-11.6%, 24.8%, 33.2%, 62.5%, this is the growth data of the single-season sales of excavators in my country in 2020. The People’s Daily commented that the rising “excavator index” is a window for investigating the operation of my country’s economy .
The rapid growth is not only the excavator. According to statistics, by 2020, the annual sales revenue of construction machinery will exceed 760 billion yuan, and the output of a large number of construction machinery products such as excavators, cranes, loaders, and forklifts will rank first in the world. On the way to a powerful country in production, the construction machinery profession is "stride forward".
On the back of the prosperity scene, the situation of agents is worrisome
However, the development of construction machinery agents is in sharp contrast with the vigorous construction machinery profession. According to the survey data of my country Construction Machinery Industry Association, the average gross profit margin of construction machinery agents collectively in 2020 is 8.7%, and the average net profit margin is only At 0.7%, the survival situation of professional agents is worrying.
The agency system has always been the dominant mode of professional marketing and service channels for construction machinery in my country. In the 1990s, foreign brands began to enter my country's market, bringing advanced production skills and products together, and also introducing the agency system into my country. The introduction of the agency system is an overthrow of the marketing of construction machinery. After nearly 30 years of development, about half of the sales in the construction machinery market are contributed by agents.
Then why is the profit margin of an agent with outstanding dedication declining?
Increasingly bad price wars have caused agents to lose the initiative to post-markets, which is an important reason for this phenomenon. In order to pursue sales in the mall, many brands have adopted various marketing methods, fighting price wars, extending the warranty period, giving away services, accessories and oil products, and even providing lifetime free services. What follows is the declining profit margin and the loss of customers due to neglect of service to old customers. The loss rate even reaches 80%!
After the market becomes the key to the agency to reverse the situation
Most construction machinery agents are sales-oriented enterprises. The sale of new machines is their main operating income and profit source. The sale of complete machines accounts for 80% to 90% of the company's business turnover, and has the most touch with customers and the greatest impact on customer relationships. In the post-shopping malls (services and accessories, etc.), the share of dedication in agent affairs is small, which also leads to poor stickiness between customers and agents and minimal customer loyalty.
Data source: my country Construction Machinery Industry Association
Compared with mature shopping malls in Europe and the United States, more than 60% of the agent’s gross profit comes from post-shopping matters such as accessories, services, second mobile phone sales and leasing. Therefore, agents will not be trapped by the price war of selling new machines, the market’s competitive strategy and the enterprise. The operating strategy can be more diversified.
Data source: my country Construction Machinery Industry Association
The post-market absorption rate is an agent operation goal that foreign shopping malls attach great importance to, that is, the ratio of accessories and service revenue to the agent's operating cost, which can intuitively reflect the agent's health and survival ability. The absorption rate of the after-sales market in my country is 10% to 20%, and the absorption rate of some of its agents can approach or exceed 100% for Caterpillar, the largest manufacturer of construction machinery and mining equipment in the world.
Customer digitization helps post-market business development
How did Caterpillar’s agents increase the stickiness with customers and insist on such a high post-market absorption rate?
As a customer digital solution provider for Caterpillar’s three agents in my country, Selleasy provides them with more localized solutions to assist Caterpillar agents in my country to dig out more customer value for the company through customer digitization. , The rapid development of shopping mall affairs after completion.
1. Customers are online to better understand customer needs
The whole machine part and parts part of construction machinery enterprises are often operated independently, but there is a lot of overlap between the two parts of affairs. For example, after the whole machine is sold, it will involve the repair and secondary sale of subsequent parts, so the demand for parts is obtained. The customer information of the whole machine, and the timing of parts sales. And this requires online all parts of customers, open up customer data of various transaction lines, and conduct data integration with customers as the center.
Using the PaaS platform capabilities of Easy Sell, we can customize personalized clues and customer management modules for construction machinery companies, and complete the active transmission of customer information covering multiple transaction lines. For example, when a customer purchases a complete machine from a company, the customer information will be actively transmitted to the parts and after-sales parts. The part of the sales can quickly go through the CRM system to fully understand the customer’s equipment information, and gain insight into the cycle of predicting customer needs and repairs and other two aspects. Potential demand for this sale.
2. Timely service to make customers more satisfied
In addition to the sale of parts, providing customers with high-quality inside and outside guarantee services is also the focus of the dealers' business after the opening of the mall.
Construction machinery and equipment have a greater demand for periodic maintenance. Providing customers with timely maintenance services can greatly increase the customer's purchase rate of subsequent out-of-warranty services. In the face of tens of thousands of machinery and equipment, how do companies provide timely services? After Easy Sell, they can actively generate service requests at periodic frequencies in accordance with the contracted service plan. When the maintenance date is approaching, the system will actively create a dispatch order , The enterprise combines the area where the customer's equipment is located, actively or manually dispatching work orders to provide customers with timely maintenance services and improve service efficiency.
Maintenance plan
In addition, Easy Selling support is integrated with the IoT system to understand the operating status of the equipment in real time. Once a problem is found, the customer service staff will take the initiative to contact the customer to learn about the problem and create a work order. Subsequently, the dispatch supervisor quickly dispatched orders through the system to locate the equipment and the locations of the surrounding engineers, and through timely and proactive services, the customer stickiness was improved.
The whole machine market is still growing rapidly. Agents should not blindly pursue the whole machine sales while ignoring customer needs and follow-up services. They must go through customer digitization to make up for the shortcomings that restrict agents from developing, and complete the whole machine business and the aftermarket. Business "two legs" speed up.
