Is technology about to take your job

The pace at which technology is changing our lives is quite startling. My favourite app at the moment is Google Maps because it now has a brilliant traffic feature that shows me exactly where there is slow moving or stationary traffic anywhere in the world. It cleverly does this by tracking the location and speed of cell phones, converting it to green, amber and red lines and overlaying it onto their maps. The minute you see a wall of red brake lights is exactly the point at which Google Maps tells me where the traffic has stopped - it is brilliant. The only challenge I have is zig-zagging across Sharjah and Dubai whilst looking at my iPhone, but I’m sure that an app for that is under development. In fact, I’m pretty sure that in the next 10 years, my car will drive itself and make appropriate deviations to avoid traffic. In fact, I’m pretty sure that this technology exists today and somewhere a prototype of this is already under development.

Thanks to technology and the internet, the world in which we live is constantly changing with more and more processes becoming automated and more instances when at least one of the two human beings talking to each other will be replaced by a machine. Costa Coffee now has machines in some locations and you won’t find a Barista anywhere in the vicinity. So what if you want a little extra fresh milk in your Latte? It isn’t going to happen. Checkout staff in UK supermarkets are fast disappearing because you can scan, bag and pay for your groceries yourself and the machine even knows if you have popped a tin of baked beans in the bag without paying for it.

The retail world has been rocked by the proliferation of online shopping websites, and many of the small, friendly local stores have been forced to close down. We live in a world that is doing its best to reduce human contact. Try phoning a bank or even your mobile phone service provider. You will spend at least 12 minutes dealing with the auto attendant feature that will do its best to irritate, frustrate and stop you from ever speaking to one of the human beings working there. And then if you are lucky enough to get through, the chances are that the person answering the call will either transfer you to an ever ringing line or simply cut you off so that you have to select a dozen options and join the back of the queue again. The net result? Certainly not customer loyalty. This lack of human contact must also be having an effect on our social skills.

Pretty much whatever job you are doing, know this – someone, somewhere is being paid a lot of money to automate it. Why? a) because that’s their job and they get paid a lot of money to do it and b) because it reduces companies operating expenses, which is why the clever people like those at Google get paid all that money. The jobs that are most at risk are those where emotion and care has no role to play like taxi drivers for example. Or those roles where a human being with a heartbeat cannot add any more value compared to the automated equivalent. I’d challenge the automated cashier at Tesco or WH Smith because that machine doesn’t pack my bag or carry it to the car, which is probably why you will never see it in the UAE.

Travel, the business that I’m in, has seen a propagation of online travel agencies like Expedia over the past several years and the impact on high street travel agents has been hard-hitting with many unable to compete with www.impersonaltravel.com (that’s a made up name by the way). But why are they finding it so hard to find their space and relevance when travel is so incredibly important to all of us? Why when they have so much experience and knowledge are they losing out to a series of boxes or fields that you select dates and destinations from, but there isn’t a person to be found? It’s because they have failed to see the power of the human “how”, something that online travel agencies are unable to compete with. Travel is an emotional experience; it’s not a commodity that has a money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. It is something that requires detailed planning. It’s something that needs somebody who truly cares to validate decisions, to give peace of mind. It’s an investment that requires somebody impartial, who can give good, honest advice, somebody to trust. I don’t care what anybody says, a computer screen, smartphone or tablet is never going to be able to do that and that’s the reason why for as long as we as a species have an inherent need to be cared for, technology can never completely replace traditional retail travel agents or any other truly customer focused retailer for that matter.

Around the world, we have 1,300 Travel Counsellors handpicked because they care. Together we have found our space and loyalty in our almost half a million customers around the world who book with us over and over again. We are a rare super-relational breed that is blossoming rather than heading towards extinction, and you will not find one Travel Counsellor worried about their life being under threat from technology. Why? Because they get that when dealing with people, customers, it's all about the “how” and the difference this makes to their lives, and this is something that a processor, a hard drive and a website can't replicate.