Kiosks are everywhere you look these days, and shoppers are getting a little tired of just how prevalent they are.
Nearly every establishment these days either has kiosks, self-checkout, or extremely long lines to check out with a person. You’re assigned one of these three options (no, you can’t pick), and you just have to roll with it.
Even if you’re young and tech-savvy, kiosks can be quite confusing, depending on how customer-friendly the user interface is. I noticed this recently while ordering at a fast-food taco chain — the interface to buy a burrito had like, dozens of buttons prompting me to add or subtract items to the burrito. I stared at it for a few seconds before pressing the button to add a regular one to my cart, but I couldn’t believe how confusing it looked. For anyone non-tech-savvy, or who has poor eyesight, or who has trouble reading, or even people who can’t reach the kiosk because they’re in a wheelchair, this is just making life way harder. Instead of talking to a cashier for 45 seconds to order, instead, we’ve got to touch a germy screen and just hope we’ve ordered correctly.
As if retail employees didn’t have enough to deal with already, this person got a directive to have customers to use a kiosk, no matter what. It seems like it backfired bigly. Imagine you’re an older person and you need to find something in the store. You approach an employee and ask them where it’s located. With a bored, glazed-over look, they tell you, “Use the kiosk. It’s on the kiosk.” You then have to dig your glasses out of your bag and try to navigate this touch screen (and you know, all touch screens are different, with some being super fast and sensitive, and others where you need to jam your finger on each button for it to register. Ugh, annoying!). As that customer, you might find it so overwhelming that you just give up and go to another store where an employee can just directly point you to the item. It’s crazy that these bosses were directing their workers to interact less with their customer base… but when money is the only thing that matters, instead of customer satisfaction or employee happiness, that’s what you get.
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