The Scrapbook has a smartphone, but we are sorely tempted to go back to a flip phone. Or maybe something with a dial. Smartphones were supposed to make everything easier, but we’re not so sure.
Take the craze for ordering takeout food and drink products via mobile app. You still have to go, physically, to a store location to get your item—say, a grande Americano at Starbucks—but you’re led to believe it’s more convenient to order and pay for your latte via mobile app. That way you just waltz through the store and pick it up. No waiting in lines!
It sounds so simple, so efficient, so modern. That is, until you actually try it. As we learned from a lovely piece in the Wall Street Journal recently, all sorts of problems arise. Chief among them: Customers order their items from the wrong store. Their phones assumed they wanted their items from the store nearest to them when they placed the order, but in fact they were headed to a different store—meaning they now own a grande Americano in a coffeeshop five blocks from where they happen to be. Another problem: long lines of mobile-order customers. Ordinary, non-mobile customers see the long lines and assume the store’s overcrowded; they turn away, resulting in lower overall profits for the store. Yet another problem: Mobile-order customers feel guilty about grabbing their items while others wait in line. So they wait in line anyway, defeating the whole point.
Lost revenue, purchases of faraway Americanos, guilty feelings . . . good grief. We appreciate the need to improve products and shorten delivery times, and we are committed free-marketeers. But we can’t help laughing at companies that try to enhance their profits by developing smartphone-friendly purchase options that demoralize and confuse their customers. If the coffee’s good, we’ll wait an extra 90 seconds. We don’t mind. Just don’t make us download your idiotic app.
