Contact-Less, not Contact-Free

Ah, contactless pickup. So great. You place the order. You pull up. You pop the trunk. Your stuff is deposited. The trunk is shut. You smile and wave and thank the employee through the closed window of your car. And then you pull away.

It’s a really wonderful idea, exactly what we need in these times. And it works, what? 40% of the time?

In my personal experience, it’s a matter of scale. The coffee shop down the street? They nail it. The brewery across town? Perfect. The local book store? Totally great. They get their page set up, they build out a system, and then they train their five to fifteen customer-facing employees how to use it. Works like a well-oiled machine.

It’s the bigger stores that have issues. And it’s not their fault either. They can’t just get Square or whatever. They’re selling too much stuff for that. No, they have to build their own app, have to design their own system, and then they have to train their hundreds of managers on it so that they can train their thousands of employees, not a single one of whom signed up for this kind of job in the first place.

What I’m saying is, you’re going to get home with that online order from the grocery store, all ready to kick off 2021 with a mega bread-baking session… and you’re going to find they forgot the flour.

And you’re going to pull up to the defined parking spot outside the furniture store to pick up your new book shelf. And you’re going to wait. And wait. And wait.

And you’re going to stare at your phone where it says that those special ‘thank you’ you ordered a few days ago from the print shop, to send to everyone who gave you gifts this holiday season, are still “pending manager approval.”

Point is, despite your best efforts to limit ALL exposure to other people, you’re going to end up having to go inside places, even the ones that told you it won’t be necessary. And again, we’re not complaining. These things happen. All we’re saying is, you’re gonna want to keep some extra masks for when they do.