Self Service Trivia

In 1917, the US Patent Office awarded Clarence Saunders a patent for a “self-serving store.” Saunders invited his customers to collect the goods they wanted to buy from the store and present them to a cashier, rather than having the store employee consult a list presented by the customer, and collect the goods. Saunders licensed the business method to independent grocery stores; these operated under the name “Piggly Wiggly.”

In 1961, Bell System developed a new tone dialing methodology(touch tone or DTMF)- giving birth to the IVR.
Invented by IBM, the first ATM was introduced in December 1972 at Lloyds Bank in the UK.

1979: Michael Aldrich invented online shopping

The term “Web 2.0” was coined in January 1999 by Darcy DiNucci- denoting interoperatibility, user centricity, and information sharing that gave birth to web self service

Successful self service engagements have dropped from 48% in 2003 to 39% in 2011- TSIA

Kiosk Check in introduced in 1995 now represents 95% of all passenger check ins – Continental Airlines

The first self service gas station in North America was in Winnipeg MB in 1949- Wikipeadia
Pay at Pump or prepay required by Law in BC -Wikipeadia
NJ and Oregon prohibit customers operating gas pumps…thereby making full service mandatory

Combined market for all types of mobile payments is expected to reach more than $600B globally by 2013