When is it ok to automate?

The other day, in Paris, I lined up behind 4 people to buy a subway ticket. For some reason, the RATP (the company that runs the subway) decided that tickets at this station would only be available through the automated vending machine; fair enough. One very patient tourist didn’t have change for the machine and had a train to catch to London 20 minutes later. A cashier of the RATP in his nearby booth stared at him helplessly, he wasn’t equipped to sell tickets. Finally he came out of his glass cage to help the tourist. By then there were another 4 people behind me. And after 15 minutes of waiting, i finally got my ticket. I’m pretty sure the guy missed his train to London in the process.

So when is it ok to use automated technologies? In my opinion, it’s ok to automate redundant tasks that are prone to human errors, and where an array of variant scenarios have been carefully taken into consideration. Automation can also be used to ensure non-essential 24-hour service.

When is it not ok? Well I have an issue with companies that impose automated processes as the sole way of doing business. I believe that for every automated process, there must be a reasonnably efficient and accessible alternative, whether it is phone support or in vivo. And it doesn’t include websites that use treasure hunt techniques to disclose their phone number and address. Nor does it include hotlines that require you to sift through 10 subsequent departments to find an obscure option that finally gets a human on the line. Automation must be used to increase productivity, but not to replace human interaction. Automation must remain an option, but business models and budgets should not be based on fully-automated systems or an evolution towards them. Yes, there is a price to human transactions, but it is well worth the cost.