Trialing Specialist Report

The following excerpts from my report as a ‘trialing specialist’ (fanciful name for promoter in my opinion) shall speak volumes of my soup-promoting-but-muscles-straining temporary job experience at tesco.
Andrew, I hope that by adding the dash (-) in between the letters, I have not infringed any law and will not be sued by the ‘Monosodium Glutamate’ Company that manufactures this product.


Store Name and Location: Tesco Mutiara Damansara
Project Dates: 9/6/06-11/6/06
Project Title: V-O-N-O Soup

Comments:
Positive and Negative Feedback
One customer likes the taste as it is not too ‘creamy’. Another said that it is just right. However, there are customers who voiced out that it is salty. Some customers would love to try out other flavours, like tomato. A British lady said that she has a lot of mushroom and tomato soup at home as her kids love them as snacks.

Price
They seemed to be rather pleased (not overjoyed) that the soup is being sold at a not-so-reduced price of RM 3.15 when I told them the normal price is RM 3.50.

Packaging
Our cups became attraction of some customers. They requested me for the cup to drink distilled water. I proceeded to ask them to taste a cup of sample mushroom soup; then they can use the cup for their distilled water.

Promotion
Some customers requested for free gift.

Overall Product Acceptance/ Suggestion to Improve
To the customers’ comments, I suggested that they dissolve the powder in a larger volume of hot water. I added that the ‘salty’ mushroom soup tastes great with bread, especially with garlic bread.

Others
On 9/6, I was running out of stock for mushroom soup and I requested Dickson, Nicholas and Chriz to ask the staff to stock up. However, no replenishment was done in 2 hours. I had to tell the customers politely to come back later. I even promised a little boy that the stock would come. There were about 7 customers who left without mushroom soup.
7 X 3.15= RM 22.05 gone
It is better to have mushroom soup selling stock if we are giving out mushroom soup samples. Fortunately, the little boy came back and told me that they bought the corn-flavoured soup. Also, it is better to have the selling stocks right BESIDE me so that I can offer them to customers once they have tried the samples.

On 10/6, the mushroom soup was sold out by 5.55 p.m. When requested for replenishment, the staff said that it was out of stock. By 6.55 p.m. there are only 40 sachets of sampling socks left. I decided to ration it by only making 5 sachets in the next 2 hours and filling much less volume of soup in the cup.

Side Comment
I would appreciate if we promoters (or trialing specialists) are given a mini chair to SIT at times. I have confidence that efficient people will not misuse this privilege. By standing for 8.5 hours, there is no squeezing upon the veins on the muscles; this greatly reduces the blood flow to the heart. No amount of muscle flexing can be compared to an occasional 5-minute SIT on the chair. Thank you.