What health care can learn from what’s happening at Target

I was recently doing some home shopping in Target. It was peak time and fairly busy. After I was done, I walked towards the front of the store and approached the counter area to pay. But alas, there appeared to be hardly any manned registers. Lots of people were strolling up and down, trying to do the same as me: find a real person to help us check out. We were then informed that the store was trying to cut back on people at the cash registers, and instead, encourage people to use the “self-service” checkouts. There was a collective sigh. Most people, including myself, scurried to one of the nearest few manned registers, despite the line being longer.

So there I waited. I did not want the hassle of doing it all myself. I had both small and large items, didn’t relish bagging everything, and simply wanted my usual checkout experience. The same one that I have had for over ten years, and was very happy with. I waited patiently for my turn as the several people in front of me were served first. The cashier was visibly getting frustrated with having to deal with the long line and being left out to dry by the organization.

I left the store later than anticipated owing to this unexpected delay, and thought to myself as I was driving home: This experience shouldn’t really be a surprise. It’s typical of the standard corporate modus operandi that pervades many industries, and is probably happening all over America in other stores too. A relentless drive to reduce manpower and maximize revenue by any means possible, regardless of the effect on the customer. The mentality is all about the bottom line and making a buck. That experience at Target represents everything that the bad side of corporations stand for: cost-cutting, depersonalization, and inflating shareholder profit. Customer experience is always shoved to the side, on the road to achieving this. I have since been back to the same Target a couple of times, and I can report that the situation was not a one-off — and continues to happen. Not enough mined registers and a desire to make us “check out ourselves.”