Chill! AI Can’t do Everything
Supermarket chain ditches self-checkouts and goes back to staffed tills.
On Friday 10 November 2023, Sky News, UK reported: “Supermarket chain ditches self-checkouts and goes back to staffed tills.” Booths, the UK grocer said it is moving back to fully staffed tills, getting back to its roots in an optimal way to maintain its “warm northern welcome”. The move was based on customer feedback and “what we feel is the right thing to do”, a spokesperson told Sky News.
The high-end chain, which has 28 stores across Lancashire, Cumbria, Cheshire and Yorkshire; says that having staff at tills is better for customers. “We believe colleagues serving customers delivers a better customer experience,” therefore, better for customers means better for the brand. In July of 2023, a survey by the Grocer found customer service scores had fallen to record lows, it also said that a decline in self-checkouts added up to long queues at the remaining staffed checkouts which caused customers frustration — overall impacting sales and the brand negatively.
Booths said its founding philosophy since 1847 was to “sell the best goods available, in attractive stores, staffed with first-class assistants”. Therefore, the self-checkout system did not fit its brand image.
In short, the retail grocery store’s business is very human-focused, and people choose the brand based on familiarity and trust. Customers couldn’t reconcile the self-checkout machines to the high-end, high-quality, and service-oriented brand they’ve become familiar with.
This is the significant nuanced part that AI can’t do, it can’t provide a human-like active-sensory and emphatic response and solve problems on its own. AI can’t visually look at vegetables and make a correction or run back to the shelf and confirm a price — all with a warm and friendly smile. This part of the business seems to be overlooked where AI implementation is concerned, but this matters a great deal!
This is why it is important to chill and bring down the hype and fascination around AI and put it in the advanced technology automation category that it is. Chill and be more thoughtful and considered in the analysis of its precise functions and usefulness. There are many variables to consider about moving forward with the application of AI in the enterprise, so it must be part of an overall business strategy. Otherwise, AI could work against the enterprise. Recognizing the objective truth that AI can’t do everything is the first step.
In a Harvard Business School article, titled, Digital Transformation Is Not About Technology. The point was made that companies are pouring millions into “digital transformation” initiatives — but a high percentage of those fail to pay off. That’s because companies put the cart before the horse, focusing on a specific technology (“we need AI”) rather than doing the hard work of fitting the change into the overall business strategy first.
The study also summarized, that in a survey of directors, CEOs, and senior executives, it was found that digital transformation (DT) risk is their #1 concern. Yet 70% of all DT initiatives do not reach their goals. Of the $1.3 trillion that was spent on DT last year, it was estimated that $900 billion went to waste. Why do some DT efforts succeed and others fail?
Fundamentally, this is because most digital technologies sell promises of “efficiency gains and customer intimacy” but often enough, the machine reality voids the necessary human interaction experiences, the “intimacy” part. Consequently, the vibes are just not the same. This misunderstanding with AI can have a particularly negative impact on customer service-oriented businesses, which are most businesses. And the service side is the one that impacts the brand the most. So what might be gained in cost-related “efficiency” savings may be lost in other areas of the firm, particularly customer service and brand loyalty, etc.
A spokesperson for Booth said: “Delighting customers with our warm northern welcome is part of our DNA, and we continue to invest in our people to ensure we remain true to that ethos.” This has always been a significant part of the business strategy said Nigel Murry, managing director for Booths. But perhaps, in hindsight, we might have felt “[pressure]” to go along with the self-checkout industry trend.
“We like to talk to people and we’re proud that we’re moving largely to a place where our customers are served by people, by human beings, so rather than artificial intelligence, we’re going for actual intelligence,” he told the radio station.
We had repeated complaints about the chain’s self-scan machines being slow, unreliable, and most critical of all, how impersonal and unresponsive it is, said Murray. For example, alcohol purchases still require an attendant to come and verify the age of the purchaser, he explained. So many inefficiencies seem to be created with AI he surmised.
Booths is believed to be the first UK supermarket chain that’s doing away with self-checkout stations according to the BBC. But it’s one among a growing number of retailers like Walmart and Costco that are revising their self-checkout strategies. But for some US retailers, issues like theft have driven a self-checkout reckoning. Walmart said in September that it was scrapping self-checkout lanes in at least three stores in Albuquerque, New Mexico — a decision that came after both employees and customers complained about an increase in theft. Meanwhile, Costco has been cracking down on unauthorized card-sharing by having employees ask shoppers to show them their membership cards and photos in self-checkout lanes. But who wants that type of hassle and confrontation, both for employees and customers alike? It doesn’t make for good experiences.
Nevertheless, around 66% of Americans still seem to say that they prefer self-checkout stations over a checkout lane managed by a person, according to a survey of 1,000 respondents by PlayUSA. But, the survey also said it was felt that by eliminating those small interactions between customers and cashiers, self-checkout stations could also be contributing to a broader loneliness epidemic.
Murray noted that customers often get confused when checking out and have anxiety, particularly older more loyal customers, when having to use the machine. Loose items like fruits, vegetables, or baked goods are often problematic because the chain’s stations usually require some visual verification for these items. “Some customers don’t know one different apple versus another,” and as Murry said earlier, “actual intelligence” can’t ever be replaced by “artificial intelligence”.
A fundamental part of the human condition requires social interaction and comfort, the simple act of going to the local grocery store fills the human need for socialization. Being recognized by staff, saying hello, or saying thank you to staff is satisfying to the human spirit. This is all part of being human and business interactions are not excluded because all businesses are relationship-driven in some form or another in the end.
At a certain point and as history tells us there always comes a levelling-off period about how much technology humans want to take in. Similarly, as seen with significant demand growth for organic foods and/or healthy natural products, “Pure” made the comeback over processed, synthetic and artificial! Therefore, although technology has made foods/products more convenient, good tasting, and cheaper; people have always come back to their humanity, and come to recognize that convenience can also be harmful. Self-preservation, therefore, remains central to the human condition — to our human nature.
The impersonal and antisocial applications of AI can contribute meaningfully to harming one’s soul by denying it the social nourishment it needs. Socialization is an irreplaceable part of good mental health — mental self-preservation.
Ultimately, what technology becomes adopted or becomes the norm in our society, is a direct function of what we humans decide it to be, regardless of the top-down pressures from Big Tech. Our choices matter most! This has always been the way useful technology has evolved — by its determined usefulness and human experience factor. It’s not going to be any different this time around…where AI is concerned. So settle down, take a deep breath and chill! When the hype and the fascination gas clears, things will come back into balance, it always does because hype is unsustainable.
AI, therefore, is not going to replace humans anytime soon but AI is also not going away equally, and like the history of automation technologies has taught us…AI too will keep on evolving and find its groove in our humanity.
General intelligence will always reign supreme over artificial intelligence! A machine can’t replace a human — keep in mind that machines are created by human intelligence — there to serve humans and not the other way around. So the rumours of the prematurely declared death of Mother Nature have been greatly exaggerated!
