Watching

Customer Service Disappear

Alamo Drafthouse is replacing servers with QR codes and a budget gym replaces its reception desk with traps and an app

Yesterday Hellgate posted an article about movie theater Alamo Drafthouse replacing its current paper and pen ordering system with a QR code. Moviegoers will have to use their phone--yes! even during the movie!--to order.

Hellgate has been on customer service automation beat chronicling PureGym's (nee Blink Fitness) "automated" entry tubes [1,2,3]. PureGym replaced the gym's reception desk with TSA-like entry and exit tubes where members must scan a bar code accessed via their smartphone app in order to enter the tube to enter the gym and enter the tube to leave the gym. How has the FDNY not shut all these locations down, I do not know.

Though not associated within the popular conception of AI, QR codes do depend on computer vision technology. The urge to automate and disappear customer service is utterly logical for folks who believe their Claude chats communicate with a Supreme Intellect/Being. I am not one of those folks. I do not ascribe to As-as-ideology, and so I do not believe people are problem to be solved for with digital devices like smartphones and claustrophic likely-to-malfunction tubes. Eliminating customer service staff and requesting customers to pick up the slack is disheartening and painful.

Writng for Dr. Marisa G. Franco's Attached newsletter today, Victoria Ellyse shared a link to a recent Gallup poll: About 20% of adults in the US feel lonely everyday. She also shared research that shows "small, meaningful interactions matter more than grand gestures." I can't help but think that severely eliminating the field of customer service has another effect besides economic. Greeting people, being near people that is a good for people. Asking a person a question, knowing how to respond to a question, that is a good for people.

Sources

[1] https://hellgatenyc.com/puregym-tailgating-policy-blind-accesible-pod-ada-complaint/

[2] https://hellgatenyc.com/fdny-violations-for-puregym-exit-system/

[3] https://hellgatenyc.com/puregym-entry-pods-embrace-the-tubes/