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Watch the various aspects of the pottery industry quietly, and comment on the pottery people.
You have stories and I don’t drink. The truth is just as easy to get drunk on.
The 15th issue of [Spicy Review] is coming, please prepare watermelons and small benches for ceramic people.
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Most after-sales disputes are actually caused by being dragged out. Only by arriving in time to help customers solve their problems can we win the trust of customers.
——Inscription
01
This sentence in the title of this article is neither said by a so-called expert from above, nor is it made up by the author who always believes that service is crucial for ceramic tile brands and dealers. It is the experience of a ceramic tile dealer. .
In the China Ceramics Network's 2021 "Tao Xing China" national ceramic tile bathroom market survey (Chongqing station), the author and several colleagues interviewed Ms. Zhou Hong, the Chongqing dealer of No. 1 Zhixuan (formerly No. 1 marble tiles). This sentence was what she said in an interview, which left a deep impression on the author and colleagues.
The third from the left in the picture is Zhou Hong
It is precisely because of this clear understanding that Zhou Hong led Chongqing No. 1 Smart Selection to launch a quick response service: "If there are any problems with the ceramic tiles purchased at No. 1, the urban construction site must be on site to deal with it within 12 hours. , construction sites in districts and counties must be on-site for processing within 24 hours," which has gained a good reputation in the local area.
02
In recent years, many industries, including construction and ceramics, have entered the era of "micro-growth". Competition among enterprises has continued to intensify. The competition of products in the past has been upgraded to a competition of comprehensive brand strength.
In the competition of brand comprehensive strength, the importance of sales service has also been further highlighted.More and more companies are beginning to realize that an excellent brand must not only win the market with its products, but also win people's hearts with its services.
The reason why the "lazy economy" has risen rapidly in recent years is mainly because it can provide powerful services to meet consumers' needs for saving worry, effort, time and trouble; It has become popular quickly, mainly because it can provide one-stop service and solve the pain points of consumers who want to save worry, effort, time and money when decorating.
Ceramic tiles are a low-frequency consumption and semi-finished product. Most people only renovate their houses once or twice in their lifetime and only buy ceramic tiles once or twice. Therefore, they will inevitably put the purchase, transportation, laying, return, maintenance, etc. Service is taken very seriously. At the same time, ceramic tiles are also a product that is particularly easy to be homogenized. Only by being given services can they have differentiated competitiveness.
Under the new trend of "lazy economy" and the popularity of decoration, in the environment where the era of demographic dividend is about to pass and the era of people's dividend is coming, ceramic tile manufacturers and dealers should win people's hearts and the market with their services.
03
Regrettably, many ceramic tile manufacturers and dealers simply cannot see or pretend not to see the importance of service out of cost considerations. They take it easy or even put off any after-sales problems and consumer disputes that occur. , causing its brand reputation to be damaged to a certain extent. This situation is not uncommon, and it is easy to identify several examples in recent media reports.
For example:
In mid-April this year, a woman named W in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province purchased ceramic tiles from a well-known ceramic tile brand dealer (hereinafter referred to as the "merchant") and paid a deposit of 5,000 yuan; in early May, she paid the merchant a final payment of 14,000 yuan. However, after receiving the balance payment, the merchant neither gave the order to Ms. W nor delivered the goods in time as promised on May 12. Instead, it delayed again and again. Since the renovation of her home had already begun, Ms. W was in urgent need of ceramic tiles, so she had no choice but to purchase new ceramic tiles as an emergency.
On May 21, the merchant once again promised timely delivery. On the same day, Ms. W came to the store and asked for a full refund. The person in charge of the store gave her an IOU: Because the ×× ceramic tile goods did not arrive as scheduled, Ms. W’s 19,000 yuan payment is scheduled to be returned before May 30, 2021.
Later, things developed far beyond Ms. W's expectations. It turned out that the store where she purchased the tiles had changed hands during this period, and the new owner did not know this. Since the deposit of 5,000 yuan and the balance of 14,000 yuan she paid to the original boss were not made through the cashier set up in the mall where the store was located, the mall had no way to resolve the matter.
After negotiation, the relevant person in charge of the shopping mall agreed to contact the tile brand to solve the problem for Ms. W. He also introduced another situation. Recently, four or five customers have complained about this tile brand. It is expected that there will be new complaints in the future, and their mall will coordinate and deal with them.
