Product trials can incite fear in the minds of even the most seasoned professionals. Trialling PPE in a market that is overflowing with products doing almost entirely the same thing, at sporadic pricing and varying degrees of quality is an exercise more frequently likened to The Hunger Games than Cinderella; the shoe fitting just isn’t enough anymore!
There’s a lot to take into account when you’re going to run a product trial, like size options, technical ability, longevity and sustainability, but don’t let that put you off! You can get incredible value out of a successful one. In this article, you’ll learn how to do just that. We’ve broken down our experience, frequently asked questions, and past hiccups into these bite-sized sections:
Lion Safety has over 30 years of experience delivering solutions and right-fit products to clients in industries that won’t afford them the luxury of making mistakes. We understand the importance of providing the right garments for your workers. A successful product trial can achieve this for your company and employees. Whatever your reason for wanting to conduct a product trial, we’ve probably heard it.
You don’t get to 30 years of successful business and trade without having made a few mistakes of your own. So we’ve sprinkled in some of our hard-learned lessons; that way, you won’t trip up where we did. We’ve put together this guide using our most-asked questions to make your product trial run smoother, faster, and more effectively.
Firstly, let’s talk about what we mean by ‘successful’. Success here does not necessarily mean you buy the products you’ve trialled. Rather, the trial itself provides the data to determine whether your trialled products are the right fit for your workers.
A successful product trial will:
Success is measurable. It is important to remember that in any product trial, defining your methods of measurement is the key to ensuring success.
Throughout this guide, you will see products referred to in the framework of ‘better or worse fit’ products. We believe there are no better or worse products, just better or worse fit products. In a market as oversaturated as the PPE market, some products may be a bad fit for you but are a great fit for somebody else. You need to be able to cut through the noise of the industry and navigate product trials with this mindset.
Better or worse DOES NOT equate to more (or less) expensive. What we are talking about is how the product performs for your team. A cheap piece of footwear may be perfect for your team if the task on hand is light and/or the workforce is temporary. However, this item would not be suitable for a task that is more intensive in another environment. So, it is important to ensure you have a good understanding of the requirements for the environment in which the PPE is expected to perform.
You will benefit more from a product trial if:
We have found that bigger companies are more likely to take a trial seriously and ensure its success. Larger companies often have a greater risk to staff if something were to go wrong, be it injury or a lawsuit.
If you already have staff willing to discuss their workwear, you’ve overcome one of the biggest hiccups people find when running product trials.
Over the years, we’ve seen that the companies most likely to come out of a product trial with tangible results are those that are prepared to invest in better quality products for their staff. These companies already have a culture that values staff above expense, and will do what they can to ensure their staff are happy with the workwear they receive.
You will not benefit from a product trial if:
If this sounds like you, you would be better off ordering samples for review and conducting a discussion with key staff members who will be wearing them. This still allows for the employees to review the product honestly.
We get it, product trials can be expensive, and the prospect of trialling a product that could be a worse fit is not viable for everyone. In this circumstance, we would recommend doing thorough research with the supplier and asking about the experience of other clients in a similar industry. Better yet, ask for case studies where possible. You might want to try your luck and ask for free samples on a ‘sale or return’ basis – you never know which suppliers might be open to this until you ask them.
The product trial stage may be too far in advance for where your company is, due to lack of consolidation or smaller numbers. What you can do is begin a review of what uniform is required. The second stage of this is to follow up with an opportunity to consolidate requirements.
For example; a team has requested trousers with holster pockets – consider whether you could issue holster pockets to more people in your workforce. If the answer is yes, you can get those teams involved in a product trial to determine if you will issue this to the whole workforce.
So, we’ve already established that success means a clear outcome from the trial. Measurement is your way to ensure you get that successful result. Before you begin a trial, you need to determine the below questions:
These questions can help determine what you might need to do to trial a product better. For example, if you are trialling a product to be used in foul weather, we would suggest you use it in foul weather to see how it performs against the criteria the employees will be ranking it against. If you have a heavy emphasis on comfort, you may want to give the comfort aspect a higher weight in the overall scoring.
How you measure success is subjective, and so it is important that you know what you want to improve or eliminate in a product before you set the criteria.
Ask! It’s that simple!
Some suppliers will charge, while others will not. This is at their discretion, so it is important to ask this question upfront. You may need a PO to proceed.
Once you have done some research on a supplier (advised), and have analysed what it is you need, you should:
Remember, you are in control of this trial. The products you choose to trial are your choice. Suppliers may offer suggestions on what to trial, but it’s down to you to make sure that this trial is effective.
This may not seem like an important step, but it may be one of the most important decisions you make for your product trial. Why? Because the data you collect, the results you get and the course of action you take following the results of the trial all rely on who you pick, and how many people you pick to take part.
We recommend that 5% of your workforce take part in a product trial to ensure good representation. This 5% must include a range of job roles, personality types and hierarchical seniority (don’t just put your management team or your mates in the trial).
Our rule of thumb is 5% or 5 people (whichever is greater).
We’ve found the best way to get a good representation is to first engage with managers to identify a range of workers who would be prepared to offer honest feedback and would consider the products from the perspective of what is best for the whole team. Following this, you can put up sign-up sheets in break rooms.
