"Home Security", "Comprehensive Protection", "Peace of Mind", "Fifty Cents a Day, Extended Warranty for Home Appliances for 3 Years"... A few days ago, the author visited a number of home appliance stores in Huaihua City and saw that many home appliance stores have opened the New Year goods festival mode, at the same time, the home appliance extended warranty project is hot, almost every home appliance store, there will be some products pasted with extended warranty service advertising.
Near the end of the year, many home appliance companies are carrying out promotional activities, home appliance extended warranty service will also be mentioned by the salesman, many consumers think that paying a little money, you can extend the "three guarantees" service time, buy a "peace of mind". However, in fact, how to understand the extended warranty of home appliances? Is it worth buying, and which home appliance buyers are more meaningful in extending warranty services?
Home appliance extended warranty service, is it worth buying?
Once the extended warranty period of home appliances has passed, the maintenance costs are often staggering. Paying a few hundred yuan more can extend the warranty period of home appliances - "extended warranty service" is becoming more and more common in home appliance stores. Recently, when the author purchased rice cookers and electric heaters in the hunan rural home appliance store market, he found that some consumers knew about the extended warranty of home appliances, and some consumers even purchased extended warranty services for major appliances such as tv sets, refrigerators and washing machines at home.
"Our family's rice cooker bought a home appliance extended warranty, used for two years suddenly broken, looking for home appliances store free maintenance, although after the warranty period, but bought home appliances extended warranty to repair." The master took the machine apart and looked at it and said that the temperature control was broken, and the temperature control was replaced. Didn't spend money to fix it, I feel that the extended warranty service of home appliances is OK. A woman who consults and repairs rice cookers at home appliance stores said.
According to the author's understanding, usually, the extended warranty service of home appliances will be based on the different categories, product prices and warranty periods, the charging standards are different, and the higher the product price, the higher the amount of extended warranty that needs to be paid. For example, some small household appliances only need to extend the one-year warranty period for only a few tens of yuan, and the extended warranty cost of major appliances may be more than one hundred or even hundreds of yuan.
Of course, consumers also have to know that extended warranty for home appliances is not equal to "extended package", and users must carefully ask which parts of the extended warranty are when purchasing services. For some durable home appliances, the extended warranty service for home appliances is still worth referencing. For example, large commodities such as flat-screen TVs, air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, etc., users can consider extending the warranty service for home appliances when purchasing. The reason is that whether it is a large appliance under a large brand or a major appliance produced by a small brand, most of the products can be used normally for 1-3 years. Some of the genuine licensed goods under the big brands, due to excellent technology, will not have problems in continuous use for 3-5 years.
At present, there are two main models of domestic home appliance extended warranty services, one is the extended warranty service provided by the manufacturer, and the other is the extended warranty service provided by the merchant (the third-party home appliance extended warranty cooperated by professional extended warranty institutions and home appliance retailers). Among them, Gome's "home security", Suning's "sunshine package" and JD.com's "extended warranty" are all serviced by third-party maintenance.
The author found that during the Spring Festival, most of the extended warranty services provided by some home appliance merchants are value-added services launched by specialty stores or stores for promotion, and some may have nothing to do with the manufacturer, and the home appliances purchased by consumers have failed during the "extended warranty" period, and they are not directly looking for manufacturers to repair. The repair capabilities of its repair channels are uneven, and it is unable to provide services compared with original repairs. Consumers should pay attention when purchasing extended warranty services for home appliances, and if they encounter forced and bundled sales of "extended warranty services", they should dare to refuse and complain.
From manufacturers to e-commerce, the home appliance extended warranty market is surging
Problems in the use of home appliances are inevitable, in this context, home appliances extended warranty services are out of the trend, and under the impetus of home appliance manufacturers to achieve rapid development. Even if you buy home appliances online on e-commerce platforms, there will be an extended warranty recommendation column on its product detail page, indicating the content, time and corresponding costs of the extended warranty service. In the industry's view, extended warranty services have become the "standard" of home appliances, and e-commerce channels such as Tmall, JD.com, Suning Tesco and Gome Electrical Appliances have their own extended warranty services for home appliances.
JD.com launched the "Jingpin Worry-free" extended warranty service in terms of home appliance extended warranty service, which is a value-added service provided by JD Allianz Insurance and JD Home Appliance Stores to protect users' subsequent use and maintenance cost risks. At present, this service has covered nearly 10,000 Jingdong home appliance stores, most of which are stores in cities and counties below the third tier, and the free replacement time for consumers after purchasing home appliances can be extended from 180 days to five years.
The extended warranty service for home appliances launched by Tmall Electric Appliances includes one year extension, two years or even more. Consumers in Tmall electrical appliances to buy home appliances extended warranty service, once the product failure, you can call the brand hotline, in the order background to find after-sales service or Want Want Li contact customer service to request processing.
