A new way to approach customers

No business would deny the importance of being close to the customer. But how to get close? How can you get closer when your competitors are also getting closer to customers?

It is Sony's latest practice in China to set up an experience center to display brand values in an all-round way, let the experience explain the truth, and obtain customer feedback. For some high-tech products and fashion products, this is a novel and effective way to approach customers.

Shunchi Group has both real estate development and intermediary services, which is unique in China. The market information obtained by intermediary services has a great reference for real estate development; the accumulated customer resources can be converted into real estate development customers and promote sales.

LG Electronics and SAP have set up research institutes in China to develop and design products that Chinese customers demand. It is not a new thing for multinational companies to set up research institutes in China, but many companies only set up R&D institutions to take advantage of the relatively cheap wisdom of Chinese researchers, especially to serve the needs of Chinese customers. The experience of LG and SAP shows that developing in the customer's side can improve the response speed.

Sony: Experience close to

One weekend in mid-July, the "Sony Dream Garden" on Huaihai Road in Shanghai was crowded with people. In the crowded crowd, a visitor with gray hair and bright eyes looked slightly worried. This person is Kei Koji - the newly appointed chairman of Sony (China) Co., Ltd. in February this year. He worries about the number of people and whether everyone has enough opportunities to experience it.

Shanghai Sony Dream Garden is Sony's third experience venue in China. It officially opened its doors on June 23 this year. The first two experience venues are located in Beijing: "Sony Dream", an experiential technology park located in the Wangfujing area, and "Sony Dream Garden" in Beijing, located in the Zhongguancun area. The same purpose is to display the Sony brand, but the purpose and functions of "Sony Quest" and "Sony Dream Garden" are different: the former is mainly to provide a science park for teenagers to experience the fun of technology, while the latter is a collection of the most cutting-edge Sony brand. Fashionable electronic and entertainment content products enable consumers to experience fashionable digital life from zero distance.

Getting close to customers through the experience center Sony has three main ways to get close to customers through the experience center: first, to design unique experience effects to attract customers; second, to let the staff play the role of tour guides to mobilize the experience of customers interest; the third is to hold various activities to attract customers to come and go.

Kodera Kei said that when Sony entered a new market, one of the market strategies was to set up a showroom to display listed and unlisted products to let users know more about Sony. This is done in Tokyo, New York, and Paris. As the Chinese market develops faster and faster, and the importance of the market is increasingly confirmed, the time has come to build an experience center. Kodera Kei emphasized: "The experience center established now is completely different from the previous showroom. In the past, the showroom was used to display products, but now the experience center is a place for Sony to communicate and communicate directly with customers."

"In terms of marketing We have done a lot of work, and we also asked survey companies to conduct customer surveys. The difficulty lies in whether this survey report faithfully reflects the real needs of the market and reflects the real situation of customers." Kei Koji expressed satisfaction with the role of the experience center: "In the Sony Dream Garden, we can fully communicate with customers, we can get very vivid information, and hear the voices of users in the market most directly. These voices can play a very important role in product design and development and marketing strategies. Its role."

Yasushi Nishioka, the head of Sony Dream Garden, has been busy with its establishment in Shanghai for two and a half years. He recalled: "We carried out activities in four places in Shanghai: Huaihai area, Pudong, Nanjing Road and Xujiahui. After investigation and traffic statistics, it was finally decided to open on Huaihai Road. We also conducted random interviews with the target customers on their attitudes towards life and personality characteristics to understand their dreams and pursuits."

In this project with an initial investment of 1.5 million US dollars Where, Sony put a lot of effort into designing every area and detail. Entering the lobby on the first floor, customers are greeted by a silver tent, a "phantom tunnel" that showcases Sony's projection technology. Walking into this large-screen digital channel composed of projector, LCD, and surround sound, you can see a pair of exquisite images on the silver ceiling. There is an office simulation area in the video professional room, the purpose is to let customers experience the convenience of work brought by Sony. In the PS area, customers are invited to experience the wonderful PlayStation games in person... At present, this experience center has three floors and an area of more than 1,000 square meters, including more than a dozen areas such as Radio World, Need for Cinema, Video Speed, and Shooting Corner. Products are titled with storylines or life scenes, trying to make customers feel the charm of Sony in the experience.

