Sunday, May 22, 2011

Automatic Checkout Machine Voices

This seems to be a favorite subject for me. I do shop for groceries in my family, more than the other people in my household. I have had several ideas, some of which I think are quite good, relating to cash registers. I really can't understand why at least one of them has come to see the light of day.

My first was the beep sound where the cashier in the different lines scan the groceries and other items, and the register goes beep, beep, beep, as the products pass by. I think it would be cool and also somewhat pleasant if the registers each had a different beep, like register 1 beeps, register 2 beeps a little higher in pitch, and so on down the line. In some of the busier discount stores, it would be almost musical. I blogged this idea already, if you want to read more.

My next idea was to put a silence button on the new automated machines, which I find really annoying. They tell you to scan the item, they tell you to put it in the bag, they tell you to insert cash, and if you have a lot of items, you will have to listen to the machine tell you what to do for a long time. I don't know what the advantage is for the consumer, because it takes longer to check out that way than having an experienced cashier do it for you.

So today, I was at the supermarket buying a loaf of bread, when I was in the cashier line. The automated line was going pretty good and four machines were issuing their repetitive instructions to four different customers. They all had the same voice. The same woman's voice, probably some white woman, too. It is the same voice in all of the competing supermarkets and many other stores. Ralph's and WalMart's and Raley's and Home Depot, they all sound the same. It struck me: Why don't they give the cash registers different voices?

For one thing, the people at four different registers would be able to have four different voices telling them so that they wouldn't think the register next to them was telling them what to do. They could have a selection of voices, like several male and several female voices. They could have unique voices for their own stores, so Home Depot could have their own voices, and WalMart could have theirs. Next, they can have them in different languages, too!

I think it is a great idea. The cost of having someone read all the possible phrases a cash register uses would be minimal, and the license for the sound of a voice could be very lucrative for someone. I would offer my own voice, for a very reasonable price. Hey, they could license celebrity voices. They possibilities are endless. Now, how could one make a profit from this? If some chain of stores wants to have their own branding, like OSH could get their commercial guy to speak for the registers. People would go there just to hear the cash register voices. Sales would definitely go up, and personnel costs would go down as more people went for the automated cashiers, thereby eliminating human cashiers, saving the companies money.

Well, I'll be waiting to see when someone implements this idea. I don't care to make a lot of money off of it, but if you happen to use it, and it works out for you, please remember the guy with the coolest ideas. Ten percent is all I ask.

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