HP Gets Closer to Users by Design

HP gets closer to users by design Product development - Hewlett-Packard engineers visit stores to offer expertise and learn customers' needs Friday, January 06, 2006 MIKE ROGOWAY

Hewlett-Packard Co. engineers don't just design the company's printers. They also sell them.

Over the holidays, HP sent more than 1,600 employees into electronics and office-supply stores from Corvallis to Cleveland. Speaking directly to customers during HP's busiest season, its workers pitched the company's products by demonstrating how they work and offering their expertise to explain, for example, how one printer differs from another.

Just as important to HP, its engineers heard from shoppers -- what buyers want and don't want from their printers, and what they don't understand

"I truly believe that the information from our customers and what we take back from our customers improves our products," said Jim Mury, the Vancouver manager in charge of HP's employee demonstration project.

Marketing experts say companies such as HP are realizing their product designers have been too far removed from the people who use the things they make. Companies are moving quickly to overcome that disconnect, sending engineers into stores to observe how products work and talk with shoppers to hear the "voice of the customer."

"It's a major trend," said Dorian Simpson, director of a Beaverton firm called Planning Innovations Group, which helps companies with product development.

Focus groups and customer surveys are the easiest and most popular ways to get inside customers' heads, but companies are finding that observing how customers act in real-world situations gives a more accurate picture of what buyers want.

"If you've got a product sitting on a shelf with competitors, you definitely want to see a decision process in real time with a customer," Simpson said.

HP's employee demonstration program, initiated in the early 1990s by workers at its Corvallis and Vancouver sites, expanded dramatically last year under new Chief Executive Mark Hurd, according to Mury. HP employees went to Best Buy, CompUSA, Fry's Electronics and several other chains over the holidays.

Shane Plaxton, an HP research and development manager in Vancouver, said he helped develop roughly half the printers on sale at the Circuit City store at Jantzen Beach he visited in November. The idea of direct shopper feedback on his handiwork was "a little intimidating," he said. "I'm not used to being out in front of customers."

But it proved to be refreshing, Plaxton said, to step back from the details of printer design and see the big picture.

"I spend all day looking at designs and product specs and details," he said. "This is a way of going out and seeing what (customers) really want to get." It inspired him to take a fresh look at how the company can simplify the marketing and design of its printers, so that it's easier for customers to pick out a model that's right for them and to understand how it works.

Employee participation in the demonstration program is voluntary, but HP gives workers a full day off if they work a five-hour shift in a store. The company also will pay to send them to stores in other parts of the country, if they choose, and some took advantage of that to schedule a brief trip to visit family.

Nancy Wilson, a Corvallis engineer, spent two days at a Staples store in Manhattan last month, pairing her time in the store with a holiday visit to family in New York. To her, the time inside the store underscored that customers value easy-to-use products above all.

"What I heard was, 'We want all the bells and whistles, but we really want the hookup to be simple,' " Wilson said.

Feedback to be followed

HP workers will be in stores through this weekend. Afterward, all the participating employees will write a brief report on their store visits, highlighting customers' reactions to specific products.

Mury said the information will be compiled into a larger report and delivered to each product team so designers can incorporate customer feedback in future products.

"A lot of smart companies are looking for ways to get engineers and designers more contact with customers," said Tom Gillpatrick, a Portland State University marketing professor who has studied the ways product designers and customers interact.

Some companies simply go to stores and watch shoppers, while others convene panels to ask customers what they want. Gillpatrick said it's common for companies to send marketers into stores to study shoppers, but a company is likely to benefit more in a program such as HP's that puts the people who design the products in front of customers.

"It really is, I think, a great way to get your designers close to users," he said.

Mike Rogoway: 503-294-7699; [email protected]