In order to facilitate the customer's experience and feelings, the design of these areas is adjusted according to the customer's feedback. Nishioka said: "In the past, there were no speakers in the PS exhibition area. I was afraid that some people would find it very noisy, so I used headphones. However, many customers reported that it was very troublesome, and he played alone, and his friends who came together could not feel the effect, so We decided to put speakers, but control the volume. The biggest change was in the notebook area. We found that the original height was not suitable for children to play, so we adjusted the height of the table."

Sony also conducted a consultation with the staff of Dream Garden. Strict selection and training. They want employees to be like tour guides, inspiring the customer experience. In Sony Dream Garden, we can see that all the service staff are very young, both men and women are beautiful in appearance and have friendly smiles.

Before the opening, a training consultant from a famous theme park once gave Sony Dream Garden's employees teamwork and happy communication guidance. These employees need to be able to chat with customers very closely, like a tour guide, rather than a product introduction like a sales store. "This is a VAIO notebook, how big is the screen, don't say anything like that, because customers can learn about it in the store." Nishioka told us, "We hope to introduce other things here, such as the VAIO logo, which is Video Audio Integrated Operation The initials of , represent the digital audio-visual integration operating system. In design, the left side is a sinusoidal curve, which represents analog data, and the right side is the binary number of 1 and 0, which represents the transition from analog to digital age. And development, you may not know this."

At Sony Dream Garden, employees communicate with customers more from the perspective of lifestyle. "For example, if a guest wears a white dress, our staff will say, you can try it with a red camera, it's very beautiful," Nishioka said.

Every weekend, Sony Dream Garden will also hold special events for certain products, such as "Play Station Day", providing about 110 game consoles, which can be played after guests arrive. Nishioka said: "We will continue to try the effects of various activities. Why do many customers want to come back? It's because the activities are different each time they come, and the feelings are different." According to the survey, customers who have been to Sony Dream Garden The proportion of people who want to experience it again is as high as 98%.

Three Goals Kodera Kei described to us two important tasks on Sony Dream Garden's shoulders: enhancing the brand image and gaining customer feedback. Another point he mentioned rarely, but also very important - influence the way of life of consumers in the future.

At present, Sony still focuses on the image of various products in China. In the eyes of Chinese consumers, Sony represents either a TV, a notebook computer, or a video camera, but there is no overall image displayed in front of the customers. One of Kodera's tasks is to change that through branding events and projects like Sony Dream Garden: "Sony Dream Garden is a very important branding project for us. It's not about selling products, and a lot of the products there aren't on the market. We hope that customers can understand the overall Sony and the connotation of the entire brand."

On the one hand, Sony Dream Garden can integrate the original customers' scattered impressions of a single product to form an overall image. Nishioka said: "When guests come to this place, they will learn that Sony also has such products. It turned out that this product was the first to be produced by Sony. It turned out that this technology is Sony's expertise." In addition to electronic products, Sony Dreams Yuan is also a platform for Sony to promote its entertainment content offerings, as well as promotions for Sony Music and Sony Pictures, as well as for Sony Music's artists. For example, Sony Dream Garden will cooperate with Shanghai's Oriental Radio's fashion music column on the first floor of the radio world, and there will be no live broadcast of two music programs every week.

On the other hand, Sony Dream Garden can deepen customers' understanding of Sony's brand value. Kodera Kei believes: "We must increase the importance of the Sony brand in people's lives by raising awareness of the value of the Sony brand, so that people fully realize the value that the brand can bring, to a certain extent, this is more than the market share. More important."

