Home appliances after-sales change pre-sale, creating new opportunities

The new three years, the old three years, the tinkering for another three years. The tradition of thrift and diligence has allowed many Chinese families to have so many "over-aged home appliances". They could be two-door refrigerators in green and refrigerated for 20 years, two-cylinder washing machines that are roaring and spinning, air conditioners with yellowed fuselages and weak cold, or televisions with a large body and no longer have the clarity.

These overdue home appliances (hereinafter collectively referred to as over-aged home appliances), although they are difficult problems in the after-sales service of the home appliance industry, are also an important means to activate the stock market.

Service problems for over-aged home appliances

Accessories are difficult to find, products are discontinued, brands are delisted, and the problems faced by over-age home appliance after-sales service look more difficult than one. What should not be ignored is that the number of home appliances that are in service beyond the deadline in reality is very large. According to estimates by the China Household Electrical Appliances Association, in 2020, 150 million refrigerators, freezers, washing machines and air conditioners in China are expected to reach the safe service life. Among them, there are more than 48 million refrigerators, more than 9 million freezers, more than 37 million washing machines, and more than 52 million air conditioners. Under such a large base, the after-sales service problem of over-aged home appliances is not just an individual case presented in the news report, but more common.

Nowadays, major appliances products have taken the lead in integrating into the daily lives of thousands of families in China. According to the data of China Statistical Yearbook, by the end of 2020, the number of refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines, televisions and water heaters owned by Chinese residents was 101.8 units, 117.7 units, 96.7 units, 120.8 units and 90.4 units, respectively. China's major major appliance market has entered a stage dominated by renewal demand. However, referring to the market retail data of these categories in recent years, it is not difficult to find that the release of update demand does not seem to be sufficient. This also proves that the phenomenon of overdue service of home appliances is relatively common in China.

In this special interview, the "Electrical Appliance" reporter found that when it comes to the regular maintenance of home appliances and the problem of overdue service, the interviewed consumers are generally relatively unfamiliar. For what is "overdue", the China Household Electrical Appliances Association has given a standard for reference in 2020. In January 2020, under the guidance of the relevant departments of the State Council, the China Household Electrical Appliances Association organized the home appliance industry to formulate a series of standards for the "Safe Service Life of Household Appliances", which gave the safe service life of 8 products such as refrigerators, wine cabinets, air conditioners, washing machines, dryers, range hoods, gas stoves and electric water heaters. Among them, the safe service life of refrigerators, wine cabinets and air conditioners is 10 years, and the safe service life of washing machines, dryers, range hoods and gas stoves is 8 years.

Whether in the urban market or the rural market, the after-sales service of over-aged home appliances is a real problem that the industry must seriously face. Looking back, the last round of large-scale replacement of home appliances by Urban Residents in China can be traced back to the old-for-new policy, and the rapid popularization of home appliances in rural China began with the implementation of the policy of home appliances going to the countryside. It has been more than a decade since the end of these two policies, and during this period, all the major appliances that have entered Chinese families have been in a state of overdue service.

In the face of over-aged home appliances, there is a contradiction between consumers and maintenance service parties that is difficult to reconcile - most consumers want to "repair and use", but maintenance service personnel are often helpless.

The difficulty of finding accessories is the biggest difficulty in the maintenance of over-aged home appliances, which often makes maintenance personnel fall into the dilemma of "it is difficult for smart women to cook without rice". Under normal circumstances, the common parts of over-aged home appliances can be solved by maintenance, but once special structural components or core components are encountered, the difficulty of maintenance will be greatly improved.

