Ikea Wants to Get a Little More Personal

Ikea is getting intimate with its customers.

To send the company back on a growth track, Ikea has plans to make 1,000 house calls a year at customers' homes, poking through their cabinets, observing how their kids play and determining the biggest headaches people encounter when running their households.

The goal: learn what customers in different markets need and make stores — largely filled with the same streamlined, modern furniture no matter where you are in the world — more local and personalized.

"It's not so much about the product, it's about understanding how life is spent," Ikea U.S. President Lars Petersson told USA TODAY. "To create Ikea to become the leader in life at home."