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Why Are the Postal Service Self-Service Machines Failing Customers?

Author: EricBBigham , Last Modified, 2022-01-03

Category: shopping Keywords: why-are-the-postal-service-self-service-machines-failing-customers

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Why Are the Postal Service Self-Service Machines Failing Customers?

Although by and large the staff at the postal service are generally well-meaning, polite, and eager to serve, the lack of training and the absence of any sort of coherent team on my recent visit was, I am sad to say, astonishingly poor.

Notwithstanding that it is holiday season, and parcel services are predictably busy, the branch service was a litany of disasters, primarily caused by the improper use of the self-service machines. And no, I do not mean customer improper use—I mean by staff who simply forced unwilling customers to use these machines, despite the fact that this was becoming increasingly self-defeating.

I am convinced that the productivity of the post office would double if well-trained staff simply processed customer orders rather than counter-productively persisting in instructing unwilling and increasingly anxious customers in the multi-option complexity of the oxymoronic “self-service" machines. This behaviour wastes both staff and customer time and is making postal service teams look amateurish.

During busy times, it would be more helpful, and I’m sure more productive, if the branch staff could simply take the customer’s parcel and process the order. At the very least, divide the queues into those who know what to do and those who need assistance. From a customer’s vantage point, it appears that staff are forcing customers to do the staff's job for them.

The self-service machines are not productive. It is incredibly unpleasant to have a staff member standing over each customer, telling them which button to push. This is akin to a parent overseeing a child, creating self-consciousness and intimidation. It makes adult customers feel foolish, as if they should already know how to operate these machines. At the branch I visited, 50% of the customers appeared to be of ethnic origins, where English is almost certainly not a first language. Some people have poor eyesight or are dyslexic, and others simply find the additional Brexit customs options confusing. The machines used by the postal service are not customer-friendly but could be user-friendly if operated by a staff member with appropriate training.

During this particularly busy time, rather than fully staffing the counters and simply taking parcels and processing them, the staff resorted to arguing with customers rather than serving them!

I stood patiently in line with about 50 others for about 30 minutes at a counter with just one trainee and nobody else serving. This staffer had to inform people she was just a trainee to justify the fact that she was not serving anybody. There was no attempt to explain the lack of staff at the main counter of the main post office for such a length of time.

One well-meaning assistant or manager frantically tried to instruct each customer in turn as they struggled with the incredibly complex self-service machines.

Unlike supermarket self-service machines, post office parcel machines require answers to multiple options and frequently print incorrect tickets. Several people were requesting refunds and were told this was not possible at the machines and were asked to queue up at the counter.

This was not a coherent team but a catastrophe of a service. The queue extended the full length of the shop as people were shuffled from queue to queue by poorly trained staff. This same staff resorted to defensiveness, which bordered on rudeness when they were inevitably confronted by frustrated customers.

One elderly man with a walking stick was forced to wait, and when he voiced his annoyance, he was told he could not be served, despite having waited an unreasonable length of time.

The so-called self-service machines are clearly not self-serving to most users who are infrequent parcel senders. Clearly, a better option during such busy times would simply be to take the customer’s parcel and have a trained operator use the machine.

Because these self-service machines run complex multi-option software, most users struggle to identify which option they want or should choose.

It is not productive to have a member of staff telling a customer that they cannot process their order because there are other customers—customers who invariably wait in line to experience similarly poor service.

The Post Office could and should do better.

The self-service machines are not productive. It is incredibly unpleasant to have a staff member standing over each customer, telling them which button to push. This is akin to a parent overseeing a child, creating self-consciousness and intimidation.