Product Review : Don’t Fix It Yet. Lessons From Bic Pen

Earlier today, I bought a pen at a shop by the roadside. When the seller handed over to me two different pens from the same company. I chose the old design as I always do. Immediately I left the shop, I kept marveling at the management of Bic Pen for their mastery of human psychology. I have been using Big pen since I was a kid. The pen remains as it was when I was a kid.

The design remains the same. The company instead of redesigning its ‘winning’ product, design a new one and released it alongside the old one. The old design remains the popular choice among the people. It has earned the trust of so many users that it is synonymous with reliability. They never tampered with the old design so many years after the company redesigned another pen similar to their old design. The old design is aplenty in the market.

In less than a decade in Nigeria, so many “people’s products” have lost their market base to their competitors due to redesigning of their products. They redesign and lost their market base. They fixed what hadn’t broken.

Designers must know that customer loyalty is not permanent. The user’s loyalty to your product is because your product serves their interests. When a customer patronizes your product, he does so because it satisfies his interest. The interest is flexible and can change at any moment for any reason. The reason might be from you or your competitor(s).

The relationship between customers and a product is like water and fish. Once the water finishes, the fish’s existence comes to an end.

No company in the eyes of the users is too big to fail if it refuses to honor their established relationship, experience and familiarity. In 1985, Coca-Cola altered the taste of their product after Taste Test, and what the company called “intelligent risks” led to users displeasure and opposition. The opposition from their customers was loud and clear.

The valuable lesson for designers to learn from Bic Pen is never to fix what isn’t broken. If perhaps you want to redesign your already popular product, leave the old design to continue its domination in the market. You can release the new redesign and see how your end users will welcome the redesign.