Mapping what homeowners need from battery-powered yard tools

The question

Homeowners are moving from gas to battery tools, and the company wanted its battery range to grow with them.

Its consumer insights team wanted to understand the jobs people take on in their yards through the year, and which of them battery tools could do better, so the business could decide where to develop next.

Our approach

We started from the jobs rather than the tools. People’s own tasks and frustrations came first, from online tasks and visits to their homes, and a working session with the client team shaped them into a framework.

Yard work changes with the seasons, so we added search and social data, which runs all year, to cover the jobs that fall outside a fieldwork window.

We read the jobs at two levels, the whole yard and the single task, because range and product decisions need different detail. A pilot survey tested the framework before a national survey measured it, since building and sizing a framework in one step is risky.

What the team came away with

A map of yard-care demand built on the jobs people need done, measured nationally, for the whole range and for each task.

Sessions in a data room worked through the evidence with the team, and executive summaries and a data tool put it in the hands of the wider business.