Old Service Stations. The end of customer service.

We talk a lot these days about customer service. Buying online, using pack and scan self-service tills or even counting telephone calls to call centres we are using other humans less and less. This is due to increase when we get the rise of A.I and the use of Bots to speak to us when we call. Does this lack of interaction lessen us and cheapen us as humans? Only time will tell, we have the means to communicate electronically at least more than ever. It reminds me of the time when we used humans for everything. For example, petrol service stations. One thing you will need a human for is the fixing of a Garage Door Installation Dunstable area or wherever you are. We’ll need the internet for this bit http://garagedoorsrus.co.uk/garage-door-installation-dunstable/ at least.

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What do I mean about petrol service stations? Well, take a look at how you fill up the car now. With the pay at the pum system we have automated the whole process. However, when I was a child it was very different. My Dad would pull up to a service station near our house. He would drive over a small sensor and somewhere in a little office a bell would ring. Out then would come a man in overalls. He would ask my Dad what type of fuel he wanted two, three or four star all leaded. He would open the fuel hatch and fill it up to the amount my Dad wanted. My Dad would hen pay him in cash and we would be on our way. There were no cards, cheques were ok but eventually they were able to take credit cards with a paper recording system. Some of these places were little more than a couple of fuel pumps outside a house or a shop.

Now you drive up and choose if you want to interact with anyone. Essentially you don’t need to talk to anyone at all and there is no way the staff are going to come put to you and fill it up for you. Why have we become this way? It’s hard to put a reason for it. We ourselves don’t want to have to wait around, Humans take their time, they make mistakes, they want to talk to us when we are in a hurry. It’s going to change more. It already has over the last 30 years at a pace that is shocking. It will mean huge changes for all of us. Have you noticed how there are less and less till staff? Where are those jobs going to come from?  Do we really care. There will become a point when we will need to confront where we are going as our service increasingly becomes electronic.