As part of our Front-End Focus initiative, Dechert-Hampe has conducted thousands of observations and interviews at the checkout. Internet surveys may provide a sense of this, but it is really necessary to do in-store observations and interviews. While it is certainly valuable to ask shoppers what they would do or how they would react to situations, it is far more useful to observe behavior or ask these questions in the context of an actual shopping trip. A pleasant shopping trip can easily be undone by an extended wait time or poor service at the checkout. Wait time is an important aspect of the total customer experience in the store. However, done right, it returns high improvements in number of customers on line in lanes open and an impressive … Read more » Certainly, most see this change as merely a labor savings investment. It showed what is rarely discussed about self-checkout–which is an improvement in wait times and an overall improvement in the perception of customer service. The most interesting I’ve seen was one that was done prior to installation of self-checkout, during the installation and then later weeks following the installation. The tales told are even more helpful in customer service itself. What can be learned is extremely interesting. More importantly, someone talented enough to run a stop watch and who is thoroughly impartial. And from my view, this is the only way it can accurately be done.
CHECKOUT TIME MANUAL
I participated several times in many manual studies.
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However, this data never really tells the real story. Certainly, they can be measured by system-generated data. I’m not sure that retailers are measuring these times, and even if so, if they are measuring them accurately. MEASURE – A Measurement of the Retail Experience (Survey) – M/A/R/C Research.How Do Your Customers Respond To Long Wait Times? Many Leave Empty Handed! (Press Release) – M/A/R/C Research.The overall results were similar to a M/A/R/C Research survey conducted in April 2007.ĭiscussion Questions: Have checkout times become an even more important component of the shopping experience? Are retailers generally putting enough emphasis behind reducing checkout times? What are some of the best strategies to do so? “Retailers really have to focus on keeping their wait times under 4 minutes with the negative impact of even one minute more,” said Tony Amador, senior vice president at M/A/R/C Research, in a press release. M/A/R/C Research said checkout time plays a key role in conversion rate, which averaged 75 percent across channels for April 2008. Would stop going to the store all together.
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Up specific items they couldn’t find at other stores 19 percent said they would only go to the store to pick.Percent said they would avoid the store if they knew the checkout lines would Their decision to shop a particular retailer in the future. Among retailers, Lowe’s, Publix, Best Buy, Target, Longs Drugs, Staples, B.J.’s Wholesale Club, and Kohl’s received the highest satisfaction ratings in their respective categories for the checkout times.Īccording to the study, 43 percent of consumers said long lines would affect After four minutes, the satisfaction levels drop considerably across seven other channels: grocery, consumer electronics, department, drug, home improvement, mass merchandisers, and office supply stores.Īmong these channels, satisfaction levels are lowest for club stores and mass merchandisers because their wait times are well above the four-minute threshold.
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The only exception is for club stores, where an average wait time slightly over four minutes was deemed still acceptable by those surveyed. The online survey of 13,000 customers conducted in April found that customers are satisfied (79 percent extremely/very satisfied) with an average wait time of about four minutes or less. But it also found that 10 percent were exasperated enough to leave a checkout line if the wait becomes too lengthy. A survey from M/A/R/C Research found that four out of five shoppers are satisfied with wait times at stores in most cases.