The image comes from a screenshot on Weibo
Gome Electrical Appliances' home appliance extended warranty service is "home security", after the consumer signs a "home security" agreement with Gome, during the extended warranty period (the end of the product warranty period begins to end the home security contract period), you can call the "home security" 24-hour service hotline 800-820-5339 or 400-820-5339 to report repairs. For example, in addition to the contents covered by all manufacturers' warranties, Gome's "home security" extended warranty scope also includes defects caused by manufacturers' technology or materials, normal wear and tear for daily use, damage caused by voltage instability, damage caused by natural factors such as moisture and internal condensation, and various accessories such as remote controls.
Suning has launched the "Sunshine Package" in the extended warranty service for home appliances, which will provide consumers who purchase the home appliances with the "new three guarantees" service of fault repair, maintenance fee package exemption, and difficult repair package replacement during the extended warranty period. The "Sunshine Pack" can be purchased at the time of purchase, or it can be purchased within half a year with a shopping receipt, and the invoice, warranty card and "Sunshine Pack" warranty card must be presented at the same time during repair. During the extended warranty period, if the insured home appliances have related failures, Suning will troubleshoot and repair the faults, and will waive all on-site fees and maintenance fees. If it cannot be repaired after multiple repairs, Suning will provide consumers with free replacement service guarantee.
At present, the extended warranty services launched by home appliance manufacturers are mostly professional home appliance after-sales maintenance masters under the company, while the extended warranty services of e-commerce channels are cooperated with third-party companies, and the home appliances must be repaired at the maintenance point designated by the merchant if they fail, and the maintenance fee for the extended warranty is paid by the insurance company.
Extended warranty of home appliances and standard warranty, build a great wall of quality
At present, offline home appliance stores and online e-commerce platforms have home appliance extended warranty services, and the platform is different, and the extended warranty service items are "various", such as "accident insurance", "replacement insurance", "whole machine insurance" and so on. The author believes that the home appliance warranty service is part of the home appliance quality service system, but not all. Doing these well can add points to the brand and help the company build a great wall of quality.
In developed countries such as Europe and the United States, the extended warranty business has a history of more than 50 years, and the industry has matured. In contrast, there is still a big gap in the field of extended warranty of home appliances in the mainland, and due to the lack of operation and management experience, the extended warranty of home appliances is still in the development stage. The author believes that the traditional home appliance warranty time is mostly 1 year, and most of the users repair the home appliances at their own expense after the home appliance is insured. Extended warranty of home appliances can extend the time for home appliance maintenance, in the market dominated by traditional home appliances, such a service upgrade war is a good thing, but at the current stage of the transformation and upgrading of the home appliance industry, it is not enough to pursue "quantitative change".
At present, the domestic home appliance industry is in the stage of industrial structure and service transformation, and for home appliance companies, they need to do a good job from products, after-sales to overall solutions. With the continuous upgrading and change of user needs, the focus of home appliance users on after-sales service has changed to the focus on pre-sale, sale, after-sales and value-added services. In home appliances, especially air conditioners, color TVs, kitchen appliances have higher requirements for installation services, which also puts forward higher standards for the after-sales service of brands and channel providers. In the long run, consumers will pay more and more attention to pre-sales and after-sales services.
In recent years, consumers' demand for after-sales service of home appliances has not been satisfied with the on-site repair of products that are broken. More differentiated demands for regular cleaning and maintenance of home appliances have begun to appear. The industry expects that the scale of the home appliance service market will exceed one trillion yuan. The home appliance after-sales service market has a rich cake, and there are huge opportunities that currently exist in the home appliance after-sales service market. The quality of its service will in turn affect the user experience and repurchase rate.
In the author's view, the fault maintenance of home appliances is just needed, more who sells, who repairs, subject to the home appliance three-guarantee service system; home appliance extended warranty to a certain extent alleviates the user's home appliance maintenance difficulties, better increase the viscosity of users and service providers. This kind of service, which is not limited to brands and types, greatly meets the needs of users and enhances the quality service experience of consumers.
Now finally
From the current point of view, there are many types of extended warranty services for home appliances, but they do bring business opportunities to home appliance stores. In the face of fierce market competition, home appliance companies want to stabilize the market, it is bound to seize the two core magic weapons of "quality" and "service", so that users can buy with peace of mind and use comfortably.
If the home appliance industry wants to achieve healthy and sustainable development, it needs to strictly control quality. Under the baptism of the market and users, we will continuously improve product quality, break the drawbacks of passive service quality, realize the transformation of service from passive to active through transformation and upgrading, comprehensively improve product quality and service quality, and step by step out of the development path of "Made in China".