Role: Product design Technologist
Comopany: TESCO
Product: Tents
Date: April 2015
The Problem
When working within the camping range, we received a lot of complaints that the user would wake up in the middle of the night with the tent leaking. With total refunds for a tent being around 7%. After receiving a number of the returned samples and assembling them in the garden and leaving them up over the weekend, none leaked.
The actual problem came to light when we received one returned sample, that showed the knots that this particular customer was using to tie their guy lines.
This showed that there was a lack of knowledge in our customers when it came to camping. Showing that we generally dealt with new/novice campers. The products were fine but although the Instruction manuals were benchmarked with competitors, we were missing vital information to let novice campers understand how to set up tents to avoid morning condensation.
So a relatively simple change to add more information within the IM that helped reduce returns and give our customers a better experience. That showed how important it is to understand the customer that buys into your specific product, and not just the range as a whole.
