Hayden Vink: Life In The Fast Lane

UPDATE - 1/11/09, 9:54pm - I share Diane’s concern about sticking the ePass to my iPhone . .

Last week, at the Dunedin Pak ‘N Save, my wife and I scanned, paid for and bagged our own groceries using a self-serve kiosk. This was the first kiosk of its kind I’ve ever seen or used in a supermarket, and it worked great. We were quickly on our way, and needed no assistance from any of the staff.

Using the self-service kiosk at Pak 'N Save

Today, I received my Air New Zealand ePass, and a letter explaining how I’ll be able to use it to dramatically change my experience at the airport.

An Air NZ ePass alongside a NZ$2 coin

The ePass is a small RFID tag that can be scanned by new self-service kiosks that are being progressively installed at New Zealand airports, starting with Auckland on 3 November.

The kiosks remove the need for a traditional check-in counter. If I have bags, I’ll be able to print my own tags, stick them on, the place the bags on the conveyor belt myself. If I don’t have bags, the ePass replaces the need for a boarding pass - I’ll simply ’scan in’ before I board.

The ePass is just one of a number of initiatives that Air New Zealand launched today - others included changes to the airpoints scheme, and a new online portal. But it is noteworthy because it has raised the self-service bar again: if check-in counters (and staff!) are now redundant, what else could be?

Technology, and our willingness - even preference - to serve ourselves is providing companies like Air New Zealand with golden opportunities to cut costs, improve capacity etc.

Banking is another industry that is being transformed by self-service initiatives; there is almost no need for many people to visit a branch any more, and even when there is things like “Speedy Deposit Box” reduce the need to see a real person.

As with most trends, the more popular and widespread self-service becomes, the easier it will be for organisations to identify opportunities, develop business cases, and launch their own self-service initiatives.

But I believe the more difficult - and perhaps more important - task will be to identify the situations in which in will it be far more beneficial to provide customer service delivered in person, by real people.

I think there are still - and will be for a long time yet - golden opportunities for the industries mentioned above (and many others) to differentiate themselves by the quality of such ‘real’ customer service, delivered in just the right situations.

Still . . I’m looking forward to using my ePass!

UPDATE - 2/9/09 - After a few emails back and forth, my supplier asked me to return the unit and subsequently discovered a hardware fault. They sent me a new unit immediately, and it worked perfectly. In fact, it is currently vying with my iPhone for the illustrious title of “Hayden’s Gadget of the Year: 2008″. More on that later. I still think the software bundling idea I mention below is a good one.

- - -

My new scanner arrived yesterday; a Fujitsu ScanSnap that I bought to help me realise the paper-less home office dream.

I eagerly unpacked it, installed the software, plugged it in, put some documents in the feeder, hit the ’scan’ button, then . . received an error message stating that the scan had been unsuccessful, and suggesting my system was unstable and needed to be rebooted. 

To cut a long story short, I spent several hours trying to fix the problem. I tried every troubleshooting idea I can think of: different versions of Adobe Acrobat; installing latest scanner driver and management software; different computer etc.

But none of these worked, so I’ve given up and want to return the scanner. I’m waiting to hear from the supplier about this.

I suspect that the cause of the problem is most likely to be that the scanner management software is not compatible with the operating system version I’m using. Either that, or the version of Adobe Acrobat.

All of which makes me wonder: surely, there’s a better way to manage a product’s shelf life?

Here’s how I think it should be done:

• Products are packaged in such a way that the bundled software can easily be removed/replaced by the supplier/seller
• The manufacturer keeps a close eye on developments/events such as the release of a new operating system version, and alerts the supplier/seller immediately if any of the bundled software will no longer be appropriate*
• The supplier/seller removes the bundled software and stops selling and/or shipping products until the manufacturer supplies a new software bundle

I believe that if my supplier had adopted this system for managing shelf life, my experience with this scanner would have been entirely different - and considerably better.

* This includes ‘compatible’ but is not just that; for example, Adobe Acrobat 7 is ‘compatible’ with my operating system, but is now very out-of-date - Adobe Acrobat 8 was released in November 2006, and Adobe Acrobat 9 was released in July 2008.