Romford shoppers have called for more "service" in supermarkets - as the Recorder visited three town centre stores to find out how many manned tills there are compared to self-checkouts.
Shoppers at stores in Romford town centre, such as Asda and Marks & Spencer, told us that they "hate" self-service tills and are worried about increasing automation "doing people out of jobs".
This concern comes from what customers see as high numbers of automated tills compared to manned tills in some Romford shops - and the lack of staff on hand to help if there is an issue.
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Marks & Spencer in the Liberty Shopping Centre has 12 self-service tills and three staffed ones, our reporter found during a visit on Friday (July 12).
Joan Wiles, a regular shopper at this M&S, said: "I hate those [automated tills].
"I want service.
"This morning they've got three people working, but normally it's only one."
The 84-year-old felt that supermarkets should "absolutely" go back to having more staffed tills, because "trying to find someone to help is like trying to find a needle in a haystack".
M&S revealed last year that it had added 800 self-checkout tills to its stores across the country as part of plans to cut costs - and intends to roll out hundreds more over the next five years.
However, Romford customers think they are not always that efficient.
One M&S shopper said: "There's always something going wrong with them [the tills] and then there's no-one around to help you.
"There's nothing personal about them."
Out of the supermarkets visited by the Recorder, M&S actually had the most staff manning its normal tills.
Despite having six traditional tills, Asda only had one open for customers on a busy Friday afternoon.
The supermarket in the Mercury Shopping Centre also has six automated trolley tills and 14 automated basket tills.
One customer said she preferred having more people on tills, claiming automated tills are "doing people out of jobs".
She added: "I suppose in years to come it will be more machines and just one person.
"People aren't considered anymore - it's just technology going crazy."
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In June, Asda announced that they had updated thousands of checkout screens and scanners as part of a transition away from Walmart IT systems - dubbed Project Future - but it's not known if this means more automated tills in its stores.
Some shoppers argued that in Asda, the small number of manned tills has meant that queues for the self-checkout become "so long", especially on a Sunday.
At Lidl, in South Street, it was a similar story - with six staffed tills, but only one of these open, and ten automatic tills.
One regular shopper at Lidl said: "I've lived near this shop for six years and they definitely need more staffed tills."
Unlike some other supermarkets, no Lidl stores are exclusively self-checkout, and the retailer says it is committed to keeping some manned options.
A spokesperson for Lidl said: "At Lidl, we are committed to ensuring that all our customers have a positive shopping experience.
"In particularly busy stores, self-checkouts provide a speedy payment option which many of our customers favour, however we recognise that some shoppers prefer a personal service, which is why all our stores have manned checkout options.
"Self-checkouts are also always supervised by Lidl colleagues who are available to help customers as and when they need it."
Our reporter also visited two smaller supermarkets in Romford town centre: Tesco Express and Iceland.
Iceland was the only supermarket visited that just had traditional tills - but only one of these tills was manned during the time of the visit.
On the other end of the spectrum was Tesco Express which was almost fully reliant on automation, with four self-checkout tills and one staff member overseeing both these tills and a traditional till.
Marks and Spencer and Asda were contacted for comment but did not respond.
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