The Dismal Digital Future

Out here in the Heartland of a continent it pays to notice trends. We hear about the latest thing in California or in big cities but it’s comforting to know that the crazy stuff dwells in those distant places long before it appears here. With luck, some things illustrate their insanity there and then never make it here to the land of relatively more common sense.

Such has been the case of late. For years we have heard about the new wave of digitalization of most everything, but here it’s easy to go about one’s workaday routine in the solid old fashioned ways that suit us.

Dollar General still cares about customer service

My small town family-owned supermarket is a good example. There has never been a self checkout lane there, and no one has asked me to carry around a scanner to “speed up” the checkout process when I finish shopping. If I can’t find something on the shelf that I’m looking for, there is always a friendly employee to ask. They will even take requests and see about ordering things they haven’t stocked before just so I can have what I want. If I leave something on the bottom of my cart when I load my groceries into the truck, it will be held for me when I go in to ask for it next time. From top to bottom, my local supermarket is about customer service, freshness, and good value. They’re the best people I know.

Even at the Dollar General stores in the area there was a test, then a rapid pull-back. The bigger Wal-Marts had gone over to self checkouts and laid off all but maybe one or two cashiers to process customer orders the old fashioned way. On my rare trips there I quickly decided that it wasn’t worth waiting the extra five or ten minutes it would take in a traditional checkout line. I swear they instructed the remaining checkout clerks to slow down, too, so that only the very few would be willing to endure the wait. Wal-Mart still has those. But Dollar General put a self checkout station or two in every store. Most customers asked for a clerk and got one, but I was told by an employee that there was so much loss from customers just not doing the process properly that management soon took the check stations out of every store. They have not been put back in, nor will they, I hear. Dollar General still cares about customer service. Sometimes the crazy stuff comes here and stays, but then sometimes it comes here and is defeated. That’s good.

This mega supermarket chain with 2,700 stores has invested in a machine that will replace some human employees

It has been a deliberate policy on my part to minimize purchases at the huge corporate chain stores and supermarkets. For quite a few years now the importance of customer service has been declining at these behemoths. I have complained and made suggestions, but nothing has been done. In fact, it’s getting steadily worse. At the same time, employee courtesy and competence has declined to the point that I avoid the places like the plague when humanly possible. Only occasionally will I subject myself to the rudeness and the coldness that has become routine there.

Such an occasion came this past Sunday when I was in a different county seat town looking for increasingly rare coffee bargains. I had no sooner entered the store than I saw the contraption pictured above. At first I thought it was a vacuum since it was moving soundlessly and had a footprint about the size of a Roomba. 

The top, I figured quickly, was to prevent people tripping over it in the store, but I was wrong. I rolled my cart up to it, blocking its path. It backed up, apparently considering alternatives. It withdrew and started down another produce aisle, neither excusing itself or offering explanation. I followed until it stopped part way, blocking my path. It didn’t excuse itself or offer to move out of my way. I’m only a customer, after all. Then I read the message on the side. It’s a shelf scanner. It stops, silently scanning the product barcodes on the shelf edge with its electronic “eye” and apparently sensing changes or open space on the sloped displays. I chuckle. This mega supermarket chain with 2,700 stores has invested in a machine that will replace some human employees, but not do the job so well. How could it? It doesn’t know when the avocados are ripe, only where they are, presumably.

It isn’t the first Kroger leap into the digital future of its dreams

It doesn’t know if the squash was scratched and bumped or if the apples were bruised when an equally uncaring human plunked them on an unforgiving surface leaving the damage and deterioration for an unwary customer to discover back at his home. It won’t warn me that a potato deep in the pallet of five-pound bags will rot after I get it home and spread its decay to every potato nearby.

I stare in near disbelief. Kroger is already short of people who know how to handle produce, who actually understand that most produce is picked while unripe, then processed and shipped in such a way that it can be transported to market while it ripens. When I put my hand on it in the market it is ready or nearly ready to eat. It’s at this point that my concern for its treatment takes over. After all, I’m the one who paid for it and will eat it. My disbelief turns to chuckles. Somebody in the corporate world put out some serious money for this hunk of plastic and circuit boards. He’s giddy about it. It probably won’t affect the annual bonus he’ll get. I wonder about the bonus the laid off worker dreamed of but will never see. Instead of a bonus, there will be a trip to Aldi where costs have been cut, but the customer’s wants are still a consideration.

It isn’t the first Kroger leap into the digital future of its dreams. A couple of years ago there was a big push to have people scan groceries into their carts, then just pay what the hand held device said was in the cart. It didn’t last long because that’s only a convenience for the store, not for the customer. The store just wants to get paid for everything while accumulating information on the customer. The customer wants to shop and compare and sometimes change his mind. 

If you must go to HugeMart, defeat them by demanding the digital discount without ever downloading the app

The store is fine so long as the customer checks out with a full cart and makes it easy to collect the money. The customer loses track of what was on sale and what substitutes he made. Unless he’s so wealthy he doesn’t care how much he spends, the customer walks away with concerns about the process. The store looks on a customer that pays without fussing as ideal. Those who want to be considered and heard are tolerated but not welcomed. The store wants a future of nothing but drones moving in and out and doing everything the corporate way. What would you bet that the robotic scanner isn’t made in the USA?

I urge people everywhere to resist the digitalization and mechanization of the grocery shopping experience. Do not go along. Avoid those places whenever possible.

If you must go to HugeMart, defeat them by demanding the digital discount without ever downloading the app. If they won’t give you the digital discount without looking at your phone, they can put the stuff back on the shelf themselves. Observe carefully and beware of clever tricks in marketing and displays. Check your receipt to make sure you were charged correctly. Make them treat you like a human being who deserves consideration. Good luck on that.

At the huge places, buy only what’s on sale. Regular price is for suckers. It’s also for those who have some store employee go around with a list to pick out items and take them to the front to charge and put them in the trunk of a very nice SUV. There’s no bargain shopping there. Big Corporate loves that customer. It’s the regular folks they no longer want to see.

Go to hometown or nearby businesses who are genuinely happy to see you come in the door. Talk to people there. Get to know the employees and management and owners. They hire local people, too. That helps all of us.

It pays to be a smart shopper, especially these days. As in the past the best experience and the nicest people are local and nearby. Those folks are out there. I know this because I spoke to some of them today. Go find the nice folks in your own area. They will thank you for it. You deserve no less.

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