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March 24, 2008
Make it Easier on Your Customers, Not Harder
Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks | Filed under: Business
Last week I had to run to the grocery store to pick up a few things, and I didn't go to my usual grocery store. That was my big mistake, right there. I picked a different store because I needed an item my usual store no longer carried. I thought maybe this new store would have what I need and maybe, just maybe, I'd switch.
As soon as I walked into the store I knew something was wrong. I couldn't find the bread. I couldn't find the milk. I wandered around the store aimlessly trying to figure out how it was laid out. The aisles were perpendicular to the check outs, so you couldn't just race down the aisle and arrive at the check outs. Then the aisles were separated in the strangest ways with nothing where you'd expect it to be. This store wasn't laid out like any other grocery store I'd been to, not even other locations of the same brand.
When I resorted to the signs identifying what was in each aisle, I was flabbergasted to find them written in only Spanish from one direction and only English from the other. I'm all for multi-lingual signage, but it has to be helpful.
I eventually found the one item my regular grocery store doesn't carry anymore, but at this point it was a lost cause. I'll never shop there again.
The lesson is that organizations need to make things easier on their customers, not harder. I understand the logic of supermarket design--bread on one end of the store and milk on the other forces most shoppers to traverse the entire store and perhaps spend more. But is it really worth it to irritate your customers? Perhaps a better business model is to organize your store to make everything easier on your customers. They'll be so happy they'll come back more often and they will spend more.
Sadly, I've never seen a grocery store with bread and milk up front.
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