If you went to get your cars oil changed and the technician knocked on your window and said:

We're almost done here, we're just going to need you to get out of your vehicle, crawl down to the bay, top off your oil and windshield wiper fluid, and then come back up here and check yourself out

You'd be astounded that the services that you'd once paid to be completed are no longer part of their day-to-day operations. It sounds absurd yet, we have been duped into doing just that by Michigan grocery stores.

The Decline of Customer Service in Michigan Grocery Stores

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Over the last several years, Michigan stores have been slowly, slyly, and intentionally adding more and more of their employees' responsibilities to their customers' plates. There is no finer example of this than the "Self Checkout".

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Remember going through the checkout lane, pursuing the latest tabloid, and simultaneously resisting the impulse candy, while someone scanned and bagged your groceries? There were even times when the cash register had two people behind it, as the second person was TRAINING.

Walmart Removing Self Checkout Around the Country, is Michigan Next?

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Then, suddenly and without warning, retail stores thrust the responsibility of checkout upon their customers, with ZERO TRAINING. Now some of the space's biggest players, Walmart in particular, are in the process of removing self-checkouts from many of their stores. Why?

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Theft, or what the industry refers to as shrinkage, is rising. I'm certain that many thieves are intentionally using self-checkout as a means to pocket merchandise but, I'm also curious how many products walk out the door without being paid for simply because of the cramped conditions in these human corals and untrained customers forgetting to scan them.

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Walmart recently announced that it would permanently close self-checkout lanes from at least 3 of its stores, 2 of which are located in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Many of the mega-retailer locations throughout the country are closing self-checkouts only until the lines lanes at lanes with cashiers get too long.

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If retailers want to stop self-checkout theft, they need to close self-checkouts, put their customers first, bring back cashiers, and you'll see less theft, and more loyalty. If not you'll get little sympathy for heavy losses due to shoplifting that is a direct result of putting your customers to work, instead of paying Michiganders to do it.

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