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Previous: Inspirational poster | Main | Next: Fortune cookie message
May 12, 2006 12:03 AM
Broken: ATM options
Andrew Skegg from Australia writes:
I went to the nearest ATM to withdraw some cash. I only needed $20 for lunch, so that's what I selected.
The machine then showed the message seen below, "Sorry, unable to issue $20. Please enter multiples of $50."
Why give the $20 option or mulitiples of $20 when the option is unavailable?
If the machine knows it is out of $20 notes, then the options that are unavailable should not be shown to the user.
20, 50, what's the difference? You're just going to blow it all on beer anyway, you wacky Aussie.
;)
I would guess that they found customers were confused by having the $20 option simply gone from their choices.
Soda machines solved this decades ago.
Most likely, this is a case where the machine is running low on bills and the only thing it has in stock are 50s. So in other words, ordinarily you COULD get $20.00 out of it, but then when the interface puts through a request to the backend for $20, the backend says "I've only got 50s, dude."
Yes, it's broken, there should be a better interaction between the UI and the dispenser, but I don't think it's "habitually broken" type of thing where it's like that all the time.
My previous bank used to give the option for "$60 Fast Cash" but when you selected it, it said the ATM was unable to disburse this amount of money. So then I'd just go ahead and manuall enter in "$60" in the "how much do you want to withdraw section." I'd get my $60 that way. Don't know why they offered the Fast Cash option, since it mean exiting and starting from scratch or, worse, walking away thinking the machine was out of money.
"I would guess that they found customers were confused by having the $20 option simply gone from their choices."
It doesn't have to be gone, just grayed out. With a message saying "Out of $20 bills" or something.
This reminds me of an ATM system years ago which would periodically spit out the following in response to a withdrawal request: "Last transaction not completed. Do you want another transaction?" The first time I saw it, it freaked me out. My first thought was the transaction was "partially completed" -- i.e. they deducted the money from my account but the machine just couldn't give it to me. And what made them think I wanted to try another transaction which they couldn't complete?
A more reassuring message would have been "Unable to process transaction, transaction cancelled". Well, not reassuring necessarily, but at least not ambiguous!
Sounds like a broken ATM. I don't think this is reasonably avoidable...I think Derek's got it right. So...broken, but not broken.
This is quite normal - happens all the time in Ireland. Only adds about 10 seconds on to your time at the ATM, but perhaps we Irish aren't in so much of a rush as everyone else.
If the machine is out of $20 bills and you only have $30 in your account, well it doesn't matter whether the ATM says 'out of $20 bills' on the first screen or the 2nd screen, you're still not gonna get the cash
I worked in interaction design for ATMs for two years. The co. I worked for produces a single product that is independent of the hardware it runs on.
And yes, they are working towards intelligent machines that respond to things like low bill counts with greyed out buttons.
But they're not there yet. It's the hardware companies that use proprietary software that are holding things back.
In fact, if those screen shots were taken in Australia, it's entirely possible the company I worked for is working with them on their next generation of ATMs. They do lots of business in Australia/NZ.
The question I have is why do they need two different bills in the first place? I would think that $20 bills are generally more convenient. Perhaps there's another motive for stacking a machine with larger bills, depending on where it's located. A shopping center or casino might benefit from people having more "spending" cash in their pockets.
I don't think that's the question, conspiracy guy.
If I want to withdraw say $300, I would rather six 50's, than fifteen 20's
Sorry, I'm not buying the "just a little broken" arguments.
If this thing is smart enough to take your request, look up your account and use that to decide whether you may get a withdrawal, and it's smart enough to know that it's out of $20s, then it should be smart enough not to waste the customer's time with unavailable options.
When it's broken ONLY in the way that will generate CUSTOMER inconvenience as opposed to bank inconvenience, then it is BROKEN for purposes of posting here.
