I saw a fantastic example the other day of how 'we' are all creatures of habit, reluctant to change until we're finally persuaded by others.
I was in a long queue for petrol at Asda. All the traffic funnels through one cashier in a cubicle at the end which had lead to the long tailback. When I finally got into the petrol station I was immediately surprised to see that the right side of the station was empty, two petrol pumps with no one there? On the left, the other four pumps were packed with lines of cars waiting.
Given the situation my first thought was the pumps were closed but on closer inspection it turned out that these were the two where you paid at the pump. I left the queue, filled up and was out of there.
But I completely understood why other people didn't. There are too many issues - how easy will it be to use a card, will I get a receipt, what do I do first, there are lots of people watching me.
Much easier to stay put in my comfortable shell, fill up when it's my turn and pay the nice lady.
The apparent upside, saving ten minutes, does not outway the down; fear of failure.
The same thing happened with cash machines. The first one in the world was installed by Barclays in Enfield in 1967. My Mum and Dad who were very much alive then and into the next century never used a cashpoint card, preferring to write cheques and speak to a human being.
But what about when you combine technology with human interaction. If Asda had put a person on those two cash pumps, they could have explained how to use them and cleared the queue in no time. Afterall, they're familiar with this process. Inside the store Asda people have to be available to help people through the self service checkouts - mind you, they aren't easy to figure out.
We at Zype like the idea of combining technology with human interaction.