Marketing Frontier

The enterprise's brand management involves in such aspects as R&D, production, market, sales, service and channel. So, it could not be achieved by only one functional department. In this case, the enterprise's brand manager shall deliberate the brand management by means of virtual organization inside the enterprise.

Clearly define the enterprise's demands for brand management

With continuous globalization of economy, fast growth of Chinese economy as well as gradual development of local enterprises for the past 30 years, most Chinese enterprises' marketing level is at the stage of marketing integration and brand marketing.

The enterprise's brand manager shall consider the marketing level of enterprise, so as to find right time to sort out the brand management system. Then, the proper decision could be made to carry out planning, consulting, implementation, research or improvement for the enterprise's brand-related concept, orientation, structure, application system and procedures.

Feasible brand orientation

The enterprise's brand orientation is closely related to its strategic orientation. An appropriate orientation is just like a beacon light to guide the enterprise's employees in a big market with changeable situations and diversified consumption concepts. The enterprise shall take account of the level and demands of its audience as well as market situation and its own practical ability, so as to make the proper decision.

Seek the feasible brand management practice

As ascertaining the general orientation of enterprise's brand management, the brand manager shall carry out the internal research and planning meticulously. Thus, the brand management could be put into practice via a series of projects.

For the large or very large enterprises, it is critical to evaluate and supervise the intangible brand assets; also, it is essential to evaluate the intangible brand assets in the course of enterprise's separation, restructuring and merger & acquisition. For the large and medium-sized enterprises almost without brand management, it is also necessary to carry out some basic brand supervisory work such as market & competitor's brand survey, brand concept plan, brand orientation, brand demonstration, brand structure establishing and strategy for evolution of overall brand in the next couple of years.

For the enterprise with a clear brand strategy, the brand manager could study the demands or extend the application of brand management at the level of application. For the enterprise with relatively sound brand management system or transnational corporation's branch offices, it is more practical for the enterprise to propagate brand or integrate marketing on the basis of fiscal year.

The implementation capacity from organization, system and culture

For any consultation (management) program involving in the enterprise's lifeline, the succeeding vitality thereof shall be continuously supported by a powerful team and the enterprise's senior management. Also, the implementation capacity for the enterprise's brand management shall be from such an organization——the enterprise's brand management board, which is made up of the persons in charge of brand-related departments such as R&D, production, market, sales, service and channel. Meanwhile, the meeting shall be held regularly (e.g. monthly) to supervise, analyze and discuss the implementation of enterprise's brand management strategy. Particularly, the enterprise's brand management department shall cover all the operation systems rather than totally be attached to the marketing system.

The powerful organization must be backed and supported by effective regulations, procedures and systems. Thus, the enterprise's brand management board and brand management department shall be provided with clear responsibilities and performance mechanism at the very beginning.

The highest level of enterprise management shall be focused on the superstructure. Every one in the enterprise shall recognize the corporate culture. From this point of view, the brand management department must cooperate with HR or internal training department, so that the enterprise's brand strategy could be implanted into every nook and corner of the enterprise.

Conclusion

As taking a wide view on brand management in the world for the past couple of years, we could see that besides following up the above several brand management strategies, the large or very large enterprises are able to dynamically monitor market and competitor's brand competition strategy as well as carry out the overall brand strategy adjustment every 5-10 years. However, for the Chinese market and Chinese enterprises with quicker growth, such periodic time could be shortened to 3-5 years. From this viewpoint, there is still a long way to go for the Chinese brand managers. Thus, more basic jobs shall be done in the future.

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In essence, data-driven marketing (DDM) is marketing that is based on enterprise customer data. It is a marketing process in which enterprises collect, settle and analyze customer data, make continuous marketing, repeat it in endless cycles, and keep optimizing it.

Personal information protection law, promulgated sooner or later, will be a watershed

In developed countries and even some developing countries, the legal system protecting personal information has been fairly complete. Relevant industrial organizations and associations would even establish their own rules in their business scopes according to the legislative purposes. For example, European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research (ESOMAR) regulates that market surveys and database marketing business should be separated in operations.

Why is it so hard to establish a personal information protection law in China? On the one hand, China's social structure and legal system construction lag far behind the surging market economy. On the other hand, China is short of a relevant body of law, i.e., relevant government body of law enforcement. Other factors baffling the establishment of the personal information protection law include judicial evidence collection and inter-departmental interests. Even if the personal information protection law is established, there will be a long period to make related judicial interpretations, concrete detailed rules for implementation, and relevant legal system construction. Anyhow, the personal information protection law has been put in the legislation program. Once it is promulgated, the law will become a watershed and surely bring about profound changes in relevant industries, particularly the giant but relatively loose data marketing industry.

Changes in industrial environments

Since it is obtained at exceptionally low costs, personal information is bought and sold in mass again and again. Enterprises may also gain personal information with very low costs and market the database. On the basis of existing data acquisition costs, enterprises may enjoy double or more investment return rates from database marketing (telephone, direct mail and e-mail marketing modes have relatively fixed costs) than from the regular marketing mode (such as radio, TV and newspaper advertising). The database marketing has become too popular and favored, not because of its so called precision to a great extent, but due to the low costs of illegally obtaining personal information.

