Human Interaction

Living in Canada for almost four years, it’s been a while since I stepped foot in a CVS.  I did so for the first time recently while back in the USA on holiday. 

My process was downright efficient: Enter store.  Select items.  Pay the machine.  Self-serve bag.  Leave.  I managed the entire transaction without a single human interaction.  Not only that, I managed my entire visit to the store without a single human interaction.  I suppose that is the point of such newfangled self-serve registers: no human interaction means no need for humans.  And like schools and most everywhere else, the cost of labor is the largest expense in almost all organizations.

This is not new.  Think ATMs.  I had my first ATM card in high school.  Who needed those pesky tellers and their passport savings books?  (Let’s not put a year on that, shall we?!)  This is from where we got EZPass in 1991.  If you could drive through the lanes and pay your own toll, who needed expensive toll takers?  Think printing your own online boarding pass for the airlines and the success of Amazon.com: the world’s largest bookstore without one…yup…store.

So, what is the loss?  First, possibly money.  Have you ever shopped at a Wegman’s grocery store?  What are the first two things every cashier is trained to ask you: “How are you?” and “Did you find everything today?”  Those seemingly lazy employees just milling around the registers are actually there to leap into action and go fetch exactly what you couldn't find before it’s time to pay the cashier, thereby providing marginal additional income to the store.  But multiply that marginal income by the number of customers each day times the number of stores.  Ka-ching!  I can tell you at CVS that nobody cared if I found everything and if I hadn't, nobody was seemingly available to help me do so, thereby facilitating me spending more money.

I praise the efficiency, the cost savings, and the spirit of independence it gives the consumer.  But, I am cautious about letting them run around—or worst, running out—on their own.  So, how does this look in schools?  Online report card viewing, web-based applications for admission, internet textbook shopping, and third vendor credit card payments for tuition are just a few examples.  When they work, they work.  But when they don’t, you better have an easily found FAQ, email link for assistance, or a phone number to call.

Let’s not make it hard for our families paying a lot of money to be served.  And let’s not make it a hurdle for them to possibly spend more.  After all, is it us or them who are craving the absence of human interaction?

“How are you?  Did you find everything today?”