Negative fall-outs of technology

I think most if us have a difficulty in appreciating, both negative as well as positive sides of a given situation, if we are positive then it will be all positive and the same other way...

I realised this yesterday when I was talking to group of senior Bank officials of a reputed bank. They were lamenting the fact that though there are many benefits from technology like core-banking and computerisation and the customer has gained enormous amount of convenience because of the advent of ATMs and net banking , this according to them is happening at a cost. The cost is the loss of one-to-one interaction with the customer. To quote what one of the senior managers said "Today a customer can close an account at the click of a button and I might come to know about it much later". In the earlier days, if the customer wanted to close the account he would have come to the branch and spend time , and thus providing a opportunity for the banker to retain the customer. And maybe in a situation of close personal interaction chances of one identifying and solving a problem at much ealier stage is much easier.

This is not the first time that I hearing such a fear being expressed, this was also said by senior railway officials about the increasing acceptance of Internet based ticketing.

This concern is mainly from the organization's end , which fears that technology might over a period of time convert their customers into mere numbers, but on the other end many customers are becoming uneasy with this lack of human interaction. Maybe this is one the reasons why many erstwhile pure-play companies like makemytrip.com and shaadi.com are coming up with physical offices and interaction point where one can go a actually talk to a person....