>
Joeb--- the WHAT???
mebbe it's just me, but my ATM does not dispense bills though different slots depending on denomination. mebbe thats not quite what u meant. i've no idea.
anyway, it would be very benificial to the consumer if the machine was able to display a notice that it is out of a denomination
Freedomlinuc-
Yes, the user's side only has one slot. But you think all the bills are just stacked up together? There are a few different cassettes with bills in them, ready to kick out the bills. It goes through a detector to make sure it's only kicking out one at a time, and then it spits it into the user's slot. Maybe the $20 slot inside the machine is broken.
Sorry for the dp. It occurs to me that Pat is spot on. We can send a man to the moon, but...and all that jazz. It could be made fairly simply to tell the customer "Sorry, no $20's, so don't waste your time..."
Not a whole lot of time wasted, but still a slightly negative customer experience. Pat, I'm changing my vote. Broken.
I still think the different types of bills contribute to the problem. What if there's only one $20 bill left in the machine? You could withdraw $70, but not $40. The smart way to handle this would be to allow withdrawals in $20 increments only. For amounts over $100, the machine could substitute two $50 bills for five $20 bills.
Of course, this doesn't eliminate the problem of the machine running out of twenties before it runs out of fifties. You could do a statistical analysis to figure out the correct ratio of fifties to twenties, based on actual usage.
I wish it were easy enough to just program the s/w so that it catered to the user's every needs, but the fact is that, what the user REALLY needs - more than convenience, is security - to know that the ATM doesn't screw up.
Bill handling is not simply a client-side issue. For some reason, that's one of the things handled at the host end, which, in ALL matters, requires some unbelievably small hoops to jump through.
(I have to be careful of sounding like I'm saying "that's too hard for the vendors to do, so it's not broken" - making excuses is not the same as something is not broken.)
But I reiterate - what users need MORE than convenience is security in transactions. And the banks don't compromise there - even for their customers.
It would be nice if the machine would tell you why you couldn't get $20 or used a equivelant lower value bills in despensing. $10+$10=$20; $5+$5+$5+$5=20$
Example of a lazy computer. :) OR lazy software programmer! :O
I worked at a bank and loaded the ATM back in the 90's. ATMs have not changed one bit. I hate them. We had so many complaints when we took the $5s out and only had $20s. Of course, it was in a college town so most ATM users only had $9 in their account. This was before debit cards.
Anyway, I digress, you can only put so many bills in a cassette and on holiday weekends they will run out of money. With debit cards, ATMs are archaic and banks don’t care if they are unuser-friendly. It is cheaper for them if you use your debit card.
Even a soda machine will let you know when it is out of something BEFORE you select it. Maybe you have to press the $20 button 5 times, then it is a multiple of $50? or maybe not.
Kay-I know of several ATMs by me that can actually cash paychecks and dispense $1's and change too! They aren't very common and I was pretty impressed the first time I used one. But most of the standard ATM's here can dispense $10's, but they also don't show you a screen that tells you it's out of money, it waits until it spits out your receipt. It would be so much nicer, if it did work like a soda machine and you could know if it was out of money before you wasted your time using it.
Same problem at Liberty University ATMs. They dispense $10s for the most part, but if the one in the main hall doesn't like you, you enter in PIN and everything only to get told, "Sorry, try punching in $50!"
Fifty??? Who do you think I am? The chancellor? I'm one of the bloody students you twat! I've barely got $15 to my name!
With debit cards, ATMs are archaic and banks don’t care if they are unuser-friendly.
i think "unuser-friendly" is broken
here in holland the ATMachines (ATM = automated teller machine, so ATM machine is wrong!) of some company's display the type of notes in this macine even before you entered anything.
so this is pretty broke...
With debit cards, ATMs are archaic and banks don’t care if they are unuser-friendly.
i think "unuser-friendly" is broken
Thanks, nothenry.
I have never been broken before.
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Previous: Inspirational poster | Main | Next: Fortune cookie message
This is broken, it should probably just put out the light.(first)
Posted by: Cole at May 12, 2006 12:14 AM