Solving Customer Pain Points Without Sacrificing Other Customer Experiences

Sometimes pain points are physically painful. If you have been to a grocery store lately, you may notice that small shopping carts are available for the little shoppers in our lives. Yesterday, as I shopped at my local Trader Joe’s, I noticed there is a soft bumper on the bottom front frame of the cart. It doesn’t impede the wheels so children don’t feel any resistance, and it saves unsuspecting customers’ heels (which if you’ve never had a cart run into you, I can attest, it hurts!). This is a win-win for everyone; young shoppers maintain some semblance of independence, other customers may still get bumped, but it won’t scrape the skin, and parents of the young shoppers don’t have to yell and have mini-heart attacks when their beloved little ones run into someone (including themselves – note, always keep your children ahead of you, again, speaking from experience!).

It’s a simple solution that may have been based on a customer complaint, or maybe it was an astute employee who noticed the problem, saw multiple sides of the situation, and found something that works for everyone. There’s even a bonus since it was a low-cost, easy to implement solution. As a result, I’d wager to guess that complaints are down and positive shopping with children experiences are up (if that’s not a brand metric for grocery stores, it should be).

Understanding your customers, no matter how big or small, will always lead to great results. Kudos Trader Joe’s for taking notice and acting on it.