How Does Cnoc Use Feedback?

Feedback is deeply important to what we do here at Cnoc. One of our foundational goals is to offer those products that everyone wishes existed, which means two things: we need to know all the products people wish existed, and once we’ve created them, we need to know if we got it right. That majority of our products don’t have obvious equivalents, making customer feedback essential in their creation and design. There’s two main kinds of product feedback we track here at Cnoc, so we’ve broken down those two kinds so y’all know what kinds of information we love to get from you.

Product ideas: 

Fun fact: everybody interviewing for a position at Minimal Gear is asked what piece of outdoor gear they wish was made. It gives folks a sense of our mind set at Minimal Gear and we always love hearing their answers because at the end of the day, we love to daydream up gear. If we had our way, our product catalog would be much, much larger than it is now. Alas, like many small businesses, we are often limited by our available resources. Instead, we diligently track product ideas folks reach out to us about - from 42mm to 28mm adapters to mini Vectos and Vesicas to size adjustable bear cans, we track it all, including the frequency with which an idea is suggested. Then, when we do have the resources to create something new, we heavily rely on that list.

Product feedback:

At the same time, we diligently track the feedback we get from users that are using our products. While the Minimal Gear staff are all users of our products, at the end of the day the experience of five people isn’t going to reflect the wildly varied experiences folks have with our products. We have an excellent customer support platform that allows us to track information via every warranty that gets submitted and note common points of failure, frequent misuses, and where folks get confused in their use of the product. This kind of data tracking was instrumental in our redesign of the Vecto’s neck weld a year ago - and has allowed us to see the success of that redesign. While it may seem counterintuitive, we appreciate every warranty claim that gets submitted to us, as it gives us vital information we need to make our products better. 

The product that’s maybe the best example of being formed by these two kinds of feedback? 

Look no further than the Buc. The handy cooking bag was inspired by hearing folks ask repeatedly for a reusable way to replace freezer bag cooking from their backpacking routines. Then, during its initial run, we repeatedly heard from folks asking for it to be smaller so users could reach the bottom of it with a long handled spoon. And so we redesigned it to be smaller, making it one of the most user collaborative products we’ve ever released. 

Got a product idea or a way we could make one of our existing products even better? Reach out to contact@cnocoutdoors.com - we always, always, want to hear from you!