Another example:
In November 2020, a man named C bought more than 10,000 yuan of ceramic tiles from a well-known ceramic tile brand dealer (hereinafter referred to as the "merchant") in Huaihua, Hunan. At that time, he made an agreement with the merchant that the unused tiles could be returned.
After the renovation was completed in January of the following year, there were 11 extra boxes of ceramic tiles worth about 1,000 yuan, and Mr. Chen wanted to return them. In the middle of that month, he contacted the merchant on WeChat, and the merchant replied that he could not return the goods due to the long Spring Festival holiday. In late February, he contacted the merchant again, but the reply he received was that the return date had passed; later, the merchant asked him to return the goods. When he went back, he paid 80 yuan for the shipping fee, but the goods were returned but the payment was not returned. In the next three months, he contacted the merchant many times for refunds, and the merchants all responded that he was applying to the manufacturer.
In late May, the reporter who reported this contacted the relevant staff of the merchant and received a reply: Since this year, their store has been closed for renovation, resulting in no refunds. Moreover, the agreement with Mr. Chen at that time was to return the goods within 60 days, but it has now been exceeded for a long time. As for when the refund will be available, we will not know until the boss comes back in a few days. She cannot tell the specific day.
Another example:
Recently, a financial media wrote an article stating that a ceramic tile brand (author’s note: the brand’s parent company is a listed company) received a total of 17 complaints from consumers on the Black Cat Complaint Platform. The complaints mainly related to product quality, after-sales service, etc. Compared with other listed construction ceramics companies, the gross profit margin indicator of the brand's parent company has fallen the most, and the return on equity (ROE) has been declining for four consecutive years.
For this reason, the author specially opened the Black Cat Complaint Platform to verify it, and found that the result was indeed the case.
……
From the above cases reported in the media due to service problems, it is not difficult to see the importance of service to ceramic tile brands and dealers. As for the reason why a media in Case 3 combined the many complaints against a ceramic tile brand with the decline in gross profit margin and return on net assets of its parent company, Brother Chan’s understanding is that its product quality and after-sales service have obviously affected the company. development.
No ceramic tile brand will admit that it does not pay attention to service, and no ceramic tile dealer will say that its service to consumers is not in place; but in reality, there are indeed some ceramic tile brands and dealers who are very short-sighted and only care about immediate interests and do not care about consumers at all. legitimate rights and interests and take their complaints seriously. Therefore, there are overwhelming negative comments about its brand reputation on the Internet, which cannot be deleted or sink. If things go on like this, the deep impression left on consumers is that "however embarrassing the road to rights protection is, how ugly the corresponding brand image will be."
I would like to ask, if consumers check this information online before buying ceramic tiles, would they still dare to choose such a brand?
If these ceramic tile brands do not pay attention to this, do not take active and effective measures to deal with negative information, do not lead and restrain dealers, and work with them to create good services and build a good reputation, how can they rely on to win the trust of consumers and users?
04
To be honest, those who build ceramics should feel lucky that their industry is one of the industries least affected by e-commerce or directly the Internet economy.
In countless industries deeply affected by the Internet economy, whether it is a small merchant or a huge multinational company, in addition to the competitiveness of the product itself, the most important factor that determines its sales performance is word-of-mouth marketing. In today's era, any behavior of an enterprise will be infinitely amplified by consumers on the Internet platform and affect other people, thus ultimately affecting the development of the enterprise itself. Therefore, word of mouth is crucial.
Where does that reputation come from? On the one hand, it is naturally the product itself; on the other hand, it is the sales service, and in many cases it is more important than the product.
However, at the "One City, One Event" symposium on a certain terminal market research conducted by China Ceramics Network (the name of the "Tao Xing China" national ceramic tile and sanitary ware market survey before it was upgraded), a ceramic tile dealer actually said this: " The product is the most important. As long as the product is excellent, service is not necessary.”
The author quite disagrees with this. If companies and practitioners in other industries had this kind of thinking, they would have been eliminated by the market long ago.
Why are there so few ceramic tile brands that have successfully upgraded from "industry recognized brands" to "consumer recognized brands"? Why are ceramic tile brands always obsessed with self-pleasure and unable to extricate themselves?
The main reason is that they are insensitive to the real needs of consumers, and therefore do not pay attention to consumer services.
(Author: Zou Sijin)
