5 key points of customer relationship management

Looking at the company's brand through the eyes of users

After the two Mercedes-Benz female owners in Xi'an and Lanzhou, who were making a lot of noise, sat on the hood to defend their rights, on April 18, a woman also appeared in Changsha. The female car owner sits on the hood to defend her rights, this time it is Cadillac. These brand-name auto retailers make customer service a living example of a negative.

Mercedes-Benz is one of the few century-old car brands. However, it is such a century-old shop known for its German-made quality that has recently triggered a huge tsunami of public opinion. I believe that many potential Mercedes-Benz consumers will choose to wait and see, hesitate or even switch to other brands.

How to understand a brand intuitively and accurately is probably no more direct than looking through the eyes of users.

"I'm a culturally educated person, but this incident has brought my decades of education into a humiliating shame!"

"I'm just too reasonable to be bullied by you. "

"I wouldn't do such a shameless thing if there was a talk about this."

Who forced consumers into this? Are customers gods or jokes?

With the continuous fermentation of the Mercedes-Benz incident, the Mercedes-Benz booth at the Shanghai International Auto Show, which started on April 16 this year, has also become a hot spot. How to solve it, it can be seen that the eyes of the masses are sharp. Although Mercedes-Benz officially issued an apology statement again, in the eyes of many people, even if the two parties have reached a settlement in this incident, the brand image of Mercedes-Benz made in Germany has long since disappeared. .

Ni Kai, president and CEO of Beijing Mercedes-Benz Sales and Service Co., Ltd., said in an interview with several media that this "accidental event" is regrettable. Mercedes-Benz has more than 3.6 million sales in China. Customers, dealers and manufacturers should learn from the lessons, and Mercedes-Benz will reflect deeply and actively express its sincerity and determination to solve the problem.

"If I were a customer and I encountered such a problem, I would not only ask for a replacement of the engine, but also for a new car." Ni Kai said that Mercedes-Benz hopes to be fair and equitable, and has also asked for it on many occasions. High standards for dealers are strictly required, but the 620 Mercedes-Benz dealerships are indeed difficult to manage. From a legal perspective, excessive interference in the relationship between dealers and customers is prohibited.

Clearly, these explanations do not help refresh the image of Mercedes-Benz in people's minds. If Mercedes-Benz still only treats the case of female car owners' rights protection as a case, it may not be able to convince the public after the crisis public relations.

Bullying customers is a step backwards in customer service management

A McKinsey research report states that customer experience is the most powerful growth artifact. Regardless of industry, the correlation between customer experience and business growth is becoming more apparent.

Today, nearly every business says customer experience is critical to them—if not a top priority, at least a priority. But just look at the complaints that pop up everywhere on social media, and you'll see that most businesses are just "talking and not practicing."

What is the reason for the inconsistency of words and deeds?

Many people on Weibo said that the original 660,000 thing, Mercedes-Benz has to make 6.6 billion, this sentence has a sense of ridicule, but it really reflects the Mercedes-Benz or domestic Some auto retailers themselves have a long-standing problem: the car is sold and it's over, as for customer feedback, deafness or prevarication delays, typical store bullying behavior.

To do a good job of service, think from the perspective of customers first

Different from high-frequency products, people will have stricter requirements on the selection of low-frequency products. As far as daily life is concerned, the houses and cars that Chinese people are most concerned about are typical low-frequency commodities: expensive, long service life, quality and after-sales requirements. Generally speaking, purchasing experience, product attributes and service level are the three major factors that affect consumer decision-making. Taking automobiles as an example, consumers’ judgment will be influenced by channels, purchasing methods, car styles, performance, prices, and even after-sales supporting services.

Henry Ford, the founder of Ford, said: A company can only survive if its pursuit is consistent with the pursuit of society, that is, the company's survival is to benefit customers, employees, and society. to prosper forever.

The competition in the auto industry is quite fierce, and the breakthrough point of auto retail may be in any link of brand, product, price and service. After all, retail is to serve consumers. Starting from the needs of consumers, constantly adjusting strategies and improving service capabilities can have the last laugh.

