Checkout lanes are supposed to be fast. Jumbo made some deliberately slow, and turned a chore into a cure for loneliness. That's CX thinking at its best.
Jumbo, a Dutch grocery chain, created the ‘Kletskassa’ (chatter checkout): a deliberately slow lane where cashiers take time to chat, plus a ‘coffee corner’ for small talk. It targets loneliness, especially among the elderly (about 33% of Dutch adults over 75 feel at least moderately lonely). Launched in Vlijmen in 2019 as part of the government’s ‘One Against Loneliness’ campaign, it worked so well Jumbo rolled out 200 lanes nationwide. It’s a textbook case that Customer Experience (CX) and User-Centered Design aren’t only digital: sometimes the best design makes a process slower on purpose.
Key takeaways
- The Kletskassa is a slow checkout lane where chatting with the cashier is the point.
- It addresses loneliness among the elderly, tied to the Dutch 'One Against Loneliness' campaign.
- Piloted in Vlijmen (2019), scaled to 200 lanes plus 'coffee corners' run by local volunteers.
- A CX / User-Centered Design win in the physical world, not a digital interface.
- The counterintuitive insight: deliberately making a 'fast' process slower can be the better design.
The initiative
Jumbo runs the chatter checkout for anyone whose day could be improved by a quiet conversation; cashiers take time for small talk, so it runs a bit longer than a normal lane. To complete the journey, stores add a ‘coffee corner’ where locals meet over coffee, managed by the ‘Alles voor Mekaar’ foundation and its volunteers, connecting isolated older people with residents who also help with gardening and shopping. Jumbo’s CCO frames the chain as ‘in the middle of society’, not just a place to shop.
The CX / UCD perspective
This sits deep in User-Centered Design and its sub-discipline Customer Experience (CX), with touch points in Physical UX, accessibility and design for the elderly. Loneliness is a subjective sense of isolation with well-documented effects, and research links chronic loneliness to declines in memory and attention and higher risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s in older adults. Jumbo used CX to design against that, fostering connection through an inclusive physical space.
Checkout lanes are supposed to be fast. Their CX design makes them slower. Smart and thoughtful.
Fabio Devin
The lesson: as retail technology grows and human interaction shrinks, Jumbo’s design deliberately steps the other way. It proves CX and UCD extend well beyond screens, and that redefining an ordinary process (even ‘subversively’ slowing it) can create real human value.
A ‘chatter checkout’: a deliberately slow grocery lane where the cashier takes time to chat, designed to ease loneliness, especially for elderly customers.
Because the goal isn’t speed but human connection. It’s a CX / User-Centered Design choice to fight loneliness, and it proved popular enough to scale to 200 lanes.
It applies Customer Experience and User-Centered Design to a physical, social problem, showing these disciplines aren’t limited to digital interfaces.
Loneliness has serious psychological and cognitive effects (linked to depression, memory/attention decline, and higher dementia risk in older adults), so designing for connection has real health impact.
Yes. After a 2019 pilot in Vlijmen, the response was strong enough that Jumbo expanded to 200 chatter checkouts and coffee corners nationwide.
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