Gee, sorry I missed that. NOT.

Why would I want to make my customers fall in love with self-service? Why would I want to train my customers to love what my competitors are already doing and have far deeper pockets to do it? Why would I want my customers to love NOT interacting with my highly-trained sales staff?

No one has ever gone out and bragged to their friends about how wonderful the self-service is at XYZ store. No one has ever said, “Boy, I can’t wait to go back to that store. They have the best self-service.”

You cannot create word-of-mouth advertising with self-service. You cannot win customer loyalty with self-service. You cannot grow your business through self-service. At its best, self-service is neutral. At its worst, a deterrent to sales.

So with all that said, if you really want to grow, sink some serious time and money into creating the best Full-Service shop you can. Take it two or three steps above the gum-chewing clerks at Wally-World. Take it to the Nordstrom’s and Ritz-Carlton level. Do things that surprise and delight your customers. Go above and beyond their expectations.

Making your customers love Full-Service is a heck of a lot easier, more profitable, and more fun than trying to get them to love self-service.

PS Yes, there are times when self-service is good. But usually only when you’re in a big discount store buying cheap commodity goods and don’t want to wait for that the-world-sucks-and-I’m-underpaid-too-much-to-care cashier to ring you up. That’s not your store, not your market. You don’t even want to consider playing in that sandbox.