For example, robotic products, "It is the integration of Sony's most advanced technology. We invest heavily in research and development of such products not to seek profit, but to help people realize their dreams through this product." Kei Kodera Say. When people are children, they may have a dream of entering the age of robots in the future, and Sony provides customers with this platform to realize their dreams, which allows Sony to build a brand image that helps people realize their dreams. The greatest value of such products is to let people understand the value of the Sony brand.

Therefore, Sony Dream Garden's employee evaluation objectives include indicators of brand enhancement. Nishioka said: "Every word you say is a part of the brand's activities, such as introducing the meaning of VAIO, thousands of people a day and tens of thousands of people on weekends will understand that this communication has a great impact on the brand. Yes."

Although Sony Dream Garden does not aim to sell products, there are still many people who don't hesitate to take out their banknotes after experiencing the shock. Someone once came to buy a robot dog with cash, and after learning that it was not for sale, they called to Hong Kong to buy it; there were also people who had been in a daze for a long time after experiencing the effect of home theater, and the first thing they realized was that they decided to buy. "It surprised me a bit," Koji Kei said. He hadn't thought that the experience could have such a quick effect.

In the eyes of Koji Kei, the main function of Sony Dream Garden is communication. This kind of communication is two-way, one direction is to show the brand value to customers, another more important direction is to get customer feedback.

In Sony Dream Garden, each employee has a question form, and every night, they must record the questions raised by customers that day, and then arrange, count, and enter the system by special personnel. Such statistics are carried out in different categories. For example, there are VAIO notebooks and other products under the IT category, so what percentage of all IT products are the problems related to VAIO notebooks; what models are these problems related to, and what proportions; these problems are Which category; what color is the most popular, etc. These feedback information will be passed to the relevant departments such as design, production and marketing.

Xiao Sigui divides the data into two categories: one is hard, such as the number of visitors; the other is soft, such as what kind of product a customer likes and what good suggestions he has for this product , what creative ideas does he have. Koji Kei said that he is more concerned about soft indicators, "for example, under what kind of scenarios do customers like to use our products, what is the customer's life like, what kind of family they have, what kind of company they are in work, what kind of dreams do they have, etc."

Kei Kodera's biggest expectation for Sony Dream Garden is to understand customer feedback through this place, so as to design and manufacture what customers want.

Sony Dream Garden also plays another role, which is to influence the future lifestyle of young people. When we visited Sony Dream Garden, we saw many teenagers and even children lingering in it with curious eyes. Sony may have left a deep impression on them. As Koji Kei said: "When a person is a teenager, what he is exposed to will leave a long-lasting impression in his life. It is very important to make a good first impression on the younger generation." Sony is here to accompany Chinese teenagers Growing up, they were Sony's potential consumers and one of the foundations for Sony's $8 billion sales target in China in 2008.

Although it has not been open for a long time, Sony Dream Garden's traffic has reached a very dense level, with more than 1,000 visitors every day, and more than 10,000 people a day on weekends. No wonder Koji Kei is a little worried about the effect of the customer experience. But the following data may allay his concerns: In the first month of business, each customer stayed for an average of half an hour to 40 minutes, with the longest reaching 6 hours.

Shunchi: Intermediaries are close to each other

If we say that Sony has built an experience center, it means that customers are "self-inviting". So Shunchi Group's approach to customers is aggressively aggressive. Shunchi Group has two brothers with the same roots: Shunchi Real Estate Group and Shunchi China Holdings Co., Ltd. The former mainly provides real estate intermediary services, while the latter's main business is real estate development. The two brothers are expanding across the country at an industry uproar.

Both brothers are headquartered in Heping District, Tianjin, but their offices are not in the same place. Zhang Zhenguang, vice president of Sunco Real Estate, told us: "In terms of management structure, intermediary and development are two independent systems in Sunco. We seek independent development in the two fields." Nevertheless, after all, they belong to one Brands, in terms of the utilization of customer resources, are naturally fertile and not outsiders. "We are all a family, and there are many linkages." said Fu Yanbin, assistant to the president of Sunco China Holdings Co., Ltd.

