Haier takes root in customer relationships

The first thing Zhou Yunjie, vice president of Haier Group, goes to work every day is to log on to Haier's CRM website to view sales information by region and product. As the head of the Haier Group's business department, he will be sensitive to detect any abnormal situation. In fact, such information was also available 14 years ago, when Zhou Yunjie had just been assigned to Haier for one year. "At that time, it was an iron file box, which contained the sales files of each store handwritten by Haier's salesmen."

Today, Haier's customer file box has been replaced by the CRM information system, but Zhou Yunjie emphasized that CRM (customer Relationship management) is not only a technical means, but the attitude of enterprises towards customers. Even without these software systems, Haier will still attach great importance to the relationship with customers.

Just as the hardware system of customer relationship management is being upgraded, Haier is also innovating in the concept of customer relationship management. Now, Haier's assessment of salespeople is no longer based on sales volume, but is based on the core idea of "making customers make money", and is determined on four indicators: customer inventory turnover days, customer profit margins, and customer problem resolution. and the share of Haier products in customer sales. In other words, the assessment indicator is not whether you help Haier make money, but whether you help customers make money.

C: Customers

Haier's customers mainly include the following five categories: multinational chain companies (such as Wal-Mart), local chain companies (such as Gome), large shopping malls (such as Xidan shopping malls), franchised stores (monopoly stores) Haier products), franchise stores (specializing in air conditioners and other electrical appliances). Among them, specialty stores and large shopping malls have larger sales, and their sales account for about 1/3 of Haier's total sales, but the growth rate of local chains has increased rapidly. Although Zhou Yunjie said that Haier treats every customer equally, Haier still needs to focus its limited resources on key customers. For this reason, they have a key customer department at the headquarters and special personnel in 42 industrial and trade companies across the country to serve as key customers. Serve.

Haier currently has more than 600 account managers across the country, with an average of 1 person in charge of about 10 customers, while Haier has about 6,000-7,000 sales outlets nationwide. Since 2000, Haier has integrated customer management based on product lines into customer management based on regions. After that, Haier's three types of managers will perform their respective duties: product managers are responsible for understanding product knowledge and implementing marketing strategies; account managers discover and meet customer needs; model managers look for market opportunities to develop new products.

"The superficial needs can be seen as long as you pay attention. But to listen to the voices of consumers, you need to devote yourself to it." Zhou Yunjie said that for Haier's current marketing team of 16,000 people, the concept of Radical change still needs to be strengthened.

If the concept changes, the relationship with customers can change. The cooperation between Haier and Gome is an example.

R: Relationship

The relationship between Gome and Haier was once unsatisfactory. There is a gap between the two sides in the concept of doing business: Gome insists on providing the cheapest products, while price reduction is the last thing Haier is willing to do. However, from January to April 2003, the relationship between Haier and Gome in the Beijing market took a major turn: sales increased more than 4 times over the same period last year, and Gome became one of Haier's largest and most important customers in the Beijing market. one. Not only that, Gome and Haier have also reached a strategic partnership to jointly launch marketing activities in the Beijing market and carry out a strong alliance.

Zhang Peng, general manager of Beijing Haier Industry and Trade Co., Ltd., which is responsible for Haier's sales in Beijing, has only one explanation for this change: Haier's marketing attitude towards customers, especially big ones like Gome, has changed. "To be honest, we didn't fully understand the statement put forward by the group headquarters to make customers make money, satisfy customers, and add value to employees." Under the leadership of Zhang Ruimin, a talented entrepreneur and management thinker, the new customer relationship management ideas were introduced by employees. slowly penetrated into the mind.

At the same time, the CRM information system provides support for differentiated marketing. Specifically, the Haier CRM network that Zhang Peng logs on every day provides a lot of help for him and other sales staff to grasp the overall sales situation, and the business flow department of the headquarters builds the overall marketing stage for the sales staff in various regions, which gives great support to each region. Moreover, through this network, the person in charge of Gome's headquarters in Beijing can get quick feedback from both the person in charge of Haier in Beijing and the person in charge in Qingdao.

