Tesco self service checkout machines

I hate these self scan checkouts. unexpected item etc,,,, I have been known to just walki out leaving my trolley half full and the groceries just lying on the belt. More people should do that.
Some of the staff like the self scan tills, they dont realise that the stores are slowly getting rid of there jobs. One wage to cover 6 tills, and the tories are back in power, it will happen, remember the 80,s.
The only thing self scan checkouts are good for is my son is a little shy, so he goes through the self scanners with condoms.
If shops do not provide people to serve me then they will not get my custom.

Woops; bad editing. Miss out the "having" when reading, or substitute "installed" for "became available"!

They are alot more user friendly since having the "I'm using my own bag" option became available; so you can put your re-usable bag on the packing platform without the thing getting in a panic and almost setting off a bomb alert!

Everything 'Grumpy American' has said is completely true. If you've got a small basket of shopping then the self-checkout is a much better option than waiting in a stupidly long queue behind people who have decided to do their whole shopping for a year, just to buy some bread and milk.

I work for Tescos and since installation of self service tills we basically get shouted at if we're seen serving on till.If they want cigarettes, I have to dash behind till, return to self service, scan them and get customer to pay there! They are totally unsuitable for people who don't understand English, or the learning-disabled (by the time the latter have inserted all their money, only to find they dont have enough, it becomes a Major Incident requiring manager.
And when I legitimately serve someone on till (wanting cashback or lottery), a queue builds up of people who want personal service. They refuse to be deflected to self service, I'm consequently trapped and incur the wrath of mgt. Lovely job, eh?!

I for one love the self checkout machines for all the same reasons the 'Griper' hates them. As your resident grumpy American, I find the service in most Tesco stores before the self checkout tills is appalling, slow and inefficient at best.

The Griper Claims the following

"It takes twice as long to unload, scan, and pack your own shopping as it would for an assistant to do it for you."

My cat can scan my shopping faster than a Tesco checkout clerk…Okay maybe not, but seriously it takes me a fraction of the time to check out doing it myself, plus I don’t have to wait in a bloody long queue.

"There is a lot to be said for a simple "hello" or "thank you" from a checkout assistant at the supermarket."

When was the last time you were in a Tesco and a member of staff smiled or said hello to you? The staff at most Tescos don’t know the meaning of the words hello or thank you. At best you are lucky if you get a grunt, and for the most part what they lack in friendliness, customer service or just pure human interaction they make up for in lack of hygiene (well at least in my local Metro store).

"What really winds me up, though, is when you go into Tesco at certain times of day, and of 10 "manned" checkouts, only one of them is actually "manned", the rest are left unattended, presumably in a cynical attempt to force customers to use the self service tills."

Come on now; nothing has changed here! Prior to having the self checkout tills Tesco always had one manned checkout out of 10, leaving us poor customers with no choice but waiting in a long queue. At least now we have the option of doing it ourselves, without having to wait in a line.

9 out of 10 times I will always use the self checkout over a manned one, because….

1. I don’t have to wait in a long queues and:
2. I don’t have to deal with inefficient, slow and overall discourteous check out clerks.

An obvious solution would be a small discount for those who are happy to forego the pleasantries of being served by a human being. After all, as you've pointed out, they're the ones saving the company money

Well this seems to have caught imagination. Thank you for your comment 'zaic'. Now trust me shoppers, self scan is here to stay and will grow. Do you want your shopping cheap? Genuine question here. I know shoppers and some come for a chat with the fave checkout operator. Many people just want to come and go and also many people are frightened of self scan. I am leading people to the new age.

Kathleen I understand your point of view, but so far I have only seen self checkout tills added to the 'usual' number of manned tills - to increase efficiency - thus throughput - and growth of the supermarket - expansion = more jobs. They may have removed one manned checkout to install 6 self serve units, but they rarely have all manned tills working anyway. Saving jobs is an admirable maxim, but to be honest I don't go to the supermarket to save jobs. I go because they have want I want, and I go to the self checkout if they have, because I want to get out of there as quickly as possible. Its all about customer service and good business practice, and that also means retaining manned tills for those who prefer it or need it. However, It would be interesting to hear from anyone who works at a chekout - do they feel threatened? have they seen comrades lose their jobs as a reuslt of the self serve tills? Have the self serve tills made their day easier by reducing work load?

zaichornok. - of course self service tills put people out of work, one person looks after four or more of these tills so that has put three or more people out of a job.

These tills canot replace all the ordinary tills; some people just cannot use them for one reason or another.

You're headed for a seriously stringent diet JK. Self serve is here to stay in one form or another. Start to look outside the plonker box or you will go hungry.' If you do what you always did, you will be where you always were.'

Thanks Zapyanutz. I appreciate your response! Ten out of ten for being on the button so quick. But I must tell you i'm no techno-boff but I do move with the times, and I am sixty already! You could say I'm a grumpy old man. That's why I'm griping here. your time will come. Grumpy old men get like that because they're just so sick of people being such plonkers. Can't they read simple instructions, or use their own common sense. That's all thats needed. Look at the posting below from Ocset on 7th May. He believes his newly created job is threatened because of the plonkers he sees all day long. He's repeating some simple instructions that are on the machine anyway. Every word he says makes perfect sense, but I'll bet that 9 out of 10 people who read his post still didn't get it. They're the plonkers. People are in such a hurry they don't bother to look or think, then they say 'stupid machine' - no! it's stupid moronic human - again. And to use the whimpish excuse that it is doing people out of jobs just illustrates how thick they really are. Again they haven't bothered to think things through. Its all about efficiency - processing more food, through the checkouts, so more people have more time to procreate, to produce more plonkers, so we need more food, bigger supermarkets, more checkouts, more jobs. Its a self sustaining cycle for the plonking human race.