HOUSTON — There has been a lot of talk lately about shortages at stores. Now experts say there could be another thing missing when you shop – customer service.
You’ve probably heard of inflation, but what about “skimpflation?”
It’s when you pay the same or more for a product or service but you get less customer service.
What we're seeing from the consumer side now is that consumers are being asked to do more of what allows fewer employees in the store.
“We're doing self-checkouts. We may be printing our own boarding passes,” Barbara Stewart, a professor at the University of Houston, said. “Generally, there may be fewer people on the selling floor. There may be fewer people on call centers when we'd call to order things or to ask for assistance.”
Stewart is a professor of retail and consumer sciences at UH.
“So the primary thing is more work for the consumer. Some consumers don't mind that at all,” Stewart said. “For others, they prefer an extra level of service, we find when we go to restaurants, there may be fewer waitstaff there may be less product actually given to us airlines, less snacks, less drinks, perhaps more opportunity for us to fund some of those frills that we've actually come to expect as required.”
So why is this happening?
“Right now, we have several things converging to increase consumer prices,” Stewart said. “We have production challenges, which increase the prices of goods, we have transportation challenges that increase the price of getting the goods to the consumer. And then we have labor shortages.”
So in order to keep prices steady companies are cutting back on customer service. That could mean waiting hours on hold with an airline or waiting longer to get service at a restaurant.
Stewart says consumers will still be able to find companies that pamper shoppers but you may have to pay for it.
“If on the other hand, you're willing to pay a little bit more, that competitor of that institution may offer better service and we vote with our dollars,” she said.