Walmart's Customer Experience: The "Easy" Self-Checkout Line
My customer experiences with self-checkout at Walmart are so unreal - so awful - that I'm finally taking the time to vent about them. One would think that the firm who drove major changes around the globe for supply chain standards would have an IT group that could do better than this hideous, customer-abusive atrocity.
While trying to save time and check-out, listening to the idiotic message being stated repeatedly by this badly designed system "please put item in bagging area", I wonder exactly who was the design leader for this system? What requirements managers were involved with this effort? Was there no software quality assurance in place? I can't imagine any SQA engineers with whom I've worked blessing this system for customer-readiness. And did the project leader decide to forego any pilot with real-world customers? Even if Walmart purchased this system, didn't they perform any validation? Think: For a retailer the size of Walmart, isn't the checkout system one of the primary points of customer engagement??
This system is, without a doubt, the worst self-checkout I've encountered and may well be the worst system that interfaces between customers and a company I've seen. And that, seriously, is saying a lot. A few of the design flaws - and by no means would I consider this list to be all-inclusive:
- The system doesn't provide any logic for a customer to utilize a larger tote bag: There's no room for one and there's no way to deal with it whatsoever. Either take on endless fragile plastic bags from Walmart or suffer interminably while each item you put into the large tote (which you've placed on the floor) results in the squawking voice from the system. (Delay here while you ponder whether to deal with the big or little bags...)
- Worse, if you do decide to buck-the-system - using your larger tote and then repeatedly punching the optional "not bagging this item" -- the system will absolutely get even with you by finally (after about 3 items) freezing up with a message that a supervisor is required. More delay here...
- The system insists on your placing one item at a time into the bagging area. So, if you try to multi-task and save a bit of time by grabbing two small items and trying to push them through, the system will balk. Once again it will squawk about putting an item into the bagging area and will not allow you to scan the second item. (Delay here, start over, sometimes wait for supervisor.)
- If you are a bit quick and scan an item, place it into appropriate flimsy small plastic bag, and quickly scan the next item, guess what? The system cannot accommodate that speed and may squawk again. One speed only, please, and that speed needs to be like a conveyor belt - a slow one. (More delay, slow down....)
- Heaven help you if you have purchased any type of medication - or a bottle of wine - that requires some viewing of your identity credentials. (More delay, wait for supervisor, dig out ID card, ponder why you bothered buying this stuff at Walmart.)
- Finally, just in case you're not annoyed enough by the gruesomeness of this entire experience of being squawked at and the supervisor having to come to your checkout space repeatedly (like you're the slow schoolchild), you're punished one more time: IF you spend more than $100.00 and don't pay in cash, the supervisor has to come over and check your credit card and your identity card to ensure it's really you. (More delay here....and deciding that one is never going to spend much $ here again.)
Here are my takeaways on the lack of customer care evidenced by this "quick self-checkout system" atrocity - shouldn't somebody at Walmart care?
- Some people will become frustrated and resort to using an actual human being cashier for checking out. I mean, it's just so not worth it dealing with a system like this.
- Humans cost more than well-designed systems, but that's not my problem. It will be Walmart's, especially if they have to raise their costs - or, worse, if more of us refuse to shop there because of this lack of care and concern.
- I cannot be the only person who is seriously re-considering shopping there.
- Why should I be penalized if I spend more than $100.00?
- Why should I subject myself to some squawking system that abuses me?
And what about the employees who should be able to maintain some graciousness with customers? Can you imagine the poor supervisors who are subjected to hours at a time of listening to multiple systems doing this incessant squawking? (I've found the supervisors to be amazingly calm - an enviable feat.) Recently one confided in me that she could only stand about 2 hours on duty there and rotated with a regular cashier spot. Another one told me that the lines and system were really designed for people with just a handful of items and that's why the system was so awkward.
So what? So.... back to Target...maybe Costco.... is what I'm thinking. And I'm not alone: I see lots of references on the internet to customer ire with Walmart's self-checkout atrocity.