Geek Squad takes creative where it isn’t

Geek Squad started with one college drop out, a car with a logo, and a lot of creativity. Founder and Chief Inspector Robert Stephens just spoke at “Customer Service is the New Marketing,” Sataisfaction’s one-day conference in SF.

Robert dropped out once from tech school and then again from art school. But between the two he seemed to gain a deep appreciation of the difference between right-brain and left-brain thinking. He said (as closely as I could capture it), “Right and left brain struggles exist in most businesses… there’s what you do [left-brain] and how you do it [right-brain]. How you do it matters… When two companies do the same thing, what’s going to differentiate one company from another? Customers crave an authentic experience. Just delivering an experience isn’t enough. You have to deliver an authentic one.”

Robert naturally considers service the means by Geek Squad differentiates. “Service is the intangible stuff, the stuff you can’t measure, and the stuff your competitor isn’t going to copy.”

But it’s also interesting how much of his story and obsession is with the cars, uniform, and other livery that signify the brand. But he feels it’s the creative and cheap way to remind people of Geek Squad, calling it “time release marketing”. Police cars obviously inspired their cars (because the pattern could adapt to any vehicle). NASA mission control inspired the uniform. He recognized the value of going for the geek-style uniforms, noting, “[I realized] these are things my competitors are not going to do.”

Overall, it was entertaining to hear from a founder that so clearly got how culture, trends, service, and referent leadership all fit together. On the topic of trends, he understood that technology in the home represented an opportunistic social shift: “now the most popular people in society seeking out the least popular people in society for help.”