Supermarket: "Scan and Shop"

Never used scan and shop, i like the person on a till, Me and Miss Jiff allways see the same person we have a good laf and a bit of humour thrown in foc

But allways check your reciepts as the scaners can wrongly scan things, we had the manger on the till once and he scaned loafs of bread but on the reciept it showed pineapples he had to tell himself off, we made sure we told the person we normally go to, all about it and she had great pleasure in winding up the manger

 

i didn't even realise they still did scan while you shop. thought they done away with that years ago.

 

Saw it in Waitrose recently. Despite the fact it's a bit impersonal, I can't help but think that somewhere along the line that scanner has done some hard working employee out of a job. Why have half a dozen checkout staff when you can have one person overseeing the self service system?

 

Exactly, and if they were, just pass the stuff to a friend or put it back on the shelf!! Easy!!

 

You collect a hand-held "scanner" (bar code reader) when you enter a certain shop.

As you pick up items that you want, you "scan" them, put them in your trolley and your total spend/purchase selection is recorded on the hand held scanner. You are expected to "pack" your items in the trolley at the same time.

Once you have completed your shop, you go to the "Scan & Shop" till:

~ you scan the barcode on the screen to indicate you have completed your shop
~ from that you are "randomly" (allegedly) selected for a check by a member of staff
~ the member of staff will select whatever items they like, from your bagged up shopping, to "check" against the scanner.
~ if no warning comes up, you are free to enter your pin, complete the purchase and go on your merry way.
~ if a warning comes up, against any item they have randomly selected, it is ASSUMED, by the human staff, that:
a) you didn't scan it;
b) it is an indicator that there may well be other items you have not scanned;
c) the scanner is 100% accurate, and
d) they need to go through each and every item to ascertain your integrity.

However, it is NOT assumed (by the human counterpart) that the scanner may be at fault, that you are telling the truth that you did scan it, you are not a shoplifter/con artist/ignoramus/senile and nor is your integrity compromised!

Well that is until the customer has been:

i: subjected to, unnecessarily rude, customer "service" (admittedly that is down to individual staff attitude/people skills)
ii: been a vehicle in inducing feelings of embarrassment
iii: still expect you to pay for the goods!
iv: are so unqualified in the very basics of customer service they have no concept of "peak-end" theory!

Or, bottom line (based on personal experience only): it is a dehumanised system which, if an error is flagged up, leads to a de-humanising experience! Plus, takes twice as long!

While I may have agreed to an earlier comment that, in theory, it surely relinquishes the need for human staff ... I'll disagree: firstly, because it took TWO members of staff to re-scan my trolley load (as opposed to one cashier ) and secondly, because the human staff, no longer employed on cashier duties, are now deployed as " personal shoppers" for their internet/home delivery customers and tend to block the isles for your more traditional shopper! Deskilled yes, but make economic sense because you can pay them less But, that is another story

 

Ahh

 

Sorry for the long post, Zigs, probably could have summed it up better ....

... crap!

 

In response to 'M', It also appears that some shops/supermarkets don't understand the concept of keeping customers happy over the possible loss of future custom they may incur by being arsey over refunds and exchanges.

For example I used to spend around £400 a month in our local Tesco and about 12 months ago they argued over returning a pack of bin liners that weren't perforated. I took them back with the receipt but threw the paper wrapper in the bin that I took out prior to fitting the new bin liner hence I didn't have the packaging but didn't see the problem as I still had my receipt.

The bulldog of a woman on customer services refused to refund or allow me an exchange on the grounds that without the wrapper and barcode, and I quote, "well you could have had them from another shop, who's to say these were ours?" Basically making me out a liar. So because of that they've now lost all my custom for a £2 pack of bin liners. My dad had issues with the same member of staff over something so I complained to head office about her attitude. They promised me a £10 voucher which to.this day never appeared. Their loss and my gain as I now shop at Asda.

 

No they are not accurate, if the barcodes are oily or bent they can miss read, i once worked in a warehouse and all pallets in and out that to be scaned, we had to unload 50/60 artic loads a day and the same went out, it was not nice when your loading a trailor a you find pallets that will not scan, you then go and look on the computer to see why, you will find that it miss read the barcode a the number are not the same, manaully put the right number in and get rid of that pallet