The reasons for this are not complicated. Over-aged home appliances usually have been in service for more than 8 years, and are often products that have been discontinued for many years. A person in charge of a home appliance company who did not want to be named told the "Electrical Appliance" reporter: "Few companies can reserve spare parts for maintenance for such a long time. The home appliance category included in the 'three guarantees' will achieve 5 years of spare parts, and other categories are basically the number and duration of spare parts determined by the company itself according to the market volume, ownership and maintenance rate of the product. ”

At the same time, the update and iteration speed of China's home appliances can be called the world's highest. In order to seek differentiated competitiveness, over the years the company has launched a fierce competition in core performance, product appearance, and user experience, and the changes in products in the past ten years have been turned upside down from the inside and outside. In the past, when standardization and platforming were not yet popular, the parts used in different models of products may be very different. This brings a lot of trouble to the after-sales service. For example, after the failure of the control parts or structural components of some products, it is impossible to find suitable replacement parts because of the age; the failure of core functional components may bring higher maintenance costs and use risks.

In addition, there are many brands in over-aged home appliances that have withdrawn from the stage of China's home appliance market. In the face of such products, consumers are even more helpless.

After-sales changes to pre-sale, creating new opportunities

In fact, maintenance is not the ultimate way to solve the problem of after-sales service of over-aged home appliances. Even under normal conditions of use, home appliances such as overdue service may also lead to personal injury safety hazards due to aging, such as leakage, fire, mechanical hazards, air leakage, etc., and the longer the overdue use, the higher the probability of accidents. Dong Mingzhu, chairman of Gree Electric Appliances, called for the establishment of mandatory standards for the service life of home appliances as soon as possible at the two sessions this year. One of the reasons for this is that there are more and more accidents caused by the overdue use of home appliances.

In the face of a considerable number of over-aged home appliances, home appliance companies are also exploring service models covering the whole life cycle of products while facing the pressure, and tapping opportunities in the after-sales service process of over-aged home appliances. Taking Haier, the service vanguard, as an example, in the process of serving old home appliances, Haier Zhijia's service soldiers found that many users' knowledge of home appliance cleaning was blank. Many companies are only responsible for selling products, and do not give users a good knowledge of home appliance maintenance. To this end, for old products, Haier Zhijia brings users cell-level healthy cleaning, and for different home appliances, Haier Zhijia has strict cleaning standards and cleaning processes. More importantly, Haier Zhijia provides lifelong services for each product, from the "life" to the "end" of the product, the entire life cycle of Haier can provide repair, maintenance, cleaning, spare parts replacement, safety testing, old home appliance recycling and other services.

Due to the difficulty and high cost of maintenance of over-aged home appliances, after-sales service often ends with the "retirement" of old home appliances. This connects "fixing" with "replacing" together. To grasp the opportunity of "replacement", service personnel should not only consciously remind consumers to replace products in a timely manner, popularize the knowledge of the safe service life of home appliances, but also extend the service tentacles to the recycling end to solve the worries of consumers who are difficult to deal with old electrical appliances.

For the old products in the stock market, Haier, Gree, TCL, Changhong and other home appliance companies have long been laid out in the field of home appliance recycling and processing while continuing to provide professional and efficient maintenance services for consumers. TCL has built an information system from recycling to processing, solving the recycling service for consumers of old products, developing a self-service traffic portal for recycling information on TCL APP, Ten To Home official website, public number, and mini program, providing users with convenient self-service for the demand terminal of recycling old products, and promoting on the platform, building a 2C recycling channel, carrying out old-for-new and activating customers in the stock market in the "Internet + recycling" mode, and establishing user stickiness. Convert potential intended users into actual purchasers, drive front-end sales to market, and expand new sales channels.

It has become a consensus to change "back-end" to "front-end" and drive sales with services. Just before the deadline of March 28, Midea officially announced the launch of green recycling action, unlimited brands for air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, televisions four categories of products, to provide "green recycling + replacement subsidies" double discount, and launched a convenient service of dismantling, sending and installing.

There may not be an optimal solution for the after-sales service of over-aged home appliances, but home appliance companies have taken active actions to promote the replacement of old appliances with new ones by virtue of the comprehensive layout of online and offline channels and an increasingly strong service team, contributing to energy conservation and carbon reduction.

Solemn statement: All original articles of "Electrical Micro-Journal" must be authorized for reprint.