They recently removed a few more parking spots in a nearby shopping plaza and designated them for curbside pickup only. If you recall, this type of shopping was created during COVID-19, and the customer desire to stay safe drove its development and adoption. But we are no longer living in that environment, and interestingly, the need for curbside pickup is not just still here; it is expanding.
Lets contrast that with another development. Retailers and attractions have been pushing the self-check-out kiosks or lanes for many years. These have not been readily adopted, and when you observe human behavior, we often see that consumers are willing to wait in line for a real person rather than expose themselves to the difficulties of self-checkout.?
At first glance, we may not think these two examples are related or connected. However, they are highly relevant to each other.?
The first difference is that self-checkout was the mind child of the retailers. It was driven by an accountant style of thinking that involved analyzing labor savings and determining that this task was something consumers could easily do themselves. It undervalues employees who do this work by simultaneously sending a message of replaceability. It has a technological ability at its core, but that technology was created without consulting or researching how consumers wanted to be treated. Like the employees who feel disenfranchised by these systems, consumers are also told, You are not important enough to spend any more time with. The simplest way of categorizing the difference is that self-checkout was not requested or demanded by the consumer.
On the other hand, and standing in stark contrast, is curbside pickup. The consumer wanted this, and they embraced it during COVID. It was an example of more human service and interaction, not less. It would never have cleared the Accountant People in normal circumstances because it involved more labor and time to fulfill the orders, not less. Now that consumers have become used to it, this adds value and loyalty and cannot be taken away. In its most fundamental form, curbside pickup was driven by the consumer.
So, the primary lesson is that consumer-driven strategies will succeed, and technology or business-driven ideas that are not important to the consumer will fail. That is not a new concept. However, we might think it is when we look at the modern travel, tourism, and hospitality landscape. I would like to read more stories about companies and organizations developing strategies based on what their customers want, what consumer insights teach them, and what trends they learn from research examining current buying behavior.
Instead, most of what hits the news feeds involve pursuits that mirror the self-checkout approach. How quickly can we replace real people with AI? Why are we eliminating call centers? How are we developing stores and shops with no people? What is the importance of converting to kiosks or apps for check-in and service? Robots? Screens?
When you examine some of these articles and stories, you start to see the hands of numerous vendors in the background, subtly pitching and peddling their wares. Often, they are even cited as an expert, but they are really a representative of these technology solution providers. It is great to have an extra opinion as a reference, especially when providing a reason for a wholesale shift. However, too often, these people may be technology experts, but they need to be experts in consumer behavior. Furthermore, very few of them are experts in the travel and tourism space, and as a result, their solutions are not only bad for travelers and vacationers, but they are often built on concepts that are horrible for consumers across the board. Lets remember, too, that as vendors, they have ulterior motives and bias that influences any expertise they presume to share. They need to stop thinking like technology vendors and do much more research to determine what the market needs before building their imagined solutions.
Some recent research (Ivascu et al., 2022), published in Frontiers in Psychology, was titled Psychological and Behavior Changes of Consumer Preferences During COVID-19 Pandemic Times: An Application of GLM Regression Model. It answers the question as to why self-checkout fails and curbside pickup wins. The data indicates that consumers are now obsessed with authenticity and will even sacrifice a measure of efficiency in favor of an experience that feels authentic, one that demonstrates care and concern for them.
Like many industries, we have always been keen on the quick-fix approach, often driving some of the changes we have witnessed. However, mastering genuine authenticity will require time and patience. I am not anti-technology. What frustrates me is not the technology itself but how often it is misapplied or fails to consider the realities of consumer wants. Those pushing the technology before having a fundamental understanding of the consumer also sound pious and indulgent.?
Have you noticed how many times when telling their story, they say, we thought, I observed, we saw the situation clearly, or we identified so many problems? Its all we and I C when it should be based on consumers! To make it worse, they often make strong claims (without actually analyzing consumer needs) and position themselves as experts, which means they end up pushing hundreds or thousands of companies down the wrong path.
It is irresponsible. As an industry, we need to start demanding more consumer research be referenced and conducted before we start following the latest so-called trends like lemmings.
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