The linkage between the two is mainly manifested in: the market information obtained by the intermediary service agency and the accumulated customer resources are of great help to the decision-making and sales of real estate development. As for the intermediary itself, its channel construction and huge customer base make it capable of further mining customer value.

Close to customers through intermediary services Shun Chi Group was established in 1994. At that time, its main business was commercial housing agency. The earliest model was to organize a professional sales team to provide sales services for other developers' real estate. In the second year, Sunco entered the real estate development field, and in the third year began to participate in the intermediary business. Looking at these two decisions today, the correlation is very obvious. However, at that time, Sunco made these two decisions because they were optimistic about the development prospects of the two businesses.

The effect of intermediary services on real estate development is close to customers. Although there are more unintentional factors, the practice of transforming customer resources is still worth learning from.

In terms of using intermediary services to get close to customers, Sunco has three main points of experience: First, the intermediary chain stores quickly enter the first-tier cities in the country, and they are intensively controlled, and generally enter new cities at the same time or before real estate development; Customers in the channel implement comprehensive customer relationship management; the third is to implement simple and clear cooperation between intermediary business and real estate development.

Since 2003, Sunco Real Estate has established a nationwide intermediary service channel. Zhang Zhenguang said: "We entered the tertiary market on a large scale in May 2000, and adopted the chain operation model to open 6 stores in Tianjin, which are distributed in 6 districts of Tianjin." Now the chain stores of Shunchi Real Estate are not only in Tianjin has more than 200 stores, accounting for 30% of the local market share, and has also entered 14 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Nanjing, with nearly 700 chain stores.

"In this industry, traditional storefronts naturally have the function of attracting customers to the store. Most of our chain stores choose to be near residential areas, emphasizing long-term control and influence on surrounding communities, and establishing relationships with residents of surrounding communities. Close relationship. This is the main way we develop customer resources." Zhang Zhenguang said. Statistics from May this year show that Shunchi's chain stores in Tianjin have an average of 4,000 customers per day.

In addition to using chain channels, Shunchi Real Estate also uses some information channels to get closer to customers, including unified customer service numbers and websites. Zhang Zhenguang believes: "The intermediary industry is first and foremost the information service industry. The most traditional storefront channel is to be close to customers in terms of spatial distance, but one of the characteristics of informatization channels is that the speed is fast and the information capacity is relatively large, which is close to customers in terms of service capabilities. , to bring convenience to customers." He added: "85% of our 5,000 employees are college graduates, and we hope to establish a professional brand image through their services." Customers will receive long-term maintenance. Zhang Zhenguang said: "A certain customer trades through our channel, and we will conduct a return visit three months later to investigate customer satisfaction and related complaints. We continue to develop new business and service varieties, and some businesses have long-term existence. For example, leasing, the follow-up maintenance will be done for a long time."

Shunchi Real Estate has its own customer database, and each chain store is an entrance and terminal. The key link of customer transactions, such as seeing two houses, will form a record and feedback to the Internet. The customer's needs, customer's transaction situation, tracking situation, etc. are all recorded here, which are also the basis for Shunchi Real Estate to judge the market and make decisions to develop business varieties.

These painstaking efforts have not only promoted the rapid development of the intermediary business itself, but also played a very good role in promoting the development of the real estate development business. Since intermediary businesses sometimes enter a city before real estate development, the information they collect will undoubtedly have a beneficial impact on real estate development decisions and sales. Since there is no mutual management relationship between Sunco Real Estate and Sunco China Holdings, the two parties have adopted a clear and simple cooperative relationship: "From our customer resources, we will explore and screen valuable customers for the development company, and Provide relevant sales services, do targeted publicity, and promote their transactions; at the same time, customers who purchase commercial housing of the development company will also become the customer resources of the real estate company. This linkage method brings win-win results to both developers and real estate buyers." Zhang Zhenguang said.

