "big shop". I noticed that self checkouts were under construction.

As I went through the checkout, I had a conversation with the friendly Coles employee:

Me: So, when will the self checkouts be ready?
Friendly Coles employee: Next week. We have lots of people who buy one or two things so it'll be great, much quicker.
Me: True. I wouldn't want to use them for a big shop though.
Friendly Coles employee: Oh no, you wouldn't use them for a big shop.
Me (assessing the risk of an uprising): And will it mean less employees?
Friendly Coles employee: Yes, because we can have one person to six registers. So, it's a win-win really.

I was impressed by his selfless, positive attitude towards this change and I deemed the risk of an uprising of Coles employees to be very low.

I returned to Coles yesterday to do our big shop and, as promised, the self checkouts were ready to use.

As I had my big shop in my trolley, I searched for a human operated checkout. Sadly, the only human operated checkout that was open was marked "12 items or less".

Hmmmmmmm.

I clearly had more than 12 items ("it's cheaper than takeaway!") but I could not face the self checkout with my more than 12 items.

I decided to chance it with the "12 items or less" lane.

I was quickly approached by a friendly Coles employee.

Friendly Coles employee: Would you like to use the self checkout?
Me: No, thank you. I have my big shop here.
Friendly Coles employee: You'll be okay. Come with me.

I was mildly troubled by this turn of events but, I am open to change, and was confident that the friendly human Coles employee would help me.

He showed me to the self checkout area but then quickly left me to attend to other self checkout related matters.

All began well, but then my self checkout system started to run into trouble.

When I scanned my carton of free-range eggs, it automatically started flashing its red light to cry out for human Coles employee assistance.

When I tried to pay, it cried out for human assistance again. The friendly Coles employee approached.

Friendly Coles employee: Did you try to suspend the sale?
Me: No. I just tried to pay.

I looked around me. There were many people attempting to self checkout their big shops and they were in a sea of flashing red lights. Their human faces were troubled and, oddly, they were apologising to the overworked human Coles employees who came to their assistance.

My three key points on this experience are:

1. If self checkout systems need human assistance, let us ensure there are enough humans to assist them.

2. If humans want to give money to a supermarket in return for food, let us make it easy for them to do that.

3. If introducing a change, let us ensure that, at the very least, the first experience of that change is positive.