Let me preface this article by indicating that I’m an honest guy. Yes, I do have some hacker tendencies, but they’re all white-hat. That said, it’s somewhat difficult for me to categorize my feelings regarding what happened last night at my local Smith’s grocery store (a Kroger company)… So let me do so in an open letter to Smith’s:
Dear Store Manager:
Yesterday evening (12/27/2007) I stopped by your store, picked up a few items, then swung by the Deli on the way out.
I picked up three sour-cream and chives baked potatoes, priced $2.50 each; a "couple handfuls" of potato wedges; and a "couple handfuls" of chicken tenders. The deli attendant was friendly and helpful. She put all 3 baked potatoes into a plastic container and printed three barcodes which she stuck to three sides of the box. She weighed the wedges, printed its barcode and stuck it to the side of a deli bag. She put the chicken tenders in the same deli bag as the wedges, and printed another barcode which she stuck to the other side of the bag. With me so far?
I went to checkout and opted for one of the self-checkout lanes (shouldn’t we get a discount for using those?).
If you’re unaware of how these work, you walk up, select your language on the touch-screen, and pass your item’s barcodes over the scanner, the scanner reads the barcode and adds the item to your receipt. It then tells you to place the item in the bagging area. That’s really where the "magic" happens: the bagging area has a very sensitive scale under it, the computer knows how much the item you just scanned should weigh, and it waits until your item is in the bagging area. This prevents people from just putting items in the bagging area without scanning them first, so that’s a good idea.
I scanned some of my regular items and bagged them per the procedure mentioned above, then I came to my potatoes. I scanned the first barcode and tried to scan the second barcode. That didn’t work, because I had to place the item just scanned into the bagging area. I couldn’t easily take the potato out and toss it in the bag, so I put the whole thing in the bag (all three potatoes), which got me past the nagging prompt to "please put your item into the bag." Unfortunately, the weight didn’t match — rightly so! So another nagging prompt: "please wait for attendant." The attendant looked over at me and said "go ahead" so I pulled my potatoes out of the bag to scan the next one. That didn’t work: "unexpected item removal from bagging area!" Okay, okay! Fine, I’ll just leave it in the bagging area! I haven’t paid for the other two, but the attendant says to "go ahead" and the computer panics when I tried to ring up another of the three potatoes… I haven’t paid for them, but your computer and your human attendant both told me to go ahead, and scolded me when I tried to be honest… Okay, it’s your store… whatever you say.
I continued ringing up other items in my cart without much problem (it had a hard time weighing a package of adhesive velcro strips, but I pulled it out and tossed it in hard and that seemed to work).
Then I came to my potato wedges and chicken tenders, both in the same bag, a barcode affixed to each side. I scanned one side, had to put it in the bagging area (remember, I can’t scan anything else until that’s registered in the bagging area), but it weighs too much, so "please wait for attendant" who cooly says "go ahead", tried to remove the bag to scan the other side but the computer panics "unexpected item removal from bagging area." Okay, OKAY! I’ll leave it in there!
I finished scanning the rest of my items without a problem, put in my credit card (I pushed the button for "credit" on the touch-screen, but the pin-pad assumes debit and I have to "press OK/ENTER for credit" — I just told the computer I wanted credit, there was a separate button for debit… sheesh…). "Credit card accepted, please take credit card to attendant for your receipt." "Please sign this," he said. "You know, those pin-pads can capture signatures, too," I quipped. "Yeah, I don’t know why they don’t program them to do that."
So, I ended up getting two baked potatoes from the deli for free, and I didn’t pay for either my potato wedges or my chicken tenders. All in all, that was less than $10, but still.
Maybe that was my discount for using your automated checkout machine? Or maybe you’ll want to take a look at your policies.
Anyhow, I’ve posted this on my website (www.JoeLevi.com) as an open-letter to you. I (and my readers) await your response.
– Joe Levi, www.JoeLevi.com
Joe,
You are absolutely right (and refreshingly comical) in your assessment of the U Scan check out process you described. While a great convenience, these service deli items needed a bit more attention by the U Scan checker, and for that we apologize. Our store director and others are putting their heads together to figure out where we improve this process to be more “customer friendly”. Thank you for shopping with us, for being honest for bringing this to our attention.
@Marsha Gilford,
Thanks for reviewing my letter and for taking the time to respond publicly to the questions and concerns that it raised.
I am greatly interested in what your store director and the others that you mentioned will come up with. If you’d like to bounce ideas off me and/or my readers, we’d be happy to assist.
– http://www.JoeLevi.com
Joe, the simplest solution seems to be to place individual food items in individual bags with separate price stickers. No duplicate stickers on the same bag to create conflicting weights. It should be the most customer-frirendly. Thank you again for your business and for helping us out by bringing that matter to our attention!
@Marsha Gilford,
That would be the simplest solution (individually packaged/coded deli items), but in cases like mine that would be a lot of wasted packaging (this blog is about green technologies and respecting the environment in which we live, amongst other things).
Another option would be to allow “aggregated packaging codes” to be printed at the deli (where I could buy 3 potatoes in one package, and the barcode has all three items, their combined weight, and combined price coded into it).
This would allow efficient use of packing materials (by allowing multiple non-related items in one package), and would decrease the time required to package items (placing potato wedges into the deli bag, pressing the “aggregate” button, adding the next item into the same bag, pressing the “aggregate” button, and repeating for each type of item).
This option might require more back-end programming with the deli computer systems, but the time savings (both for the deli attendant and for the checker — U-Scan or Employee) and reduced product packing should pay for the time to develop the new functionality.
Just a thought.
In any event, thank you for your time and attention! 🙂
– http://www.JoeLevi.com