Two achievements In terms of using intermediary services to get closer to customers, Sunco has achieved obvious results in at least two aspects. First, the real estate development business uses the market information obtained by intermediaries to make corresponding decisions, and the intermediary channels The accumulated customer resources have provided great support for the sales of Sunco Real Estate; secondly, Sunco Real Estate itself has a deeper and deeper understanding of customers, and the number of customers is becoming larger and larger. More service content, so as to maximize the value of customers.

For the real estate industry, it is not easy to directly understand customer needs. Generally, a third party conducts market research. The intermediary business of Sunco provides a unique channel for Sunco real estate developers to understand customers and the market. For example, in the process of national expansion, the pioneers of the intermediary know the local real estate market environment and residents' consumption habits. Information is very important to whether real estate development enters the area and how to enter the area.

Fu Yanbin of Sunco Holdings said: "The Nanjing market was first entered by Sunco Real Estate. After understanding the local customs, customers' consumption habits, and the basic situation of the market, the developer felt that it was very suitable to enter, and then entered the market later. ."

The biggest help of the intermediary business to the real estate development business is in the sales. In Tianjin, 30% of the properties developed by Sunco are sold through intermediary channels. Zhang Zhenguang said: "We use the existing customer resources. First, we have a large number of customers in this channel. Their needs are diverse, ranging from millions of villas to hundreds of thousands of second-hand houses. The span is relatively high. Big. We can use this channel for sales. The second point is the transformation of customer resources. For example, when a customer comes to us to sell a second-hand house, he has the possibility to buy a new building at the same time, or he comes to rent the house, He also has such potential. We have tapped a large number of potential commercial housing consumers from these customers."

In terms of specific operations, the method of Shunchi Real Estate is generally to accumulate consciously before the real estate is officially opened for sale. Some customer needs, and then return to visit, mining. Because the clients recommended by the intermediary are based on the understanding of the clients, the success rate is very high, and the highest recommended transaction rate is 88%. Today, the linkage between intermediaries and real estate has become a trump card for Shun Chi to fight the national market.

In addition to the interaction with real estate development, Sunco Real Estate began to develop new services, such as decoration, for a large number of customer resources. By July this year, Shun Chi Lan An, a branch of Shun Chi Real Estate Group, has entered seven cities. "We have a large number of users who buy and sell houses, and the decoration business is an extension of the intermediary business. Our customers can support us to enter this industry. In Tianjin, we have been the largest decoration company in Tianjin 4 months after opening." Zhang Zhen Guang is very satisfied with the progress of the renovation business.

On the basis of these customer resources, Shun Chi Real Estate even considered entering the insurance intermediary industry. Regarding this kind of service with a relatively large span, Zhang Zhenguang explained: "What we do is still service channels, and on the basis of large-scale customer resources, we will carry more business content. House consumers in any city, They are all groups with strong spending power, and their demand for insurance is also greater. Moreover, our customer management level also supports us to enter new service areas."

It is precisely because of this kind of channel construction and customer resources The ability to tap, Sun Hongbin, chairman of Sunco Group, believes that the value of Sunco Real Estate may exceed real estate development.

LG Electronics, SAP: R&D close to

Compared with the first two methods, it is a more common practice to make R&D institutions close to customers. This approach allows companies to respond more quickly to customer needs and develop products that customers need. Moreover, in terms of specific operation methods, it is easier for companies to learn from each other.

By the end of 2002, LG Electronics China R&D Center was officially launched. The center is comparable in size to LG Electronics Korea's R&D headquarters. By next year, there will be more than 2,000 R&D personnel at the center, and R&D funding will reach $41 million. This is the largest R&D center LG Electronics has ever established outside of Korea.

