Shop queues are winding us right up

Supermarkets – have already driven the small shops out of the market – losing low skill jobs (I am not being disrespectful)

Now they are removing low skill jobs from their stores by self service checkouts – A MAJOR problem in this country is the 2,000,000 job shortfall – the supermarkets should be stopped – They already make enormous profits.

I will not use such checkouts – I expect SERVICE!! It may be fine if you buy your single lunch sandwhich to use one – but not if like me – buy your weekly shop at one go to save transport costs. £70 worth of groceries do not fit into such a checkout.

YET the number of NON SS checkouts in my Sainsburys is ONE – so there is always a LARGE queue in front of it – AND they have about EIGHT normal checkouts empty!!.

Rather like their policy on selling alcohol (a national problem) their drinks isle is the LARGEST in the store. GREED before SERVICE.

If there was a closer non ss checkout store – I’d use it.

Another issue with Self Service checkouts (and some manned ones in shops where staff training is poor) is that if you are disabled in some way which relates to your sight, and therefore have a Card where you still sign for the purchase, the self service till is useless because as soon as you pop your card in it starts to sound an alarm and call an assistant. This holds up the queue, annoys & embarrasses the customer with the card and the ones queuing behind and often foxes the assistant who probably has never been trained to handle signature cards and sometimes ends up trying the transaction 2 or 3 more times and / or calling a manager before they can clear the sale.

I absolutely and totally agree with the two comments above as well.

Personally I will queue quite happily if I believe that the queue is because there is a genuine “rush” or that the shop is doing all that it can to provide adequate staff, but if I see a queue at a self service till, and there is no manned till to go to, or if I see assistants gossiping rather than serving, I dump the shopping and leave, telling any member of staff who challenges me exactly why.

It is not fair that customers and underpaid staff should suffer because store owners and managers are excessively greedy for reduced wage bills ergo greater profits and I won’t trade with any store which seems to be doing that.

I was a bit confused by the article in the August edition about ‘Savvy queuing’. I’m not totally convinced that your research matches my own experience. Personally, I prefer a (supermarket) queue with several customers with just a few items rather than 2 customers with full trollies. But, a key point to bear in mind is that, if you are using a store you know well, you’re more likely to know the check-out staff. You’ll know the ones that scan quicker, or the surly ones that you prefer to avoid. Or, even better, the ones that you can have a chat, laugh or flirt with.

You’re doing a job you may not enjoy, they’re probably also doing a job they don’t enjoy, so taking the trouble to have a chat, while not holding up other customers, addressing them by their name on their tag creates a mini-personal experience that can give a little sparkle to a brief encounter. Don’t forget the old maxim, “What goes around, comes around”.