Is there anything else I can do for you? Our self-service economy

I don’t know why or what caused me to get out my laptop and put pen to paper on this, it has been going on for so long, it is getting harder to remember “how it used to be”. It has been going on for so long that The Economist had a piece in 2004 saying this had been going on for decades at that time. In fact, a Piggly Wiggly in Memphis in 1919 allowed shoppers to fill up carts and push them to check out. Self-service was born.

I was fortunate to travel internationally while growing up as my mother worked for a major airline and the costs to do so (albeit on standby status) were very low and I would guess we were able to get seats 8 or 9 time out of 10 to go to Europe or Asia or come home on the first try.

Of all the places we went and all of the amazing things we saw I somehow remember checking in at O’Hare perhaps more than anything else. We would pull up and a skycap would bring a cart and load the bags. We would tell him the flight we were hoping to get on and he would place the elastic tag on a handle and, when I was younger thought, take it right to the plane (which probably did not happen).

Now it is our jobs to print or download the boarding passes, check the bags, wheel them to the scale or x-ray machines and be sure to keep the claim check. I use to think this was “cool” but increasingly I am concerned that before too long we will be pushing a cart to the airplane ourselves and loading our own bags. No peanuts still. Chances are the ticket was actually sold to you, by you. And if you do need to talk to someone it is $25 for the “convenience” but more times than not they refer you to a website to make the buy-sell yourself.

Have you ever tried to call Google, Facebook or Twitter? No way.

“Free support” is available through a series of “self-service” applications (aka “apps”) and FAQs and forums and the like. You serve yourself. There is no customer service in the service unless you do it.  Perhaps when some of these functions were outsourced and there were challenges with language and call quality we would have longed for doing it ourselves, working for the website or airline. Now I am not sure.

I miss the human interaction.

My two favorite jobs growing up were my paper route and working at a car wash. Customer service wasn’t just a motto. It was the job. If the paper landed short or in the bushes, the customer wasn’t expected to get a rake or shovel or go out in the rain or snow and do it themselves. They didn’t work for the newspaper company.

Recently I went to a completely automated “full self-service” car wash. You choose the wash, pay for the transaction, get your receipt, keep your left wheel on the yellow line, enter the wash until you are told otherwise and then told to put car in neutral and keep hands of the steering wheel. If you want to vacuum, there are self-service vacuums for use. There was an “attendant on duty”, actually, an attendant on his phone telling me that the vacuum with the “Out of Order” sign was actually out of order.  That’s why there was no sound coming from it. I could choose from 29 others.

Before this when I worked at a car wash we would sell the car washes, try to get someone from the standard or regular wash to the super duper, premium, remove salt, snow, sand, mosquitoes, undercarriage, rust proofing, water sealing, all the lights and buzzers car wash. And if that failed, sell them the one just below that which included everything but a few less lights and buzzers to get the salt or mosquitoes off.  I learned how to sell. How to upsell. How to communicate with people on the value proposition of getting the undercarriage or rust protection or salt removal. I learned to sell the product you have to sell yourself. Whether it was a $5 car wash or a $5000 diamond like my father sold, you are selling a good or service and yourself. I wasn’t on my Nintendo Game Boy telling people the obvious. Go to a real “full service” car wash now and you would be fortunate to have someone do more than read a board to you about the difference between“#1” and“#3”.

I think that is what bothers me most.

The lack of communication, skill, aptitude, attitude and interest. There is no kibitzing, there is no “argument” about the blue foam or the red foam and why it costs 50 more cents. Today, in the order it yourself, do it yourself, get it yourself world the only people you can only argue with is yourself. Or you can go fill out a “complaint” box online. The interaction between a motivated buyer and seller is gone at a kiosk, station, and terminal or on an app. It is you versus you. Should I get the car wash for $2 more or is it going to rain tomorrow?  The kiosk doesn’t care. Neither does the attendant.

I did complain about the car wash to the attendant that there was still salt and dirt and grime and would like to run it through again.

When I was in the car wash business, this was routine, if not tolerated. It was built into the margin formulas, so many re dos per so many washes. The customer would tell the person who sold him the car wash there was a problem and he was offered his money back or a re do. Most took a re do in my experience.

But the kiosk station terminal with its apps and touchscreen doesn’t have that feature. There is a website if you are not completely satisfied. A website you have to go to and enter more data into not knowing where or who it is going to.

Up at Wal-Mart I used the self-service check out thinking it would be faster. Some milk, eggs, bread, orange juice and fruit and vegetables. It dawned on me after I scanned in an item – was I properly trained on this? Where do the coupons go? How much are bananas or green peppers per pound? I have to know produce codes and assume the machine is programmed right?

The bananas came up 99 cents a pound. I complained. The sign said 39 cents a pound. The attendant didn’t seem to know or care if they were 99 cents or 99 dollars a pound. He had no way to override the system and make the adjustment. He opted to put the bananas in a cart and call someone to put them back on the shelf. I was told I could go to their website and look for “customer service” and complain.

Perhaps artificial intelligence with “smart” systems will address some of this, systems that can “learn” rather than just be programmed to “do”. Perhaps a robot salesmen will tell me why the platinum wash is better than the gold wash is better than the silver wash and do it in English, Polish and Spanish like we use to do it.

Excuse me, its’ time for me to download my electric bill from the portal and find an envelope.