Marks and Spencer blasted by elderly customers as it goes cashless in automated cafes
Marks and Spencer has come under fire from disgruntled elderly customers after closing traditional counters in eight digital cafes, including at two of the retailer’s megastores.
With orders placed via touchscreens, staff are now focused on making food and drinks rather than taking orders, with customers alerted when their order is ready.
Elderly shoppers have described the move, which ushers in cashless payments, as “abhorrent”, The Telegraph reports.
M&S is also testing out self-service belted checkouts alongside manned tills in two food halls.
These can be found at London Colney, near Watford, and White Rose Shopping Centre near Leeds - two of its largest stores which also have the digital cafes installed.
In a LinkedIn post, Ron Delnevo, Chair of the UK Cash Supply Alliance, said: “Really silly, thoughtless stuff from M&S. If you want to find out how to alienate your customers, just read and copy!”
RTIH has contacted M&S and will update this article with its side of the story in due course.
“You cannot be ignorant of our existence”
Earlier this year, we reported that the UK high street giant was busy deploying new self-service checkouts across its stores.
RTIH tested them out and found them to be a definite improvement on what went before.
But not everyone was a fan. A disabled customer took to Twitter to air her frustrations after a visit to the M&S store in Ipswich.
RieRieB accused M&S of being in breach of the Equality Act and pointed out that there were approximately 14.6 million disabled people in the UK, and of those around one million were wheelchair users.
“You cannot be ignorant of our existence. Making things less accessible for us is unacceptable,” she said.
She concluded: “I am willing to work with you on this to make the necessary changes to restore access to checkouts at this store.”
In response, a Marks and Spencer spokesperson told RTIH: “While our tills are tested and certified to meet accessibility standards, we take customer feedback seriously and are exploring adjustments we can make to our new tills, including altering the height of the basket and reviewing the positioning of the till so people with disabilities can shop independently if they wish to.”
They added: “We are committed to ensuring all our stores are accessible and we are in the early stages of research and design to launch a designated accessible till in every store. Our store colleagues are always on hand to support all our customers, including those with accessibility needs.”
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