My vintage Mini needed a new clutch.

Apparently, changing it would take nearly six hours because of where the clutch was positioned in the car.

Why? How bizarre is that?

Not really, if you don’t factor repair into your design process.

So, good design is actually being able to put it right should it go wrong.

This makes perfect sense to me, until I factor in a customer’s desire for new things.

There is an indescribable pleasure in opening the box of something brand spanking new. Its smell. The fact it’s the latest version. Its shininess. Choosing its colour. Even taking off the protective film, a task seemingly loved by every new owner.

New can feel like progress.

Success even.

Deserved.

So I can see why a marketeer may be sighing at the thought of trying to encourage people to repair more. It isn’t simply a question of making things repairable.

WHY DOES NEW FEEL SO GOOD?

Well, it’s all the things I’ve just mentioned, together with that wonderfully quick sense of resolution.

Your old laptop is irritating you to your very core.

New laptop.

Problem solved.

Whoopy doo… isn’t life magical.

Repair asks rather more of us. The adult part of us, the responsible one in fact.

Particularly when we mentally acknowledge the experience will probably involve first finding somebody capable of fixing it, waiting three weeks, discovering the part isn’t available unless you replace half the laptop, and eventually being told it would have been cheaper to buy a new one. At this point, even the most sustainable of individuals is questioning their life decisions.

All because we’ve found ourselves with a product where productive repair hasn’t been considered.

But don’t underestimate our desire to mend things either.

There is a particular satisfaction in fixing something yourself. The small victory of working out what’s wrong, doing something about it and discovering that, actually, you can.

Take the humble spare button.

You buy a shirt and somebody has thoughtfully attached a spare button and a little length of matching thread.

You haven’t lost a button.

You don’t need either of them.

Yet there’s a tiny part of you almost hoping one comes off so you can use them.

Aha. I have the button.

The manufacturer anticipated that this might happen and gave you what you needed to sort it out.

That’s a very different experience from discovering the button is unique to that particular shirt, replacements don’t exist and you’ll need to buy another shirt.

So perhaps we shouldn’t underestimate this.

SO HOW DO WE CREATE THE SAME DOPAMINE HIT FROM REPAIR?

It should be easy. It’s what marketing teams do every day when they design an entire experience around the dopamine hit of acquisition.

Maybe we start by prolonging that hit with confirmation of the customer’s initial decision.

You chose well.

We expect you to own this for as long as you need it, and we’re so certain of your decision that we’re going to help you keep this relationship going.

The spare button suddenly becomes more than a spare button.

It says:

You’ll still be wearing this when you need it.

That’s arguably a level of unadulterated confidence you can’t refute.

And instead of all the excitement being concentrated around the moment something is bought, you’ve created another opportunity for the customer to feel good about owning it.

THEN THERE’S PRIDE

I’ve just realised I have a rather good example sitting in my own kitchen.

I’ve owned three Dualit toasters over the last thirty years.

Two of them have gone wrong.

Which doesn’t sound like the beginning of a particularly convincing recommendation.

Except all three are still in use, and the two that went wrong were repaired.

I kept one. I gave another to my brother, who repaired it himself, and the third went to my nephew after Dualit repaired it.

The faults didn’t make me think the toasters were finished.

They were worth fixing.

And the experience was different in each case.

My brother was able to get involved and repair his himself. There is enormous satisfaction in looking at something that wasn’t working and being able to say, I fixed that.

With my nephew’s, Dualit stepped back into the relationship and repaired it.

The manufacturer hadn’t disappeared just because the sale happened years ago.

And that, to me, is where repair starts becoming very interesting for brands.

THE CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP DOESN’T HAVE TO END AT THE TILL

We’ve become very good at designing the beginning of ownership.

Beautiful packaging. The reveal. That immaculate new thing sitting inside waiting for you.

Then, quite often, we’re left to get on with it.

Until it breaks.

At which point the experience can become considerably less beautiful.

But why should the repair experience be the disappointing bit?

If I can find the part easily, repair something myself or send it back to the manufacturer knowing they’ll help me keep it going, I’m not simply solving a fault.

I’m being reminded that I bought something worth keeping.

And if I’ve participated in repairing it myself, I’ve now put a little of myself into it too.

That object has a history.

It isn’t pristine anymore, but perhaps that’s not the only way we should measure value.

My three toasters have now ended up with three members of the same family.

They’ve gone from being something I bought to something I’ve repaired, kept and passed on.

That’s an experience newness simply can’t provide.

PERHAPS WE’VE BEEN SELLING REPAIR ALL WRONG

We’ve made newness exciting and repair responsible.

One offers anticipation and instant gratification.

The other tends to arrive wrapped in environmental obligation.

No wonder the shiny box keeps winning.

But what if repair were designed around some of the same human needs we’ve become so adept at satisfying when we sell?

The pleasure of solving something.

The pride of being capable.

The reassurance that you chose well.

The growing attachment to something you’ve had a hand in keeping alive.

Maybe the opportunity isn’t to persuade people that they should feel guilty about replacing things.

It’s to make keeping them feel better.

My Mini still needed its clutch replacing.

My toasters still went wrong.

And on reflection, three toasters have kept a brand alive in my life for over thirty years.

I’m now writing a post about it.