Business
I’m writing this with a pair of trousers on my desk that I can’t wear because they still have a giant plastic security tag attached to them. That’s not because I’ve resorted to shoplifting but because I recently used a self-checkout basket in a rush.
I paid for the trousers and left without realising that the security tag was still on, and now they just remind me of how annoying self-checkout tills can be. There’s no going back – the shop is 215 miles away.
Consumers are not craving more time with these do-it-yourself machines, although Rachel Reeves’s £25bn tax raid on employers means it is inevitable. Given businesses are the biggest losers of the Budget, customer service will suffer too.
The continued shift from human to robot will be accelerated by Reeves’s plan to increase employers’ National Insurance from 13.8pc to 15pc from April and lower the level at which companies must start paying it.
People-based businesses that rely on low-wage, part-time staff will be particularly affected, as the threshold for paying National Insurance on workers’ earnings falls from £9,100 to £5,000.
Given that this coincides with Angela Rayner’s workers’ rights overhaul, which is set to cost businesses £5bn a year, bosses concerned about rising costs will now look at drastic ways to save money.
Advisers will no doubt suggest pay and hiring freezes in the short term, and automating or outsourcing more roles in the longer term. “I’m going to cry,” one boss who has 140 staff on his payroll told me on Budget day.
These added costs are a headache for many. Some 60pc of employees in the UK work in customer-facing roles and 80pc of GDP is generated from the services sector. Trying to cut corners with many of these jobs not only aggravates the public but is bad for the economy.
Bad service costs £9.8bn a month in lost time, according to the Institute of Customer Service (ICS). Customer satisfaction is at its lowest level since 2015 and is falling at the fastest pace on record.
We’ve all experienced the frustration of not being able to easily speak to a human. I’ve been waiting over two hours on a corporate WhatsApp “live chat” to speak to a human about my security tag trouser fiasco.
Artist Grayson Perry last year took to social media to ask why he had to spend three hours “talking to a computer” after EDF Energy accidentally told him his monthly bill had gone up from £300 to £39,000.
Cutting jobs has also led to an increase in crime and an overwhelmed workforce. Shoplifters are taking advantage of the rise in self-service checkouts and so-called porch pirates are exploiting under-pressure delivery drivers who barely have time to knock. Last week, somebody stole a two-year-old’s birthday balloon from my doorstep.