Booths has less shrinkage, faster service and more satisfied customers as a result of its decision to strip out self-service tills, MD Nigel Murray has claimed.
The northern grocer began removing self-service checkouts from all but two of its busiest stores in November 2023, in a move, exclusively revealed by The Grocer, aimed at improving its in-store experience.
Reflecting on the impact of the decision during an interview at the Food & Drink Expo, Murray told The Grocer a reduction in theft had been a “happy consequence” of the decision.
Booths did not provide a figure for how much shrinkage had reduced by, but said it had also seen a large increase in its customer satisfaction score as a result of its store investment programme which, alongside removing tills, has seen it “double down” on hospitality and expertise at its counters.
“We’re at 74 now, up from 70 (out of 100),” Murray said. “Not all of that is due to the fact that we’ve taken self-service checkouts out of many of the stores. But when you look at things like service, into the ‘promise of things to come’ section, we’ve scored brilliantly.”
Murray was “absolutely convinced” Booths had attracted more customers to its 26 stores as a result of the positive coverage of the move, which made headlines as far away as Australia.
Service at its tills was also “faster” since reverting to staffed checkouts, he said.
“Because in really simple terms if you’ve got somebody who is doing a job repetitively for six, seven, eight hours a day, they are going to do it faster and better than if you are just turning up to do it once every three days.
“So, in terms of speed of service we made sure we invested in having people at the tills to serve customers, and the results are clear.”
Booths’ step away from self-service tills runs at odds with the majority of its rivals, who have continued to replace the majority of traditional tills with self-checkouts. While the likes of Tesco and Sainsbury’s have claimed self-service checkouts improve customer service and reduce costs, some shoppers have argued it has come at a cost to customer service levels.
Rising levels of theft from opportunistic so-called ‘middle class’ shoplifters has also been highlighted as another problem. According to The Grocer’s own recent survey of UK shoppers, almost 40% admitted they failed to scan at least one item whilst using self-checkouts. Furthermore, 38% said they’d put through an incorrect loose item, while a third (32.5%) also admitted to having weighed loose items incorrectly.
Asked whether Booths had removed self-service tills in order to combat shrinkage, Murray said: “We didn’t make the changes with that in mind, because I don’t think we really understood it. We did it for the point of delivering a better quality of service for our customer.
“At the time it was very much that our customers were telling us they didn’t really like them. We could see that in store in terms of utilisation – to be very honest, the tills we had weren’t particularly good.”
Alongside the investment into stores, Booths is also working to enhance its digital offer. In what Murray described as a “fundamental” shake-up of its Booths Card reward scheme, it will launch loyalty prices on 300 own label products in April.
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