‘Northern Waitrose’ becomes UK’s first supermarket to go back to fully-staffed checkouts after axing almost all of its self-service tills

• Booths say the ‘warm northern welcome’ is a key part of supermarket’s charm

A supermarket chain dubbed the ‘northern Waitrose’ has become the first in the UK to go back to fully-staffed checkouts after axing almost all of its self-service tills.

Booths believe that the personal touch from the manned checkouts gives their customers a better experience – and the ‘warm northern welcome’ is a key part of their charm.

So they have axed the machines from all but two of their 28 upmarket stores in Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cheshire.

‘We believe colleagues serving customers delivers a better customer experience and therefore we have taken the decision to remove self-checkouts in the majority of our stores,’ a spokesperson told the BBC.

They continued: ‘We have based this not only on what we feel is the right thing to do but also having received feedback from our customers.

Booths believe that the personal touch from the manned checkouts gives their customers a better experience – and the ‘warm northern welcome’ is a key part of their charm. Pictured: Booths supermarket in Keswick, Lake District

So they have axed the machines from all but two of their 28 stores in Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cheshire

Customers have struggled with identification checks on age-restricted products, like alcohol, while others have complained about weighing machines being too sensitive. Pictured: File image

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‘Delighting customers with our warm northern welcome is part of our DNA and we continue to invest in our people to ensure we remain true to that ethos.’

Booths says it was responding to customer service as it takes the radical decision. 

Only two of its shops in the Lake District will keep their self-service tills – which it says are to help staff at particularly busy times.

It is now looking to increase its stores number of staffed checkouts and kiosks as they renovate the stores.

And they are hiring in a number of roles – including customer assistants and Christmas temps.

‘We are a business that prides itself on very high levels of service and very high levels of warmth and personal care with our customers,’ Managing Director Nigel Murray told The Telegraph. 

Calling unmanned tills ‘clunky’ and ‘slow’, he continued: ‘Having had some of these checkout self-checkout facilities in place for getting on for the best part of 10 years, we’ve come to the point in the decision where we don’t believe they allow us to do what we want to do.’

Instead, he said the supermarket wanted to focus on ‘people with personality and warmth and interest in our customers.’

Customers have struggled with identification checks on age-restricted products, like alcohol, while others have complained about weighing machines being too sensitive. 

Booths says it was responding to customer service as it takes the radical decision. Pictured: Booths supermarket in Milnthorpe, Cumbria

It is now looking to increase its stores number of staffed checkouts and kiosks as they renovate the stores. Pictured: A display of freshly baked artisan bread in Ripon’s Booths, North Yorkshire

Only two of its shops in the Lake District will keep their self-service tills – which it says are to help staff at particularly busy times. Pictured: A view of the display of the self-service Olive Bar in Booths Ripon

It marks a shift away from the trend towards self-checkouts amid warnings that the popularity of self-checkout machines in supermarkets has caused a decline in the number of shop floor vacancies. 

The overall number of checkout-related openings has fallen from 2,748 in last October to 2,020 this month, according to job search engine Adzuna. 

It added that checkout roles previously accounted for under 58 percent of supermarket jobs in October 2016, while last month they only accounted for 15 percent. 

In the same period the number of self-checkout machines in supermarkets has increased from 53,000 to around 80,000 in the last five years, according to analytics platform RBR Data Services.

The figures will cause fears among job searchers in the run up to Christmas, who often count on supermarkets taking on extra staff to cope with festive shoppers. 

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