Episode 70 – Customer Pain Points

Catherine Weetman says: “Today’s episode is one of my regular round ups of the last 9 conversations. Today, I’ve chosen the theme of customer Pain Points. We’ll look at this from the perspective of both businesses, and citizens – you and me. I think some of those pain points are being overlooked by companies – that could be because they have a one-size-fits-all approach that might create value for one customer group, but doesn’t deliver, or could actually destroy value for another group.

I also think new pain points are cropping up – maybe even evolving. More of us are realising that our choices aren’t contributing to a fairer, healthier and more sustainable world, and that’s making us uncomfortable, at a conscious or a sub-conscious level. Knowing that we’re going to discard something because there isn’t a convenient way to help it be reused is also uncomfortable – and we’re finding that some of our assumptions are wrong.

For example, in Episode 69, Jo Godden of RubyMoon explained that in the UK, hardly any textiles are recycled. A small proportion is downcycled into wadding and seat fillings, some are exported for hand-sorting in low-income countries (much of which probably ends up as landfill, creating pollution and damaging local ecosystems).

The inspiration for this episode came from Dr Megan O’Connor, the founder and CEO of Nth Cycle, back in ep 67. I was struck by how clearly Megan described all the different pain points she’d identified for both the electronics sector, and for those involved in the materials for the electronics sector – both the mining companies and the recyclers.”