Me? I prefer my drinks mixed by a human. I prefer the surprise, the personal experience and that the transaction is part of the world of which I am part. I like that each drink is unique.
Royal Caribbean Cruises is promoting its robotic drink mixers to entice people on board. Beyond a brief moment of oh wow, I cannot see the interest to the drinker. Bartenders offer a personal specialist service. Surely this is more important than a robot service where every drink tastes exactly the same.
A bartender can mix two of the same drinks right after each other and they can be different. Surely we should cheer the differences from live human engagement compared to a passionless same same experience from a robot.
What is the world coming to?
Our newsagency businesses provide personal service every day. Our service is our most important point of difference for products shoppers can purchase at nearby competitors.
In providing our services we provide personal human interaction that ought to be more authentic than the interaction people get from the auto checkout at the supermarket or the tired student service at a 7-Eleven.
We ought to cherish the human contact, enjoy it and give those working our businesses permission to be themselves, to be in the moment.
While some may laud the robotic drink mixers as innovation, I see them as dehumanizing society in pursuit of higher profits. That is not what I am in small business for. What about you?
A robot would not provide the interaction that is achieved when ordering a “Sand on your Bum” and waiting for the bartender to work out that you are ordering a “Sex on the Beach” cocktail for your wife. Had great fun with that one on Long Island years ago. Seriously, we may as well never leave the home if this is the future experience of going out.
Self Check outs at supermarkets is just as bad. We now have computerised trucks and trains on mines. Lets hope for all mothers that they eventually have a computer to give birth for us.
we can all do our bit just don’t use self service check outs our kids will thank us for it
We are booked on a cruise that has one of these. I can’t wait!
I guess you miss out on the excitement of a bar tender who pours *really* heavily when tipped, but we are booking the pre-paid unlimited drinks package for the duration of the cruise so I guess I can just order another.
I love this type of innovation