Racket Sensei (Yonex Tennis Racket Selection) Website Proposal
Sunny J. Kim
kims@rohan.sdsu.edu

2010.07.24

EDTEC 541, On-Campus Section

Problem, Need, or Opportunity
Seaside Rackets (SR) is a specialty sporting goods retailer with a store located in Cardiff, CA. During the 2010 Mercury Insurance Open, a professional women’s tennis event at the La Costa Resort, SR will sell Yonex-brand rackets exclusively at an on-site tournament vendor booth. SR will offer special tennis packages in the month of August. During this promotion month, five part-time SR staffers will require additional information about Yonex rackets, WTA professional players, and the SR demo program in which customers may test play a tennis racket prior to purchase. A Racket Sensei (Racket Teacher) website would aid staffers and potential customers to select the appropriate tennis racket based on a customer’s price and playing requirements.

Audience
The primary users are SR’s customer service representatives who fulfill phone and internet-orders and do not normally assist walk-in retail customers. The 5 part-timers are college-educated and work 6-12 hours per week in the business. Because advising customers with tennis racket selection is not their typical job function, service representatives need basic training to assist and advise customers in the tennis racket selection process. Secondary users are customers who are considering a new racket.

User's Needs
One-on-one interviews from a Performance Analysis of SR’s five part-time staffers revealed four user needs for training and/or sales performance job aid:

1. Driving Directions to the SR retail store from local tennis clubs
   • Three of the five staffers were unable to give accurate driving directions from La Costa Resort to Seaside Rackets.
2. Accessibility of Adult Racket features
• Across the five staffers, average product information recall for the top Yonex tennis rackets was below 50%. Each service representative reported that finding the price, power/control level, weight, and headsize specifications for specific adult tennis rackets is cumbersome.
3. Knowledge of Junior Racket fit
• Three of the five staffers were unsure how to fit children with an appropriate length junior racket.
4. Recall of information about WTA professionals using Yonex rackets
   • Four of the five staffers were unable to match top-ranked WTA tennis professionals with their Yonex rackets.

Environment
The users will access Racket Sensei, Seaside Rackets’ web-based training material, from computers with internet access. The majority of the website access is expected to occur in-store by customer service representatives. Customers who are considering rackets for purchase may also access Racket Sensei from home or work.

Resources and Limitations
Racket Sensei resources will come from the official Yonex tennis site and from Seaside Rackets’ 14 years of experience in retail tennis racket sales and service. This project is limited to the Yonex tennis line. Seaside Rackets also sells products from Wilson, Prince, Head, Babolat, Dunlop, and Tecnifibre, but will not be promoting these competing brands during the WTA tournament event due to an exclusive Yonex marketing agreement at the 2010 Mercury Insurance Open at La Costa Resort.

General Solution
Racket Sensei is a website that supports Seaside Rackets’ employees with training materials about Yonex adult and junior tennis rackets, WTA professional players using Yonex rackets, racket demo program, and information about Seaside Rackets.  The site will aid employees and customers considering a Yonex tennis racket during a promotional period in August 2010.