Knixwear is Reinventing Intimates with Social Media’s help

Are you struggling to take off your sports bra?

Spilling out of the sides of your bra?

Looking for leakproof underwear?

If you’re a woman reading this, you most likely are nodding your head in agreement to at least one of these statements. These are the struggles many women are dealing with and the Toronto based company Knixwear, is listening.

Knixwear, is reinventing intimates and proudly putting its customers at the centre of their company. Founder and CEO, Joanna Griffins, started the company by listening to a need many women have and created a solution that was missing from the market.

Social Media helping Knixwear’s Product Development 

Knixwear is no stranger to the benefits of social media for product development. They started on Kickstarter, a crowdfunding website, back in 2013 with their leakproof underwear and then again in 2015 with their Evolution 8-1 Bra. Crowdfunding on Kickstarter, is a cost-effective means to spread the word about the brand to a wider audience while being a convenient way to raise funds, validate ideas and get the valuable feedback they were seeking.

Knixwear is also very active with social listening, so much so that they have built it into their company’s DNA. This allows them to gain valuable insights on what they are doing right, what changes can be made, overall feelings of the brands strengths and weakness, and the list goes on. In a talk for Tech Toronto, Joanna Griffins explains that once a week they have an all hands-on meeting and the customer empowerment team uncovers their findings they tracked the week before. They then have conversations on how they can improve.

Knixwear constantly demonstrates that they are acting on the feedback they receive. After the launch of the Evolution Bra and receiving feedback the company stopped production for four months to fine-tune the product. They also completely revamped their business model after hearing a lot of feedback from the customers that the stores not having their sizes had a negative affect on the way they viewed themselves, the product and the company. And so, Knixwear became online focused. By listening and taking their customers suggestions seriously the company has grown over 200% online since making the switch from wholesale to online.

In a talk for Tech Toronto, Joanna Griffins, explains how being customer centred can help your business.

While the struggle to take off your sports bra or the need for leakproof underwear isn’t something most women want to talk about, Knixwear is getting women to chat. It may seem simple, but they are asking questions. From fun simple surveys on Instagram stories, to engaging with its customers and responding to their feedback they can get invaluable insights to help develop their products. They have created an open communication climate where women are more likely to give feedback and start conversations.

Throughout Knitwear’s website and social media channels you can see them place an importance in the language they use and its role in inviting dialogue. Again, they are focusing and emphasizing open communication and creating a dialogue by engaging the customers with “Lets talk”, “You asked we’ve listened.” This is mimicked when they market a new product as well. By emphasizing the features that the customer has asked for and highlighting how they have answered the problem the customers were seeking.

Knixwear;’s manifesto is a testament to how the customer plays a large role in the company. “…At Knix, we’re reinventing the intimates category, one product at a time. And we do it by listening, collaborating and sweating along with you, our customers. You are our product testers, our models, our inspiration…”  This is a company that by embracing the power of social media to help them with their product development and by doing so they are not only serving their customers but serving themselves as well.

Lessons for Others

Knixwear is listening to its customers and using the feedback to create and develop products.

• Using many different applications (such as crowdsourcing, social listening)
• They slowly launch new products and are flexible with what to develop next
• Social listening is part of the company’s DNA: They make it a priority
• They make use of their feedback and make changes to products
• They invite open communication and feedback
• They are making use of social media features such as stories to get fast feedback with surveys and responding to comments

If you have concerns as to the accuracy of anything posted on this site, please send your concerns to Peter Carr, Program Director, Social Media for Business Performance.

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