Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

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And the same happened to everyone else too, just with smaller dollar amounts.

During my high school and early university years, I was in love with the concept of being able to run errands over the Internet. Why go to the bank when I can order a transfer on-line? Why make orders over the phone when I can choose what I want on a webpage with few clicks? Why ask anyone to do anything, when I could just click or type my way through?

As an adult with a bit more years behind me, I now feel the exact opposite way. Why on Earth am I doing these errands, when I could ask or pay someone else to do them? Why do I waste my time clicking on this bloated, user-hostile page full of upselling garbage, when I could just phone the company and tell them what I need? Alas, companies jumped at the opportunity to outsource the effort to customers, so increasingly I can't phone anyone. Self-service becomes the only option.

I suppose the shift in perspective comes from the fact that back then, I had no money and a lot of time; these days, I have some disposable income, but very little time to spare.

To me, the web page nearly is always faster than asking a human. Even setting aside the phone trees designed to slow me down, I'm more comfortable with the bloated, user-hostile page than trying to understand a human voice through a 4000 Hz telephone channel. I like not having to try to explain to them what I want. With the web I can do it whenever I want, at my own pace.

It feels like a voice call is an admission of failure: sometimes of their web interface design, sometimes of my ability to read. If I am calling on the phone it's only because I want to talk to a human being, and I want that disgusting process over with as soon as possible.

There is never anything I want from the phone tree except a human operator. If you could automate my request then you should have done it over the far clearer interface of the web page. Maybe there are some people who have a phone but not a computer, but I am not one of them. I'm only talking to you because the easier (for me) ways have failed.

The idea was that all the jobs of someone handling errands for you were automated away and it became a self service thing. Yes, sometimes it is easier to buy something online, no doubt about that but when problems creep in it takes too much of our precious time and from our mental context dealing with things that would be dealt with if those jobs existed. If those jobs existed in higher numbers you could just call a number and a human responds and assists on the other end of the line.

> There is never anything I want from the phone tree except a human operator. If you could automate my request then you should have done it over the far clearer interface of the web page.

This. It's particularly infuriating that now many phone trees don't even have a built-in "I want to talk to a human, now" option. Hitting "0" used to be a fairly common way to do that, but doesn't appear to be any more. Often I have to wade through three or four levels of phone menus just to get to something that will take me to a human.

I absolutely agree, and I also hate the automated chat systems which are even _worse_ than calling on the phone. It's trying to get the 'call tree' scripts out to chat. When if I'm online, a program script should be able to cover 80% of the issues, and the other 20% need a human touch for collecting the correct data or providing features missing; often intentionally from the website.

The local power company does this very well for reporting outages, and takes data that's hard to fit through a human that can recognize what the data means and get it to the correct departments and people.

Cable is the WORST in that respect. With zero transparency on what the root cause or investigation status. Also, insufficient and critically lacking detail (Is it JUST me, or is it my block, or is it the whole neighborhood or city, etc).

My favorite is when companies (looking at you, UPS) provide a phone menu with a very narrow list of choices, and if none of them matches what you want, you're just out of luck. There's no "other" option.

(In reality, you lie to get through to a human, but come on.)

Also, the difference between talking to somebody reading a script in Bangalore and someone on the inside who actually knows what they are doing (if you can manage to convince someone to connect you to the latter) is crazy. The drones handling customer support info often have essentially zero information on top of what's given to the customer.

One time UPS lost my package (bona fide lost in a warehouse, maybe stolen or something) and the phone CS drones assured me that it was on the way, just running late, was on the truck now, etc. etc.

I managed to berate them into connecting me with a US-based operator who, after asking how the hell I actually got her number, gave me the real tracking info, which is completely hidden from consumers and made it very clear that my package was gone.

Phoning for anything is my favorite thing. Absolutely I want to talk to customer service. No I don’t want this automated (especially when I’m trying to get myself a slightly better deal). And I hate phone trees with a passion, just get me the operator now.

