The value of face-to-face services

As the demand for non-face-to-face services has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic, many places have installed kiosks, tablet PCs, and self-checkout counters. As store owners can reduce labor costs and customers prefer non-face-to-face services, the trend is expanding to various industries, such as cafes, restaurants, movie theaters, parking lots, and cramming schools.

Starbucks is one of the stores that haven't adopted kiosks yet. It has Siren Order on its app, which is a non-face-to-face ordering service, but it hasn't installed kiosks in its stores. When the coffee is ready, the staff still calls out the customer's name (or nickname) instead of using a vibration bell. This is because Starbucks values the interaction between customers and employees.

"Unlike many other places that sell coffee, Starbucks has built its brand on the Starbucks experience," said Joseph Michelli, author of Leading the Starbucks Way. "The Starbucks experience comes alive every day in employees' relationships with customers."

In the U.S. and U.K., many stores are removing or reducing the number of automated self-checkouts that proliferated during the pandemic, with people taking their place.

Dollar General, a retail chain with over 19,000 stores in the U.S. and Mexico, has introduced self-checkouts in over half of its stores. However, it recently reduced its number and is reallocating its human workforce. Meanwhile, Booths, a British supermarket chain, is retaining self-checkouts only in two of its 28 stores.

They're returning to ‘humans, not robots’ because customer feedback and internal evaluations indicate that the labor cost and time savings of self-checkouts have not met expectations. According to one study, the loss rate associated with self-checkouts is about 4 percent, more than double the average loss rate in retail. This higher loss rate is attributed to petty theft and unintentional customer mistakes. Additionally, the frustration of customers having to scan barcodes and checkout manually is another factor driving the decision to revert to human-operated checkouts.

The benefits of unattended retail are evident as they alleviate the challenges of recruiting and managing workers in an increasingly tight labor market. It's hard to argue against this trend. However, there are as many customers who desire face-to-face interaction with staff as there are those who prefer a non-face-to-face experience. Thus, I hope we can strike a balance rather than swiftly embracing automation. For customers who are apprehensive about technology or face difficulty using kiosks, it would be beneficial to have at least one staff member in the store to assist with in-person orders. Alternatively, standardizing kiosks' use and ordering methods across different industries could make them more user-friendly.