Leonard Berry, a famous American marketing professor, has conducted in-depth research on many retail companies and found that the best retail companies create value for customers in five mutually beneficial ways. Provide viable solutions to meet customer needs, truly respect customers, communicate emotionally with customers, set fair prices, and facilitate customers to save customers time and energy. These guidelines may seem simple, but they may not be easy to implement. We can totally observe how some businesses succeed by adopting these methods, and many more refuse to adopt them and lose the good luck.

1. Solving customer problems

The company advocates selling solutions rather than products and services.

As far as a female car owner in Xi'an is concerned, what does she need? When purchasing, she simply needs a brand new Mercedes-Benz new car with no quality problems, and then see what Mercedes-Benz dealers have done? There is a problem with the product, there is a problem with the service, what have you solved for the customer? It doesn't solve anything, it creates problems, and honestly, would you like to sit on the hood of your car and cry?

2. Treat customers with respect

Franklin said: each other's self-esteem is the bottom line of interpersonal communication. To respect others is to respect yourself. The best retail businesses show customers the respect that Franklin espoused. Many companies take it for granted that they have achieved basic respect for customers, but is that really the case? Disrespectful behavior includes rude salespeople, as well as sophisticated and deceptive pricing.

The Mercedes-Benz female car owner was deceived many times by the Mercedes-Benz 4S shop in the process of rights protection, and said that the other party took the blame for the "three guarantees of the state", took the relevant regulations out of context, and prevaricates the consumers.

3. Build an emotional connection with customers

Will consumers still trust your brand if they don't get an item or replace it within a few weeks?

The Mercedes-Benz female owner said that she just did something that could be called "destroying". Think it's cool.

4. Set a fair price

The price does not match the actual price. Earning customer trust through fair pricing is a long-term solution.

In business, the essence of an enterprise is to make profits, and it is reasonable to obtain profits through business rules. Paying attention to business reputation is the creed of ancient Huizhou merchants. The so-called "trust-based management, business etiquette first", "sale and fairness, fairness and integrity, integrity-based" is their experience in thousands of years of business practice. "Do not deceive", establish long-term relationships of mutual benefit with consumers, and do not do "one-shot" transactions.

5. Save your customers time and effort

When the buying process is inconvenient, the value a business offers is compromised.

After tossing and turning for more than half a month, even the people who eat melons are tired, not to mention the crying female Mercedes-Benz owner. Put ourselves in our shoes and think about it, it is not just the time and energy of consumers. , I am afraid that even the brand value of Mercedes-Benz is being discounted.

How to make the correct remedy?

How errors in customer service activities are remedied depends on whether the result is an error or a process error. If the customer service work is not done well, the customer will ask for material compensation; if it is the attitude of the service staff, the customer will ask for an apology.

In the book "Customer Relationship Management", there is such a scene: If you are a manager of a company, you encounter two complaining customers, one of them said that the service work is good, but the receptionist The attitude of the staff is rude, and another said that the staff at the reception are friendly, but the work is not carried out in place, which wastes a lot of time and energy.

What should you do?

In the case of "the reception staff is rude", an apology should be given to the customer, and a welcome coupon should be presented at the same time. What the customer really wants is a sincere message from the company and the staff. Apologize. In the case of "inadequate execution of service work", the customer hopes to receive services that meet the value. You can apologize for the whole process, but the customer will not be satisfied. The customer hopes to get some compensation for the inconvenience caused to her.

Behavioral research tells us that if it is a service error in the process, it should be remedied based on the process, and if it is a service error based on the results, it should be remedied based on the results.

Let's take a look at the settlement agreement between the Mercedes-Benz rights-defending female car owner and Xi'an Lizhixing Company, such as car replacement compensation:

1. Replace a new Mercedes-Benz car of the same model;

2. A full refund of the "financial service fee" of more than RMB 10,000 previously paid by the owner;

3. Mercedes-Benz offered to invite the owner to visit the Mercedes-Benz factory and assembly line in Germany;

4. Give the car owner ten years of "one-to-one" VIP service;

5. Make up the birthday (lunar calendar) for the female car owner, and the cost will be paid in full by the other party.

Combining this incident, it is not difficult to find that Mercedes-Benz and its dealers have both result errors and process errors. The settlement agreement reached covers five key points of customer relationship management in detail. Of course, it is still worth observing whether Mercedes-Benz takes this opportunity to fully improve its customer service mechanism and optimize dealer management.