Phoning is my least favorite thing (well, except for in-person visits), but I also want a human on the other end of the line when I call. If I'm calling, it means I couldn't get the website to do the right thing for me.

Agreed. I detest calling, and will do all the automated website things I can to avoid it. When I do call, gimme a human.

Same with self checkout at the grocery store: I know a lot of people like it, but whenever I do it I’m thinking “this is someone else’s job! Why the hell am I having to do it now? ?”

And inevitably there are always at least 2 employees standing around the self-checkout helping customers that are having problems with the machines.

2 employees assisting with 6-12 self-checkout stations is still a net-win for the employer if the objective is cutting "overhead" of personnel. It's only a problem if the self-checkout system is flawed in a way that requires frequent and lengthy intervention by the employees, versus the occasional ID check for alcohol purchases and item check for something not scanning correctly.

The "problems with the machines" are almost exclusively anti-theft "features".

For me checkout with a cashier doesn't feel like less work though. I bring them my bag, take out each item, they scan them, and then I put them back in my bag. All they're doing is swiping! (Growing up we had disposable bags and human baggers, so maybe it saved a tiny bit more time.)

Good lord, you do all that with cashier? I load the stuff onto the belt (or don't even do that now thanks to COVID), and get a cart full of bagged groceries on the other side.

I'd say less than half of the shops I visit bag the groceries for you. Depends on the place I guess.

Have you noticed that change with COVID? Some places now seem to want you to be further away (sometimes with plexiglass) so some places do more bagging (actually putting the bags in your cart and pushing you a completed cart.) There are some places that seem to have gone the other way and gotten rid of the bagger so you can do your own bagging and placing 6 ft away from the cashier. But pre-COVID it seemed like most places had bags that you pick up at and put in the cart yourself.

Not really COVID related where I live. More or less the smaller the shop, the larger the chance they will bag your groceries. Large ones always have a conveyor belt from which they slide items on the other side where you can pick it up and bag yourself. I think the change mostly came when it has become illegal to give away bags. Since now you have to pay for them, a lot of people bring their own.

I buy a lot of fresh produce, which is way faster with a good cashier who knows all of the codes. I also tend to buy multiples of an item, which is also way faster when the cashier can swipe one and then hit 6x or whatevs.

And that's assuming the self-checkout system is working perfectly, which is rare. They often have some janky anti-theft sensors that freak out if you remove a bag or item from the bagging area. Self-checkout is fine or maybe even better if you have a few items, but for a cart full of groceries, it is inarguably way slower than a decent human cashier.

Around here we have two self-service checkout systems: one is as described, where you have to take each item individually out of your card and present it to a scanner. I detest those, as it makes me feel like a fool fumbling around with the scanners while the cashiers are 10x faster than I am.

The other one is where you pick up a handheld scanner at the store entrance, and you build up your item list while you're in the store loading your cart. Those ones I like, as they feel much faster and much more reliable to me. Moreover, I can look at the display of the scanner to see if I have all the items I came for, I don't have to search the cart.

I tried the Amazon Go experience once, and it was quite surreal. But I doubt this system will scale to everywhere.

Tangent about self checkout -- the versions I've found in supermarkets are uniformly terrible. But Home Depot, has a version I don't detest, for two reasons.

1. You get a hand-held scanner (at the checkout register, not walking around the store) instead of having to run everything over the counter.

2. You don't have to put the items on a certain platform (scale) after you scan; you can stick them back on your cart.

3. Although there is a webcam mounted (boo!), there is no screen showing yourself.

They're really three variations on the same reason: it doesn't treat me like a thief who's going to shoplift at the first opportunity.

I don't really mind doing self-checkout, as I'm nearly as fast at it as the cashiers (unless I have a lot of produce), and it lets me bag my food in exactly the order I want (bag for the fridge, bag for the pantry, etc). But the anti-theft measures (especially when the thing scans wrong and seizes up instead of letting me abort and try again) make it an absolute train wreck, and so I petty much only do self-checkout when I have under 5 items or the line is incredibly shorter.

Ideal customer service has both an api/app/webpage and a human to call for support.

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