After years of rapid development, China's construction machinery has become the world's largest single market, with more than 8.5 million equipment holdings. Even in 2020, when the new crown epidemic is so severe, the Chinese market still sells 292,864 excavators and 106,572 loaders. The market stock of excavators and loaders exceeds 2 million and 1.5 million, respectively.
The contradiction between equipment holdings and service resources
When I entered the construction machinery industry 20 years ago, foreign brands put forward the concept of "family doctor" service (or "nanny" service), requiring agents to be responsible for up to 15 devices per service technician. If a technician is responsible for too many equipments, it is likely that the service response will not be timely, resulting in a decrease in customer satisfaction and an increase in customer complaints.
Over the years, with the continuous increase in the amount of equipment, many OEMs have relaxed the requirements for agent service resource allocation to 35 units/person. Despite this, agents still face a serious shortage of service resources, serious loss of service technicians, and fewer and fewer young people are willing to engage in maintenance services. According to Mr. Xue Xiaoping’s estimation, there are only about 35,000 service technicians in the industry. , It is far from being able to meet the service demand of huge equipment inventory, which also leads to the loss of up to 80% of customers.
According to the author’s estimation, 200,000 to 500,000 service technicians are needed for 8.5 million devices. This poses a big challenge to the "family doctor-style" service model. Nowadays, fewer and fewer people are willing to engage in maintenance services, and companies cannot recruit. , Can not afford so many service technicians. In 2020, there are 8.74 million college graduates across the country. How many are willing to be service technicians? The slogan of "free service for life" in the industry for many years has betrayed the interests of many service technicians, resulting in low salaries and disrespect for service technicians. Without status, many young people would rather deliver couriers than do repairs.
In 2020, an agent of a certain brand sold more than 10,000 excavators. Everyone in the company was smiling. Has anyone ever thought that in 2021 this agent will need to add 300 service technicians and add tens of millions of services Budget, it is possible to match the after-sales service of the 10,000 equipment increments. Where to recruit so many service technicians? How to train these newly recruited service technicians? How to retain these service personnel? After equipment sales, if there is no timely supporting service resources, it is difficult to guarantee the timeliness of service and customer satisfaction , This is precisely the problem that many companies urgently need to solve.
Most agents neither have the ability to recruit, train and retain the required service personnel, nor are they willing to recruit so many service technicians. In the eyes of many bosses, the service department is completely a cost center. The more the number of people, the greater the cost. They certainly do not want to increase the number of service personnel, which has also led to a more serious contradiction between the amount of equipment and the allocation of service resources.
The contradiction between equipment profit and service cost
Initially, domestic brands had a big gap with international brands in terms of product quality and reliability. In order to eliminate customers' concerns about after-sales service and attract them to buy more equipment, many companies chanted the slogan of "free service for life". In this way, the profits of the market after the service are almost given away by the enterprise, and the agents can only use the profits from the equipment sales to subsidize the service.
In the past few years, the gross profit of equipment sales was still very impressive, allowing many companies to form a tradition of emphasizing sales and neglecting service. Unfortunately, in the fierce market competition, the gross profit of equipment sales has been declining. Now the gross profit of equipment sales by agents has been "thin as paper". Many agents are struggling at the critical point of profit and loss, requiring them to increase their investment in service resources. impossible.
The demographic dividend in the Chinese market has come to an end. Human resource costs have increased rapidly over the years. The wages of both the operator and the service technician have almost doubled within a few years. The prices of fuel and raw materials have also been increasing, while the price of equipment has increased rapidly. Leasing costs have been declining, creating a "scissors gap", which makes the "family doctor-style" service simply unsustainable, because the increase in service costs and the decline in equipment profits will eventually cause companies to enter a loss zone.
After giving up the service, the market profit will inevitably lead to this embarrassing situation today: not increasing service resources will result in a decrease in timeliness, customer complaints and loss; increasing service resources will lead to rising costs, making ends meet, and the shortage of technicians in the future will increase. The more severe, where is the way out for the after-service market?
Smart equipment is a key to improving efficiency
The new crown epidemic in 2020 has brought huge challenges to customer service. Many service personnel are unable to travel to perform maintenance work, which has a greater impact on overseas services. When God closes a door, he will also open a window for you. Under the epidemic situation, companies have to implement remote service support through technical means, which has also promoted the rise of self-service.
China Yilian launched a smart service wearable device. Service technicians and customers can attach high-definition cameras to the glasses, and record and store the entire service process through a mobile phone App to ensure compliance with the service process. Manufacturers can get through the device IoT data, provide necessary technical data and information, and help front-line service personnel diagnose and troubleshoot faults.
If on-site service personnel or customers are still unable to troubleshoot the fault, they can also call an expert seat to seek professional consultation and support. Experts several hundred kilometers away can see the situation of the fault site through the camera of the service personnel, and Service personnel communicate in real time and guide them to troubleshoot and solve problems. In this way, smart devices "empower" front-line service personnel, allowing them to more confidently solve various intractable diseases.
The matter is not over yet. The video of the service process is collected by the manufacturer. On the one hand, it is used as a basis for service fee settlement, so that social service companies may also join the brand’s service network; on the other hand, maintenance videos can help companies improve their products. Quality, training new employees, but also as a knowledge base, case library and video big data for equipment failures. In the future, artificial intelligence will use these big data to make maintenance services easier and easier, and make customer self-service faster and more convenient. This will greatly improve the customer service experience. The video data accumulated in the maintenance service will become a valuable wealth of knowledge for the enterprise.
In a few years, augmented reality AR glasses will be lighter, cheaper, and have a better experience. With the help of these repair videos and Internet of Things data, companies can use digital twins to more intuitively display equipment structures, faulty parts, and repairs. The process of disassembly and assembly makes self-service easier. In the future, everyone may become a repair master, because there are omnipotent big data and smart wearable devices to empower people to help people predict and diagnose equipment failures.
The advancement of science and technology is to break the original operating model and cognitive model. There is no way out to improve customer satisfaction by increasing service resources. Only improving service efficiency is the key to solving the contradiction between equipment ownership and service resources. Fortunately, the development of science and technology has provided us with various means such as big data, artificial intelligence AI, augmented reality AR, and digital twins. In the future, intelligent services are the only way out for the development of the aftermarket.
