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05.06.2004

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HARTBEAT
July 19, 2002"The Science Behind Irrationality" Jarrett Paschel, Ph.D.

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Beware Of Self Check-out And RFIDs: don't Let Technology Destroy Your Exit Experience

An emerging culture of shopping, originating in the specialty/luxury consumption marketplace, has resurrected the old department store magic and spread to thousands of little stores across the land. Part of this magic makes self check-out and RFID-based check-out especially dark point-of-sale temptations for many retailers. After years of lousy mall experiences, Americans have rediscovered the joy of finely staged point-of-sale experiences, wherever they are. At the Big Box stores, like Big Kmart, consumers have embraced self check-out stands, in large part, because they long ago gave up hope that these retailers would ever hire personable staff worth chatting with. They often use self check-out stands, therefore, out of pure consumer despair over the exit experience in certain channels, which then creates a desire to check out quickly. Right now, it just happens that most finely staged exit experiences seem to be confined to an elite group of specialty stores where some consumers only find themselves the week before Thanksgiving, Christmas or Hanukkah. This ritual of exit was once the innovation of department stores at the turn of the 20th century.

When shopping in specialty channels, consumers especially enjoy chatting with people like themselves as they exit the store. This similarity is primarily about lifestyle and shared consumption habits than race or ethnicity. Register chat at the Pottery Barn is often the last in a series of conversations consumers have had with staff during their shopping trip. In Big Box stores, however, chats at the register are sometimes the only contact they have with staff and constitute the crucible of any community formation. And, despite the fact that employees at Big Kmart are highly likely to also shop there, there is plenty of resonance in terms of consumption habits that could be the impetus for conversation. But there so often isn't more than a series of grunts and robotic questions. Self check-out machines and RFID-based check-out tempt retailers to echo consumer despair over their exit experiences. But this would be a major strategic mistake as a retailer, especially one the size of Wal-Mart, for example.

POS contact does 4 critical things for retailers that can't be easily ignored when strategizing customer retention, it:

Creates a valuable opportunity to connect with consumers at a deeply empathic level and, thereby, lessens the pain of the store's final tally.
Offers the only conversational spaces through which shoppers must pass to leave the store, acting as a primary crucible of community formation.
Provides an opportunity to talk with staff without the nagging feeling that you're "interrupting" their work.
Forms a lasting impression of the retail experience that is more powerful in consumers' memories than many other in-store experiences.

An energetic, polite point-of-sale conversation can create a lasting experience that drives return visits. For large-format niche and specialty retailers, the chit-chat with the cashier isn't needless at all. This is because their consumers have higher-than-average expectations of staff-shopper interactions, including cash register chit-chat. Though this is seems much more fitting for more leisurely trips, consumers are longing for this kind of positive connection for any shopping occasion (even if it's a quick one).

Building Community During Your Exit Experience

Here are some useful tips for point-of-sale conversation that create a real social bond between shoppers and store staff...and eventually between shoppers and your retail brand.

Expressing intrigue over items a cashier hasn't seen before..."Wow, I didn't know we had that. Cool!
Brief, personal use narratives from cashiers about a shopper's selection..."You know, these almonds are great, I offered them at a baby shower and people went crazy..."
Easy-to-answer, outreach questions..."Planning a special meal?"
Recognizing customers by their first name (not simply reading the name of the receipt)..."Jack! 3 times in one week, eh? I must be one of your best friends, man!"

These are just some of the verbal performances that can leverage the face-to-face interactions inherent at all points-of-sale in a retail brand's favor; but only if they are not contrived. Canned "hellos" and the equally robotic use of last names gleaned from loyalty card users' receipts (ala Safeway's exit routine) don't work to establish a human social connection between shopper and store. Authentic chit-chat requires cashiers with higher-than-average verbal skills, outgoing personalities and, more importantly, cashiers who authentically share the infectious enthusiasm of a store's most loyal customers.

Self check-out stands and the elimination of points-of-sale via RFID technology play on retailers' persistent, and persistently misleading, assumption that quicker is always better, that a faster, simpler exit experience is automatically better. This assumption is based on the notion that consumers really use these innovations to save time in an objective sense. This may, on occasion, be true. What they're often doing, however, is expressing their utter despair over your exit experience. They're saying, effectively, that it's one not worth savoring at the end of their trip. It's worth skipping. Technological innovations in checking out distracts retailers from finding personable staff appropriate to their consumer base and bringing some of the old department store counter magic back into American shopping, back into the exit experience.

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