Jumping out of paint sales service and not making quick money to make "long" money

Let dealers deliver to your door and build a huge distribution network

As a semi-finished product that needs to be wall-mounted to see the final effect, coatings have special requirements for logistics and after-sales.

The breakthrough that Nippon has found is somewhat unexpected: build an e-commerce platform and let distributors from all over the country be responsible for door-to-door delivery, thereby gradually fostering its service concept.

Although they all appear as official stores, Nippon’s approach is not a general direct-sales model.

After the platform is set up, Nippon Paint requires distributors from all over the country to deliver the order to their door.

Zhonglin Zhonglin, president of Nippon China, said that when you deliver to your door, you will find many problems that you don't even know about sitting in the store, such as consumers who don't know how to buy the wrong paint or use the paint in the wrong way.

But getting dealers to accept this concept is far from easy.

Xu Mude, the president of Nippon University, who has done dealer training, feels deeply about this: “Many traditional paint dealers are painters, and the education level is generally not too high.

Patience training and communication is one aspect, and what fundamentally promotes the transformation of distributors is the channel reform that Nippon has started in 2007 and became more perfect in 2010.

At present, Nippon has more than 1,700 districts across the country.

Refresh service with O2O

After entering the e-commerce market to taste the sweetness, Nippon launched the "Refresh Service" in 2011 to formally test the water service industry.

Nippon's refresh service is aimed at the repainting market that has been relatively mature abroad but is still a blue ocean in China.

Nippon's own employees were the first batch of "little mice" to receive refreshing services.

The refresh service is part of the O2O strategy officially put forward by Nippon after successfully entering the e-commerce.

Nippon has realized the importance of training for a long time.

Take the customer commissioner as an example.
They are both business and service representatives.
They are responsible for contacting consumers within 4 hours after they call, making an appointment for on-site inspection, confirming the construction plan, arranging construction and supervising, and they must understand painting Technology, but also have strong communication skills, sales skills and service awareness.
The customer specialist is the employee of the dealer, but Nippon is responsible for training from scratch.

The training is divided into 3 periods, each period is 1 week long, and the content ranges from easy to difficult.
There is a two-month practice period between each training session, and the trainees need to enter the refresh project for actual operations to better master the training content.
It takes at least half a year for a customer specialist to complete the training and certification, and it cannot be done quickly.
Nippon currently has more than 600 customer specialists across the country, and it is expected to increase to more than 1,000 by the end of the year.

"War and praise" team concept

If the expansion and innovation of business models are the "sun side" of Nippon's strategic transformation, the establishment of service culture is the "shadow" that is difficult for outsiders to see, and it will take longer and deeper efforts.

In 2012, Nippon Paint proposed to develop a culture of "war and praise".
Zhonglin Zhong explained that Nippon Paint is an ambitious company.
It is its long-term goal to achieve a market share of 50%, and the weapon (Ge) to achieve this goal is praise from consumers.
Only by gaining praise from every single sale and every service can we win the next service opportunity.
"War and praise seem to conflict, but they coexist.
"

"To transform and build a service system, employees must first recognize it.
" Nippon, starting from within the company, advocates that all departments regard "workflow" as "customer flow", not to complete its own KPI as the guide, but to find ways to provide employees with Facilitate and build an internal service culture.
Taking financial work as an example, Nippon has introduced a “pay before review” system.
In the past, the payment process was complicated, and employees often traveled on business before reimbursing the bills.
Now they fully trust the employees, as long as the supervisor signs to get the money, and then review it afterwards.

In response to service transformation, Nippon used various opportunities to repeatedly preach related concepts to employees.
"In the beginning, our own employees mostly used the traditional thinking model of selling paint.
If they did not change, it would be even more difficult to ask distributors to change.
" Xu Mude said, whether it is monthly, quarterly or semi-annual meetings, Nippon will look for opportunities Lead employees to learn and discuss various business cases and stories known for service culture such as Haidilao, dig deep into its operation mode, discuss the benefits of high-quality services, and even take everyone to Haidilao for dinner.

When facing external personnel such as dealers, customer commissioners, and oilers, Nippon encourages them to come to conclusions independently through communication and discussion.
Xu Mude calls this "brainwashing".
For example, Nippon has a three-day dealer training course.
Half of the day is a traditional "class", and the remaining half day is a coaching discussion, inviting dealers who are ahead in service to come forward and share their experiences.
Discuss with the harvest, and then organize the dealers to discuss the value of the service collectively.
The effect is very good.

Don't make quick money to make "long money"

Despite the reputation, Nippon’s current e-commerce services and refresh services are more like making wedding dresses for dealers, and there is no profit at all.
"Nippon has invested a lot of costs, in fact, they are assisting dealers in sales, especially in refreshing services.
" Zhong Zhonglin is well aware of the principle of making "long money" without making quick money, "If I am in the middle To collect huge profits, dealers will think about taking good care of the consumers in his area? Will the consumers be satisfied? No.
It's not worth it in the long run.
"

In order to truly realize the transformation and jump out of the Red Sea, Nippon has done many things with a long-term view, even if some of them don't seem very "smart" right now.

Since 2011, Nippon Paint has successively opened 20 new material companies across the country, engaged in the manufacturing and production of coating substrates such as putty powder and reinforcing agents.
In 2014, a special substrate and auxiliary materials division was established.
Many people do not understand.
Compared with coatings, substrates have low added value and high logistics costs, similar to yellow sand and cement; and domestic consumers are accustomed to using the double-package service of contracting labor and materials when decorating, and their concern for the overall price often overrides the bottom line.
Pay attention to materials, large enterprises that pay attention to quality cannot maintain, and most of the active ones are small factories with no guarantee of qualifications in various regions.
From a business point of view, there will be no short-term profit in making substrates.

But Zhong Zhonglin insisted.
"In the past few decades, China’s coatings industry has gone fast, while the substrate and auxiliary materials industries have gone slow.
The quality of substrates is not guaranteed, and even generally contains glue with a high formaldehyde concentration.
Good paints for four to five hundred yuan are poor.
On the substrate, the effect is not as good as the poor paint of 100 yuan.
But any industry, if you can't really meet the needs of consumers, it will not be able to sustainably develop.
"

In addition to "materials", the key element of the healthy development of the coating industry is "work".
The role of the latter is even more critical.
A few years ago, Nippon Paint launched training and certification services for the majority of oilers in the society.
Oilers who have passed Nippon’s written test, technical operation, and interview assessment can obtain technical certification and are known as “Nippon Master”.
Although there is the word "Nippon" in the title, they have no direct relationship with Nippon, and they can still take jobs freely in the market.

Why is so much emphasis on oiler training? From the most direct point of view, the lack of education for oil workers will make coating companies a victim.
About 99% of the complaints received by Nippon Paint Co.
, Ltd.
are due to improper construction methods.
More importantly, due to the poor working environment, low wages, and low social status of traditional oil workers, the proportion of young people is very low.
If this continues, oil workers may have no successors, which will lead to higher wages and consumer repainting.
A series of reactions such as the decrease in frequency and the shrinking of the coating market.
Nippon hopes that through technical training, strict certification and the use of environmentally friendly materials, oilers will become a healthy, dignified and high-paying profession and attract more young people to join.

"That said, we need weapons to occupy the market.
Where do weapons come from? From that "like".
With praise, there must be business.
Don't just want to gain without paying.
" Zhong Zhonglin said.
(Source: Global Coatings Network) (For more information, please log in: Global Coatings Network http:// )