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Tesco - NEW TILLS!! - nikki (16th Nov 2007 - 12:12:29) My goodness, what an evening I had last night. Trundled off for a weekly shop to Tesco in Petersfield. 1 large trolley full of shopping later, I arrive at the checkout and no till operators in sight. I was directed to a checkout (1 of 3 new ones)....to be greeted by a virtual reality style assistant on a computer screen telling me to scan my items, pack and pay. This idea is good for those with a few items in a basket but not when you've got a weekly shop to do! You can't load all the items onto the belt then scan, you have to scan each item and then shimmy on down to the other end to pack. It was like an episode out of supermarket sweep, all that was missing was Dale Winton and a his countdown timer. By the time I'd finished, the frozen items weren't so frozen, I'd dropped 6 eggs and was very close to shouting at my new "virtual friend". I spoke to customer service (real human being) who said that eventually most checkouts will be like this!. Not a good idea at all, I can't see it going down too well with the elderly. We have the internet if we need to use such technology, for shopping. I hope fellow supermarkets won't follow suit.

Re: Tesco - NEW TILLS!! - Rhys G (16th Nov 2007 - 13:07:13) All in aid of lowering costs, and increasing profit. If they only have to pay for one member of staff to supervise 3,4 or 5 self service tills then they are on to a winner - possibly at the expense of employment?

Re: Tesco - NEW TILLS!! - Mark Finch (16th Nov 2007 - 17:51:12) And I had a great situation last week. I was scanning my items - with a Tesco supervisor putting them in a bag - a complete role reversal !!! And a completely pointless exercise. I bet they felt really "valued" by their employer ! I think it is the stupidest idea in the world. I think they are opening themselves up for increased fraud/shoplifting by making it too easy for a small percentage of less honest people not scanning everything. If they don't have a packer, the process will take twice as long (i.e. you have to scan then pack). So queues will get longer - just in time for Christmas ! Thank goodness we have Sainsburys in Liphook - always friendly (Do you need help packing sir ?). Rather than the Tesco's attitude - Scan your own stuff, pack your own stuff, while we go to the bank to stuff our account full of additional profit ! I hope it is a huge failure and I will be giving them a wide berth. Cheers, Finchie (Bugger - thanks Ed - everyone knows who I am now !!!)

Re: Tesco - NEW TILLS!! - nikki (16th Nov 2007 - 18:58:37) They've already sussed the no scan items, the belt picks up what hasn't been through the scanner (and no....I was completely innocent!!...a lot of items don't scan properly only you don't know this until your virtual friend shouts " unrecognised item") ,then the belt hits reverse and brings it back up to you. Very well thought out, but not when the system obviously has a technical glitch and fails to recognise every other item scanned, as I found out. Highly embarressing too, definately one of those "it wasn't me" moments.

Re: Tesco - NEW TILLS!! - Janet A (16th Nov 2007 - 20:02:07) Tesco Express at Grayshott has intoduced one of these new tills as well. It was interesting to see that there were about 5 people patiently queuing for the manned till (including me) and no-one using the un-manned one. I find them very fiddly to use; sometimes they don't work properly and you have to wait for someone to help. More trouble thatn they're worth, as far as the customer is concerned, I think.

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