What brightens our days here at RepairClinic.com? Reading daily social media posts, news stories and personal blog posts that highlight the ways we’ve made fixing things easier for homeowners and businesses.
Sometimes, we discover exceptionally unique mentions about our brand that make us stop and smile.
Last month, we learned of Dr. Alan Gregerman’s latest book, “The Necessity of Strangers: The Intriguing Truth About Insight, Innovation, and Success.”
In this book, Dr. Alan Gregerman explores the idea that true innovation and success – at the business and personal level – can be driven by what we learn from strangers, individuals outside of our network of colleagues, business associates, friends and family.
Dr. Gregerman, an author, business consultant, speaker, Georgetown University professor and passionate home repair do-it-yourselfer, makes the case for reaching out to strangers as a means to spark and influence innovation and ultimately, success. He says that this type of true innovation will change the game and develop irreplaceable brands.
We are honored to be considered by Dr. Gregerman an example of a company that has done this well.
Here are excerpts from “The Necessity of Strangers” (published with permission):
“That’s why the folks at places like REI, Apple, Buckman Labs, RepairClinic.com, Khan Academy, Whole Foods, or even IKEA sleep well at night. They know that they are taking their customers to new levels of knowledge, capability, and possibilities and they happen to sell them useful stuff as part of the journey. So while your best customers might be sad if you suddenly folded your tent, would they find some other company or organization to fill the void? If so, you haven’t been valuable enough and you’ve still got some important work to do.
Needless to say, someone else could always provide us with a comfortable and clean hotel room, or create a new web portal that helps a government agency to connect with citizens, or sell us roughly the same food, or climbing gear, or web-based education, or exactly the same appliance parts, chemicals, and automobiles. But what they can’t replicate is your ability to reinvent the customer’s world in a way that truly matters.”
Dr. Gregerman explains how important social media is in connecting with more people to learn what they need and what they want and how to best deliver the solutions to make their lives easier.
“A big part of [RepairClinic.com’s] success is tied to YouTube, because they have figured out how to turn this popular website into a powerful customer service and education tool. In fact, at the time of this writing, RepairClinic has uploaded more than one thousand YouTube videos on topics ranging from repairing your refrigerator’s ice-maker, to changing your lawn mower blade, to replacing the agitator in your washing machine without getting agitated. All are done simply and professionally by regular people we can all relate to, and all of these videos are intended for the vast majority of customers who don’t own a tool belt. …This happened because someone looked at the world and imagined that the right products, a fair price, fast delivery and an increasingly popular technology could be combined to deliver more compelling and enabling value to a market of do-it-yourself customers – in a decidedly old-fashioned business. Innovation is all about connecting with, learning from, collaborating with, and empowering strangers.”
Thank you, Dr. Gregerman, for the great recognition and the kind words.
We’re extremely grateful for the three million+ people who’ve chosen us for their appliance, outdoor power equipment and heating and cooling replacement parts. By connecting with these people, we’ve learned how we can most effectively help make fixing things easier.
Every day, thousands of people use free our troubleshooting and repair help system. Our 1,300 free how-to repair videos are viewed 35,000+ times daily. That’s a whole lot of do-it-yourself repairs.
We’ll keep doing what we’re doing – learning from you!
Thank you.
To learn more about “The Necessity of Strangers,” check out AlanGregerman.com. You can pick up a copy of this book at your favorite local bookstore, Amazon and BarnesAndNoble.com. It’s also available in e-book and audio formats.