When I spoke with the folks at Fluidmaster, maker of toilet repair parts, I shared with them that I’d recently finished rebuilding a couple of my own toilets at home using their products. I’d barely gotten the words out of my mouth before Dave McFarland, their VP of Global Marketing, asked me, “What did you think of our instruction booklet?”
That user manual, it turns out, is a big piece of the company’s top focus in recent years: improving the customer experience. Based on my own personal experience, they’ve hit the nail on the head. And it turns out I’m not alone with my appreciation of their clear and straightforward installation directions. “I never thought we’d have our instruction booklet in an Instagram post,” added Corinne AndersonSchoepe, Director, Global Brand.
Fluidmaster, headquartered in San Juan Capistrano, California, is the #1 toilet repair brand worldwide. They boast more than 80% U.S. market share, sell their products in over 90 countries, have about 1,500 employees worldwide, and produce about 100 million toilet repair products annually. They’re still privately held by the family of their founder, Adolf Schoepe, whose invention of a new style of fill valve led him to establish Fluidmaster in 1957. Corinne AndersonSchoepe represents the third generation of the family helping lead the company; her father, Robert AndersonSchoepe, is Chairman and CEO. “We’ve tried to keep the family feel as we’ve grown,” said Corinne AndersonSchoepe. “We have a very good group of people working with us around the world, who love Fluidmaster as much as we do. And we make it a point to give back to the communities we’re in.”
“The values of the family are reflected in the business,” added McFarland.
Toilet repair wasn’t even Mr. Schoepe’s first home hardware invention. He helped pioneer the tubular door lock in 1946, and launched a business whose name reflected the locks’ ease of installation: Kwikset. He wound up selling that company, then moved on to plumbing.
“He found a better way to fill a toilet tank,” McFarland explained. “It uses the force of the water to work for the valve, not against it. He was able to get rid of the ball float.” Over the years since, the company has steadily added more products–in the toilet, around the toilet, and serving other plumbing purposes. They started as a combination of a DIY business, with products sold in hardware stores, and a supply company for plumbers. It wasn’t too long before they became an OEM supplier as well, with partnerships with Kohler, American Standard, and the like. They also expanded production internationally, into the UK, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Turkey, China and Mexico.
Like all DIY-oriented companies today, Fluidmaster is facing a changing customer base, with high school shop classes disappearing and fewer people working in the trades. “Our big focus for now and the future is understanding the customer’s journey,” McFarland said. “A lot goes into making the consumer experience better. We’ve brought consumers in and watched them use our products. There was a lot of stopping and starting, and we realized a lot of them weren’t reading the instructions. When we developed the new booklet and put that out, we cut the installation time in half. We’ve gotten more consumer focused and have designed that feedback into our products, and that’s been a huge win.”
Another focus is sustainability. “We’re really working to dial in to the right water usage,” said AndersonSchoepe. “Everyone wants to use as little water as we can, but using too little in our applications can cause problems with your pipes. We’re working on optimizing water use.”
Growing the business is also a priority. “We’re busy trying to build our international expansion, mostly in Europe,” AndersonSchoepe said. “We’re stable here in the U.S. India is a big focus too. Our fundamentals, and how our products work, are the same country to country. How we go to market varies. Consumers have far more product choices in England, for example. And while the fill valve there is the same, the flush side is much more complicated. And in Europe, everything is inside the wall.”
“We’re working on making investments to get the lead market position and build our brand in other markets,” added McFarland. “We’re trying to ensure Fluidmaster relevance for the next 60 years.”
One way they’re doing that is looking at more advanced products and other business opportunities. “International will continue to be an opportunity for us, and we’re also looking at the direct to consumer business,” said AndersonSchoepe. “We’re looking at other ways to manage and control water, and at leak detection–smart products might help with that.”
“Smart products could help with the failure to flush right the first time,” added McFarland. “Water-saving toilets might use less water per flush, but then people have to flush them again and again. That’s another place we’re looking at smart solutions.”
“It’s all about being responsible with it,” AndersonSchoepe said. “We want to help the environment while helping people.”
They realize, of course, their business isn’t necessarily a popular topic. “The interesting thing about the products we sell is that the customers don’t want to think about them until they have to,” McFarland said. “That adds complexity to our marketing–how to help a consumer who doesn’t want to even think about it, successfully fix their toilet.”
Comments