MAY I SPEAK TO A HUMAN BEING, PLEASE?

I understand the need to make businesses more efficient, but I get the uncomfortable feeling that there is a head-long rush to cut people out of customer contact at every possible opportunity. Even in customer service, and that can never be good for the customer.

Nowhere is this more annoying to me personally than at the self-serve checkout at the local big-box building supply store. It seems like I’m always checking out with a loose screw from a bin number I can hardly read because I had to use my own blood to record it. There may not be many functioning pens at the nuts & bolts bins, but mercifully, there are always lots of sharp objects lying about. And every time I get to the automated register, some inappropriate juggling of merchandise and the hastily-MacGyvered tourniquet on my finger results in my placing the wrong thing in the wrong bag at the wrong time. Then comes the full public humiliation by HAL’s better half, “PLEASE REMOVE THE LAST ITEM PLACED IN THE BAG”. Thanks, but I’ll stand in line for a human cashier every time, loose screw or not.

Wait, there is a more annoying example—the automated customer service phone system. Fine if what you need fits into the recorded script—otherwise you need to improvise cleverly to default to a human being. And in this case, you aren’t out of the woods when you get a live person. They may be well outside your time zone, grasp of the English language and sphere of life experience.

I will admit I love the ATM and Internet banking, but then the banking transactions done that way are routine and straightforward. You know when you need to see teller, still available to those who wish to wait in line.

One indication of mental instability is doing the same thing over an over again, expecting a different outcome. Let’s leave the insanity to the machines, shall we, and let human beings do the things they should be good at: understanding, building trust and connecting.