Have you ever bought a product that came in that clear plastic packaging that required strong scissors, a sharp machete, or a sacrificial finger just to get the damned thing open?
If you have, you know what I’m talking about.
Can’t the companies pack their products in this stuff come up with a package that’s slightly more customer-friendly? Don’t they realize that opening that brand new product is part of the customer experience?
Since so many companies use these plastic blister packs and clamshell packaging, I thought that maybe those marketing mavens and Chief Customer Officers already thought through this stuff, and that maybe I was the one with the problem…
…until I did a quick web search, and found out that I’m not alone. In fact, this phenomenon is so widespread that there’s an actual term for this kind of frustration…
It’s called “Wrap rage.”
And when an affliction has an official name, doesn’t that mean that it’s widespread enough to warrant some corrective action by the very companies that caused it?
And this problem isn’t new. According to the Jewel Case blog, The London Daily Telegraph began reporting on it back in 2003.
In 2006, John Laumer blogged about Costco’s replacing the infuriating plastic clamshell with a new paperboard-based product that’s much easier to open.
And in his blog, Peter Fauer recommends a solution for it.
Investigative reporting by The Early Show on CBS indicates in just one year in the UK, over 67,000 people were injured while trying to open this infuriating packaging.
So clearly, wrap rage is a problem that’s acknowledged by at least one big retailer, many bloggers and over 67,000 bloodied customers.
And here’s the point of it all…
Isn’t opening the product part of the entire customer experience? Shouldn’t companies be making it easy for us to feel their products in our hands for the very first time?
Why don’t these consumer product companies think more clearly through the end-to-end customer experience, to recognized the issue, and act on it, to make our lives easier?
Opening the product shouldn't be a bad experience.