VIRTUAL MADNESS

I'm already getting sick of the move to 'virtual' service centres.

This is where businesses have undergone a reorganisation and consultancy 'experts' have come up with the concept of the virtual showroom.

In reality this is a thinly disguised staff reduction exercise planned to save costs and push the responsibility of the payroll to taxpayers via the dole.

During the week I've had occasion to visit four operations that once used to have counters serviced by staff and an orderly queueing system.

These were:

Auckland City Council.

ASB

Vodafone.

Auckland Central library

Now, when entering these places you are in a big open area with randomly placed high tables with a computer monitor and keyboard.

There are a small number of staff around who all seem to be busy or just deliberately looking the other way. There is either no or minimal signage indicating procedure and it is difficult trying to establish which table (or mini kiosk) one should go to.

Vodafone was the worst in that a small sign on a kiosk closest to the entrance (but still set back a way) says "Virtual Concierge - ask for virtual queueing".
This of course is the kiosk that permanently has a member of the public engaging the harassed looking staff member. There is no set up for queueing to this table or kiosk as, being like an island it can be approached from 360 degrees. What Vodafone haven't yet learnt is that Asian people, particularly the Chinese, do not queue in an orderly fashion unless channelled by ropes and barriers. Given that in Auckland the % of Asians that make up the population is huge it's strange that Vodafone haven't woken up to this problem. Needless to say it is chaotic.

At Vodafone, ASB and Auckland Council, the other tables or mini-kiosks with the computer monitors were unmanned and had little signs indicating that the public can do their virtual business there.
WTF!
We can do that at home on our own bloody computer. The whole reason of going into one of these service centres is to talk to a real person to get a considered (not preset) answer to a query.

The only one that made any sense to me was the Auckland library set-up where you can check-out your books yourself. I've used this before and it works OK but not today when I wanted to check out a DVD. After going through the procedure the machine bleeped and told me to go to the manned counter as there was a payment to be made to rent the DVD. A sign indicating this in advance would have been useful.

I went to one of the two manned counters that had deep queues at them.

Progress?

I don't think so.