Over the years we have seen trials go on way too long, and the purpose of them gets lost when this happens. But, if you cut a trial short, there is a risk of not getting the true representation of how a garment would perform for your teams. Therefore, we suggest four weeks.
Four weeks gives enough time to adjust to the sample clothing and allows for a simple routine of possible wearing/washing, which will help determine the product’s lifetime. A thorough testing period will show you if the product sample is suitable in terms of durability if its technical elements work if it has any snags (literally and figuratively).
Different decision-makers will want to know different information about the outcome and running of your product trial.
| Department/Job Role | Questions they may have |
| Procurement Budget Holder Finance Manager |
What’s the best value for my £? Have we got the funds for this? How do I know if this is a good investment? |
| Department Manager Operations Manager |
Is this going to resolve the issues we’ve had around clothing? Is it going to make the employees look professional? How long is this going to take? Will this interrupt any other operations? Will it ensure we get things done on time/faster? Net result of trialling this PPE?What is the purpose of this trial/why are we doing this? |
| Business Owner CEO |
Net result of trialling this PPE? What is the purpose of this trial/why are we doing this? Will this alter the overall company image (market perception)? Will this allow us to secure more contracts? Will the staff be properly involved in the selection process? |
| Health and Safety Manager HR Manager |
Is the product compliant to the relevant standards? What standards will the PPE conform to? Are there any potential changes to our processes/our working processes as a result of choosing this PPE? Will staff need additional training to use the PPE? Have employees been consulted in this process? How will the staff rollout be performed? Will there be a staff presentation? Will there be a channel for staff to voice their opinions/ concerns in relation to product selection? |
| Unions | When and how will staff be communicated with about this change? How much say will staff have in the overall selection process? How will you ensure that a sufficient quantity of staff are involved in the sampling process? Have all employee needs been catered for (maternity, plus size, religious/modest clothing requirements etc.) |
The above questions are bound to crop up at some point. It might be a good idea to get groups with similar questions together for a discussion or presentation. You can always ask a supplier to come along to any internal talks you have to deliver to discuss the more technical sides of the product and their application if you do not feel confident in doing so.
It is always worth following a meeting such as this with a summary email or minutes of what has been discussed, agreed upon, queried and actioned.
Simple answer: you don’t (unless going by recommendation or word of mouth).
The best way to try and mitigate this is to order sample products for review or ask your supplier to present the products to you before trialling them. Whilst feeling and touching the garment will provide some insight, you can’t know if it will be comfortable until it has been worn in its work environment.
This is a hard one. Some suppliers are more loyal to certain manufacturers and this could be for a variety of reasons. Sure, it might be that this particular manufacturer gives them better rates, but it could also be that they prefer a manufacturer due to their high-quality standards, or good ethics.
It’s always a good idea to have an open discussion with your potential supplier about why they use the brand/manufacturers they do. They may say something impactful that you had not yet thought of, and that can sway your decision on brand.
If you are not convinced of their reasons for particular brand loyalty, you can always ask the supplier for a case study, or better yet, do some digging of your own and head to Google reviews or Trustpilot for a bit of background. You’d be surprised how much you can find when you look for reviews. If you are going treasure-hunting through Google reviews, we advise that you take things with a pinch of salt; people usually only leave reviews if they are delighted or very, very angry!
This depends on which supplier(s) you choose to trial with. Some suppliers are happy to give away trial products for free, especially if they see that they will get business out of it in the end. Other suppliers require payment for trial products. Often this is to ensure they are only doing business with companies that have a genuine interest in working with them.
This is also down to you or the supplier depending on the arrangement;
When it comes to employee engagement, especially with feedback, it is important to set expectations and parameters. You can’t get valuable feedback from your people if they don’t know what questions you want them to answer. They need to understand the point of the exercise, so it’s important to have determined this before you bring them on board.
Your employees will be wondering “what’s in it for me?”. They must understand the point of the product trial is to enhance/improve the employee experience through their workwear.
With that in mind, it is also a good idea to have a set framework of how and when your employees (and employee working groups) will be required to:
A tip from our experience: some of the best feedback you can get from employees, both honest and constructive, can come from unexpected sources. Some of the best, most in-depth feedback we have ever received from a product trial was provided by a bin-man. Give somebody who will be wearing the garment the chance to try it themselves. They will give you insight as to whether it will work for them or not.
PPE is your last line of defence in any situation, right? Therefore, the reasons and conditions for which PPE is needed should be determined by a risk assessment.
Following a clear risk assessment, you can:
At this point, you are looking to generalise types of products (such as hi-vis polo, hi-vis waistcoat, and waterproof footwear). When choosing products, you need to take into account:
You need to think about all layers of clothing, not only for warmth, but because if an employee takes off a layer, the next layer down needs to offer the same protection and meet the same standards as the layer they have taken off.
Unless you’re talking about getting some sort of wetsuit, you’ll be looking at trialling a variety of products from shoes, to base layers, to hard hats. This is, of course, doable. But, there are some things to be aware of here:
Great! Now you’ve chosen your supplier and the products you want to try, your next step is to begin the product trial!
We know, this can be daunting but don’t worry, we’ve put together a guide on how to run a product trial.
If you don’t have the time or resources to run your own product trial, don’t worry, Lion Safety can do this for you. Find out more about how Lion Safety run product trials.