The Biggest Consumer Frustrations You Could Be Solving

Everyone’s got a pet peeve.

Whether it’s busy London underground commuters who hate people idling on the left of the escalator; the automated supermarket checkout going on the blink with no one around to help; or never being able to find something different to do at the weekend.

We wanted to find out what type of activities are frustrating people across the UK the most, and what are the biggest day-to-day frustrations that should be solvable using technology?

If you’re entrepreneurially minded, there’s a treasure trove of pain points in here that could inspire you to launch a new venture.

Are you a product manager working at a company that should already be solving these problems? Add it to your roadmap (or tell your marketing team to do a better job of educating your target market if the solution already exists!)

Ok, so first up, these are the everyday activities that consumers find most frustrating.

Commuting sucks

As you can see, commuting is almost twice as frustrating as any other activity that we have do on a regular basis.

For those in London, it shoots up even further to 43%, close to 3x that of the next most frustrating thing.

Spoilt for choice

Interestingly, what is the second-most frustrating thing to the UK as a whole – finding good things to do – is considerably less frustrating for those working in London.

In fact it’s one of the least frustrating day-to-day experiences, way down at 6.7%, versus the national average of 18%.

Search is broken

Google is one of the most valuable companies in the world, investing billions in artificial intelligence and machine learning to make its search algorithm even smarter. But can it help you find the best deal? Not according to 16% of people.

In fact, despite the proliferation of comparison sites like moneysupermarket, confused.com, comparethemarket, gocompare, booking.com, hotels.com, expedia, pricerunner, idealo…and many, many others…knowing what’s the best deal is still a deeply frustrating experience.

This is particularly the case for those aged 50 and over, where it is actually their #1 biggest frustration.

And now, for some £ billion ideas

Everyone knows that the best businesses solve real world problems – and so here I’ve picked out a few of the most interesting ones…

‘Traffic’ was referenced in almost 10% of responses. Which leads me to think that the value proposition of self-driving cars should definitely be the traffic-jam-and-commute-time-reducing aspect. As opposed to the ability to read a newspaper or take a nap at the wheel.

The bottom line – if you’re in the self-driving car space and it helps improve people’s commute, you’re working on an itch that everyone wants scratched.

“Finding a barber that is available and actually good instantly in any area.” – Female, 25, London

“Poorly fitting clothes. It would be relatively easy to have fitted clothes created on-demand.” – Male, 31, Yorkshire & Humber

“How to switch off all screens and phones in one go, and saving energy” – Female, 40, London

“Not knowing when buses will turn up. They should be tracked with bus stops showing eta” – Female, 45, Scotland

“Worrying that my daughter gets home ok late at night from work.” – Female, 60, London

“Travel delays on the work commute – Rather than the travel board at stations saying “Delayed” (unhelpfully), it would be great if an app. could track where the train physically is, so commuters could make an informed judgement/choice on what the hell to do!” – Male, 29, South East

“What to cook for dinner?” – Female, 32, South West

“The biggest frustration is talking over the phone where you can’t hear them properly due to the surroundings in which there should be a technology that silences surrounding noises” – Female, 17, London

In conclusion

Even when you think there are plenty of solutions to a problem, it’s incredible how many people are dissatisfied with them and looking for better alternatives.

So if you’re not first to market (remember that Google, Facebook and Apple were not first to their markets), don’t worry too much.

Use consumer insights to figure out where the pain points are, what consumers find most valuable, and where your unique value proposition could help you differentiate you from the competition.

For more inspiration on this, check out 5 Survey Topics that Challenger Brands Need to Focus On.

Ready to get started? Chat to our team today and we’ll help you figure out the best ways to alleviate your consumers biggest frustrations.