Sunday Star-Times

The human touch

Retail keeps it real

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‘They’ll always be some degree of customer interactio­n. There needs to be.’ Chris Wilkinson, First Retail Group

Check into any supermarke­t or petrol station and you’ll find self-service - it’s old hat there.

But increasing­ly, help-yourself technology is popping up in other parts of retail too.

Fast food outlets like McDonalds have rolled out self-order kiosks across the country, and K-Mart now has self-service checkouts side by side with traditiona­l counters.

At the most extreme end, Amazon is trialling a grocery store with no checkouts at all, but with sensors that charge your credit card as you go out the door.

All of which doesn’t bode well for the humble shop assistant. But don’t count them out yet.

For a start, most stores using self-service are redeployin­g their staff elsewhere. Kmart says the staff who are no longer on counters are out on the floor or working back of house.

Chris Wilkinson of retail consultanc­y First Retail Group, said self-service could suit retailers selling bulk or everyday products well.

‘‘But other types of products where there is a degree of specialisa­tion or variabilit­y, you will need to have that further interactio­n.’’

Not everyone is sold on the idea. Australian clothing retailer Best & Less chief executive Rodney Orrock, recently lashed out at the technology, saying retailers shouldn’t rely on customers to do all the work.

‘‘If I go into a Woolworths to do grocery shopping ... if there’s somebody available to do my checkout, I’ll go there, right, because I think they’ll do it faster and quicker and I don’t have to concentrat­e. And sometimes at 6 o’clock in the morning that’s important,’’ he said.

Orrock also said financiall­y, selfservic­e wouldn’t suit every retailer.

‘‘If you look at a supermarke­t, and what people have got in an average basket there, versus what they’d have in an average basket within an apparel business, you would need a lot more volume going through to make that financiall­y make sense at the moment.’’

Wilkinson said Orrock’s comments possibly reflected the heat his chain was feeling from Kmart.

But retailers were continuall­y searching for new ways to be convenient, and in Kmart’s case, self-service worked well with its decision to stay open until midnight.

It was good for the security of late-night workers and allowed people to buy sensitive products discreetly - which meant it worked particular­ly well in pharmacies.

It also helped retailers where there were small pools of casual workers or when workers didn’t show up.

Moreover, in the Internet age, people were better equipped to serve themselves.

‘‘People value empowermen­t hugely, and we’ve trained people to be like this now. You wouldn’t think about going and getting a trip to Auckland from the travel agent. It’s part of people’s DNA.’’

On a recent trip to the US, Wilkinson said he saw very few self-checkouts, ‘‘but we saw a lot more mobile automation where people were being checked out on the fly’’.

‘‘You’re heading up to the cashier, staff will intercept you much like the Apple store model where they’ll do it straight off the iPhone.’’

Other retailers such as Bunnings would continue to stress the value of customer service and advice, particular­ly when it came to expensive transactio­ns.

‘‘They’ll always be some degree of customer interactio­n. There needs to be. It’s just part of the risk management plan and logistics.’’

A couple of quick enquiries show some Kiwi retailers are still wary of the idea of self-service.

KFC has installed touch screen ordering in France, but says there are no plans to do so here at present.

Kmart’s rival The Warehouse also has ‘‘no immediate plans’’ to provide self-service.

Fast-food operator Subway has come close by allowing customers to pre-order their meal via a mobile app.

But Simon Kenny of McDonald’s New Zealand said his chain is sold on self-service.

Its New Zealand and Australia stores were the first to trial selfserve kiosks - coupled with table service.

Their success has led to McDonald’s announcing two months ago that it will roll out self-service in all its 14,000 US stores.

The kiosks allow McDonald’s to display its full menu better, and Kenny rejects any notion they are a way of cutting back on staff.

If anything he said, the company has needed more staff to educate customers and wait on tables.

‘‘Restaurant­s in general have put on more people since kiosks rather than fewer people.’’

The key thing was giving customers choice, he said.

‘‘McDonald’s is kind of synonymous with convenienc­e and that used to mean being able to simply drive through somewhere and get food, or come up to the counter and get food within a couple of minutes.

‘‘But convenienc­e means different things to people nowadays, especially with smart phones and technology and being intuitive with touchscree­ns and so on.

‘‘So for a lot of people, a kiosk is a convenient way to order because they know what they want.’’

 ?? JASON REDMOND/REUTERS ?? In Seattle, Amazon is testing a brick-and-mortar grocery store without lines or checkout counters.
JASON REDMOND/REUTERS In Seattle, Amazon is testing a brick-and-mortar grocery store without lines or checkout counters.
 ?? AP ?? McDonald’s chief executive Steve Easterbroo­k demonstrat­es an order kiosk at a New York restaurant.
AP McDonald’s chief executive Steve Easterbroo­k demonstrat­es an order kiosk at a New York restaurant.

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