Immediate post sales support

We hadn’t planned to buy new light fittings, or luminaires to give them their correct name, but a visit to a local DIY store of the type that we once called ‘sheds’ hastened a decision that we had apparently been contemplating for some months to upgrade lighting in the home. Beyond the humble lamp shade that most people can manage to install, anything requiring electrical connection presents a real challenge, one I was well aware of from previous experience. Domestic electrical installation it seems, remains largely unchanged since around the turn of the last century. Thomas Edison modelled his electrical distribution on the then standard gas system and today’s system would surely be recognisable to a time traveller from the 1870’s. While most electrical appliances are plug and play and the addition of the plug itself by the unskilled strongly discouraged as nowadays they are not made re-wirable, the typical domestic luminaire has to be connected - that is hard wired to the supply. Of course the packaging makes no reference to this and the display model is attached to a wooden panel. Fixing to a real ceiling is altogether a different matter. I try to look both interested in the choice of luminaire while surreptitiously sneaking a look at the ease, or otherwise of actually installing the purchase, but the packaging usually defeats this attempt. So having got the box home and overcome the not inconsiderable challenge of prising open the vacuum-sealed packaging the reality is revealed. The instruction leaflet carefully avoids showing the actual electrical interface and the collection of looped cables and switch runs to be found in the ceiling rose. A bracket is helpfully enclosed on non-standard fixing centres along with the suggestion to employ an electrician. Do the thousands buying light fittings over the counter really all employ electricians? I seem to recall that in Germany sockets for lights are just as standard as wall sockets for other appliances. In fact years ago when I was a product manager an inventor tried to sell our company a UK ceiling light socket, but it really needs both wiring accessory manufacturers and installers to introduce and of course house builders to specify. Meanwhile fiddling with brackets and wiring while perched up a ladder and holding the unit looks set to continue. Nobody seems prepared to make the quantum change needed in the market, but at least the information could be more practical. In industrial marketing the documentation available to ensure the product is specified is essential. Typically 20 per cent of project time is spent researching and specifying. A pity that hard to install consumer products don’t actually invest a bit more in both design and documentation.