LG Electronics spent so much human and financial resources to build a research and development center, "the first mission is to develop products suitable for the Chinese market," said Sun Jinbang, chairman of LG Electronics (China) Co., Ltd.: "The research and development center and Chinese consumers should It is the relationship between fish and water, and it is precisely because of the Chinese consumers that we need this R&D center. This R&D center will develop the products that Chinese people like the most and meet the needs of Chinese consumers as quickly as possible."

The SAP China Research Institute is a rookie among multinational companies' research institutes in China. It was established at the end of last year. The establishment of the research institute is not purely for software localization, but "to provide comprehensive implementation support for partners, shorten product development and upgrade cycles, and provide users with customized R&D services". Rui Xianglin, president of the academy, said: "SAP has more and more customers in China, and its performance growth rate has reached 50%. Of course, their needs cannot be ignored."

In view of the situation of many small and medium-sized enterprises in China, SAP China The R&D team of SMEs has accounted for half of the total R&D personnel. "China is the fastest growing market for SME solutions." Rui Xianglin said. The Chinese version of the SAP Business One solution for small and medium-sized enterprises has 30 users in just 60 days.

Understand the demand and speed up the response For LG Electronics and SAP, how to understand the demand of Chinese consumers? According to Sun Jinbang, LG Electronics' R&D personnel will go directly to the store to conduct research. More importantly, LG Electronics has a "brain" for information transmission - the Commodity Planning Department. This department entered the Chinese market simultaneously with LG Electronics ten years ago. A lot of research to understand what kind of products Chinese consumers like. At the same time, they will also aggregate the market feedback obtained by other departments of the company, and this information will be passed on to the R&D department as quickly as possible.

For example, LG's microwave oven with sterilization function for the Chinese market was developed based on feedback from the marketing department. Zheng Dayong, general manager of marketing at LG Electronics in China, said that during SARS, colleagues in the marketing department found out in the market that many consumers wanted to sterilize baby bottles with microwave ovens. They fed this information back to the Product Enterprise Planning Department, and through them feedback to the R&D center, the microwave oven with disinfection function developed quickly by the R&D personnel according to the market situation proved to be very popular. Previously, LG's microwave ovens had a market share of about 20% in China, and now it has reached 34%, ranking second in the Chinese market.

In order to bring R&D products to the market faster, LG Electronics has also set up different R&D institutions next to large production bases such as Tianjin and Nanjing, in order to link up with production faster.

The results achieved by LG Electronics China R&D Center are of great help to the market. Zheng Dayong said: "The most important thing in marketing is the product. How can we launch this product when consumers need it. From this From an angle, R&D determines the outcome of marketing." LG Electronics' performance in the Chinese market is becoming more and more brilliant. Its rear-projection TV has occupied the first place in the domestic market, and microwave ovens, CDMA terminals, washing machines and air conditioners have all occupied the second place. Or the third position, its R & D center is also a major contributor.

At present, about 20% of LG Electronics' products sold in China come from its R&D center in Beijing, and this proportion continues to increase. Sun Jinbang said proudly: "We have obtained a lot of patents for our research and development. If I remember correctly, last year we applied for national patents second only to Huawei."

SAP China Research Institute's approach is somewhat similar. Some of them act as bridges with the market. Their job is to continuously contact customers, collect requirements, and make precise definitions for the product features in the next stage; invite customers to complete testing when the product is nearing completion; formulate market strategies and train partners and customers after the product is launched.

Due to the timely and close contact with customers, the cycle of product development has been greatly shortened. Rui Xianglin said: "In the past, if SAP collected 1,000 customer requirements in China, it would first organize and summarize them into 500, and then report to the German headquarters. The headquarters should prioritize the requirements from all over the world, such as 6,000, and then enter the The development stage, and then back to the Chinese market." This process lasted for two years, and now, these works are completed locally, and this cycle has been shortened to half a year or even three months.

The companies mentioned in this article also do many other things (see sidebar). Companies do everything possible to get close to customers because, as management guru Peter Dulac said: the success of an enterprise is not determined by the producers, but by the customers.

A new way to approach customers

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