Zhang Peng found that the conflict between Haier and Gome's market positioning could be resolved. In the past, Haier's sellers did not carefully study Gome's needs. A sales representative was specially sent to Gome to understand the needs of the other party. "For example, Gome and Dazhong have very different demands on Haier despite being both low-priced electrical appliance chains. Taking refrigerators as an example, Gome needs 180-220 liters of products with a price of around 2,000 yuan. In terms of functions, it needs less power consumption. Large and medium-sized ones require more complete varieties, unlike Gome, which requires high-end boutiques and low-priced products.” Since last year, Haier’s sales staff in Beijing have taken the initiative to visit customers to determine the customer’s requirements. Market advantages and required products to help customers complete differentiated orders. <

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Li Juntao, General Manager of the Purchasing Center of Gome Electric Corporation, was very satisfied with Haier's service. "In the past, the conflict between us and Haier was mainly price conflict. With the launch of the customized product strategy provided by Haier, the conflict of underwriting and buying out in the past can be avoided. Last year, we carried out a major integration in the Beijing market. Before that The transaction volume between us is small, and the cooperation is not as smooth as it is now." Li Juntao emphasized that Gome has implemented a new procurement method nationwide, that is, a customized method. Taking Haier products sold by Gome as an example, 70%-80% of them are customized according to the needs of consumers.

Zhang Ruimin's emphasis on speed is also a magic weapon for cooperation with Gome. "We also use the procurement method of customizing products according to customer needs with other companies. However, Haier's response speed is relatively fast, and the follow-up speed to our needs is fast." Li Juntao said, "This response speed reflects Haier's response to The grasp of customer needs shows that Haier is slightly better."

M: Management

Like Zhang Ruimin, Zhou Yunjie divided Haier's customer relationship management (1984-1991 famous brand strategy from 1984 to 1991) according to three stages. stage; diversification stage from 1991 to 1998; internationalization stage from 1998 to present). However, Zhang Ruimin emphasized different management concepts in three stages: "quality", "service" and "culture", while Zhou Yunjie focused on different management practices.

In the first stage, the famous brand strategy stage, in addition to "focusing on quality and service", Haier strictly selects domestic customers, and the main target is the domestic market with good reputation and large scale. In 1984, when domestic refrigerators were still in the buyer's market, Haier selected 10 major shopping malls in China as specialized sales points. Since then, the number of shopping malls has continued to expand. Haier sent a person to visit customers in each shopping mall to learn about sales trends, customer responses and other information, and put customer information in an iron file box.

In the diversification stage, in order to centrally display Haier's different products to customers, Haier implemented the sales method of establishing specialty stores in large shopping malls. Haier has established more than 600 such shop-in-shops with large shopping malls in one fell swoop in half a year. In order to gain support from the mall, Haier promised the mall that the sales per unit area of its specialty stores would be 1.2 times higher than the average.

Zhou Yunjie said that after the fact, Haier's store-in-store sales per unit area had reached 1.5 times the average level. This gave Haier the opportunity to unify the customer relationship management of different products, and through the system that Haier implemented at that time, "every day is completed, every day is clear, and every day is high," Haier's salespersons can quickly feedback customers' responses back to the headquarters every day.

Zhou Yunjie said that Haier's customer relationship management at this time was in the "man-to-man" tactical stage, and salesmen were required to quickly return to headquarters for the situation in each shopping mall. And Haier's Call Center (telephone service center) system has also begun to be established across the country. In 1997, Haier's first call center was established in Qingdao. In the following year, Haier set up telephone service centers in 29 provinces and cities across the country. In 2000, the number of provinces and cities expanded to 34.

In the internationalization stage, Haier began to integrate internal resources, trying to open the network platform and create new value for customers. After the Spring Festival in 2000, Haier launched the CRM system jointly developed by IBM and Jilin University. In fact, before this, Haier used SAP's ERP system to integrate internal processes such as logistics. Zhou Yunjie said that Haier's attitude towards the CRM system is to be practical. Haier hopes to achieve the best results with the least investment, so as to provide strong support for Haier's entire sales system.

At present, Haier has achieved "zero distance contact" with customers through CRM technology. The daily sales of Haier products at each point of sale will be quickly queried in the system. Specifically, customers can obtain three services through Haier's CRM network: online accounting services such as online financial reconciliation and expense inquiry, management consulting, customer complaint services, and online information services such as corporate culture, product promotion, and promotional activities. For Haier's internal employees, as internal customers, they can enjoy online system services such as inventory inquiry, date inquiry, customer invoicing inquiry, and business intelligence analysis.

Zhou Yunjie said that CRM is to remove the "wall" between enterprises and customers, so as to quickly obtain customer orders, quickly meet user needs, shorten the sales cycle, and reduce sales costs; Solve the problems encountered by customers in the process of marketing and using products, thereby greatly improving sales performance and customer satisfaction.

Finally, Zhou Yunjie, who shoulders the heavy responsibility of Haier's marketing, summarized that in terms of customer relationship management: "customer relationship is the root of the tree, information technology is the trunk, and sales results are the leaves."