Today, the service industry accounts for more than two-thirds of the GDP of all developed economies. 60% of the Fortune Global 500 enterprises are service enterprises. 80% of the labor force in the United States is engaged in the service industry, 10 times more than the manufacturing industry, and its contribution to GDP is more than 80%.
In 2016, the contribution of China's service industry to GDP exceeded 50%. Michael, a professor at Harvard University Professor Porter pointed out when looking forward to the future: "all products in the future will exist in the form of services. In other words, services will almost become 'all products' and' all products'." In the future, services and products will be inseparable and become more and more important.
Over the years, many construction machinery enterprises have begun to pay attention to service, especially in overseas markets. People realize that the service level of maintenance and accessories has a direct impact on the foothold of Chinese brands in the international market, and it is also the bottleneck and challenge for Chinese brands to expand overseas markets. However, it is not easy to do a good job in service.
Why is outstanding service so difficult? There are many reasons behind this.
First, product design and innovation are more than 100 years ahead of service, Thomas Edison's laboratory opened in 1876. There are famous Toyota production management system and total quality management system in the world, as well as famous quality management masters such as Deming, Crosby, Julan and fegenbaum. But what about service? It was not until 2004 that IBM established the world's first service science research center. The problem of service lag is very obvious. Compared with product innovation, service innovation is still in its infancy, the theory of service is not systematic, there is a lack of valuable service monographs, and there is a lack of internationally renowned service theory masters.
The history of service design is not long. There are product design majors in universities, but no service design or service management majors. Enterprises have product design budgets, but no service design budgets. Many people don't even know what service design is. It has only been 10 years since China's economy was transformed from manufacturing to service. People's understanding of service is still very superficial, and there are few outstanding service enterprises, which is completely mismatched with the contribution rate of the service industry of more than half of GDP.
Second, most enterprises' understanding of service is still at the level of passive after-sales service. Users contact them to provide service. They equate service with product maintenance, do not pay attention to customer experience at all, do not understand the significance of proactive service and preventive service, and do not understand the relationship between service and customer reputation and re purchase. The working mode of many enterprise service departments is no different from that of "fire brigade", Busy every day, high cost, low income, customers are not satisfied.
Service is a special kind of commodity, which is provided instantly and cannot be stored in advance. Moreover, customers will participate in the service process. The service object is customers rather than products. Customers' experience of service is very personalized. Many enterprises only pay attention to the demand experience, but ignore the convenience and emotional experience, and the comprehensive experience of the three aspects determines the customer loyalty and return rate.
Unlike manufacturing, personalized and non-standard services lead to low service efficiency. Many foreign enterprises are no longer satisfied with simple service improvement, but improve the customer experience. The three core elements of experience are scene, interaction and perception. Outstanding experience includes customer contact, customer journey, service blueprint, service design, etc., which can improve performance growth by optimizing customer journey.
In 1994, the service design course first appeared on the schedule of the University of Cologne in Germany. In 2004, IBM established the service science research center. In the following three years, IBM's pre tax profit margin of services increased by more than two times, from 6.7% to 14.1%. Qualtrics of the United States has also established the customer experience management institute, which specializes in how to improve customer experience to achieve the organic growth of enterprises.
Third, many enterprises are still using linear thinking to treat services, thinking that if the service contribution rate is low, it is bound to be unimportant, thus shouting the slogan of "lifelong free service" and thinking that it is the "marketing innovation" of Chinese enterprises. Using linear thinking, we only measure the importance by turnover, but we can't see that the service is priceless, not free. The lack of theoretical guidance will only make the service more and more difficult.
Enterprises need employees who are "specialized in things", "good at thinking" and "sensitive to action", but many employees only have executive power and lack thinking power. There is no instructive service management monograph or spare parts inventory planning guide in the construction machinery industry. I sincerely hope that Chinese universities also have service design courses, enterprises also set up service research institutes, and Chinese people can also put forward service innovation theory and write excellent service monographs, so as not to let the price war become our only competitive weapon.
Only by ending the policy of free service can Chinese brands truly realize their service value, otherwise outstanding service can only be an extravagant hope.