As the legal system has been continually improved to protect personal information in the country, the legal costs for illegally obtaining and transacting personal information will keep climbing. The days will go for ever that enterprises could acquire personal information with low costs. Likewise, so many great and small marketing agencies depending on database marketing will be exposed to live-or-die choice sooner or later: how to obtain permissible data at low costs? In other words, how to absorb customers to register and get approval from the customers to use their modes of contact for marketing.

As shown in experiences in developed European countries and the United States, only large-scale personal permissible information suppliers will survive in the end, because of incessant elevation of boundary conditions, including market, technology, management and law. These institutions are gathering personal information through lawful means and under the permission of customers. They supply personal data service to institutional customers through the mode of "data lease". Meanwhile, the industries will be enriched in environments, featuring more explicit divisions of labor. Data suppliers, data managers, data analysts, marketing planning institutions and executive institutions will attend their own duties to jointly cultivate a sound, lawful and orderly market environment.

Real data-driven marketing

In the present market patterns, industries and enterprises are developing rapidly. Homogeneous competition is growing more and more fiercely. The market has not yet been saturated. All these make it a priority to win new customers in business marketing. In contrast, marketing with existing customers is placed second most important. The situation will be improved, along with continuous elevation in the costs of obtaining new customers, and incessant accumulation of customer resources by customers. When enterprises pay nearly same, same or higher costs to obtain new customers than maintaining existing customers, it will become a priority to go along with information maintenance, information management, information analysis, and loyalty planning of old customers in the marketing of enterprises.

Under the DDM system, enterprises also need to improve the following marketing performances: First, they need to improve the customer information gathering and management system, i.e., the customer information management system. The unified customer view subsequently built upon the database will not only serve the operation-oriented service system, but also serve the analysis-oriented management and decision-making support system. Second, they need to improve the customer data management system, including the management, integration, clean-out and quality improvement of the multi-channel hetero-structure data resources. Third, they need to improve the analysis and mining of customer information to guide marketing decisions of enterprises. In the end, they need to improve the data-based marketing planning, execution and monitoring system, and implement the data-based marketing in real earnest. Through repeated cycles, continuous improvement and elevation, these elements will constitute the DDM system of enterprises.

In the perspective of industries, the banking and telecom industries are the most mature sectors to adopt the DDM. The two industrial sectors are known for high concentration of businesses, sufficient competition, and highest industrial information levels. As a result, they are most advanced and improved in marketing concepts. We are in the opinion that along with continuous improvement of enterprises, the auto industry and IT industry will also become the sectors with mature application of DDM in the near future. The retail industry, tourism industry, aviation industry, and e-commerce industry, which are highly information-based sectors, will eventually turn into models of DDM application.

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Mr. Luo is the general manager of a private enterprise which produces consumer electronics such as mobile phones and computers. In order to improve operation efficiency and offer better service, Mr. Luo made the decision two years ago that the customer satisfaction survey and improvement should be carried out inside the company every six months.

In two years, the satisfaction survey helped the company solve some problems and win certain public praise inside the industry. However, in the course of satisfaction survey, different opinions were formed in the company: the personnel in favor of the satisfaction survey thought it has improved the enterprise's management level, product quality and relationship with the customers, while the opponents thought the investment on satisfaction survey and the result thereof should be still tested by time; also, restrictions and limits are available. So, Mr. Luo faces the dilemma: go ahead and further the management and application of satisfaction survey, or draw back to pursue other better methods?

During a forum inside the industry, Mr. Luo met a marketing service expert called Xiao He, who made a brief introduction on the current satisfaction survey management.

Business circle: ways available

The satisfaction survey is adopted by different industries and enterprises as a routine job for the management. The types of satisfaction survey are listed as below:

Type I: Understand and meet the customers' demands
Subject: Learn about existing or potential users' reflection on the products/services at various stages
Representative fields: home appliances, telecommunications and retail sale
Result: Find out the defects of products and services, so as to make improvement; develop promising products or services
Popularity:

Type II: benchmarking management
Subject: Make a comparison on the gap with major competitors and reason hereof in terms of key indicators
Representative fields: automobile, IT and aviation
Result: seek the benchmarking enterprises; set up the advanced standards
Popularity:

Type III: participate in performance assessment
Subject: Propose the improvement of indices with low degree of satisfaction and great importance; also, assessment shall be made
Representative fields: home appliances, automobile and catering
Result: offer KPI indices; improve operation efficiency
Popularity: 

Type IV: improve the customer value
Subject: Subdivide the customers, so as to concern on the demands from key/high value customers
Representative fields: finance, telecommunications, retail sale and hotel
Result: help market segmentation; seek high value customers
Popularity:

Type V: increase brand reputation
Subject: Launch relevant propaganda to increase brand reputation
Representative fields: aviation and finance
Result: boost the brand establishing
Popularity: 

In practice, one or more of the above types will be adopted by enterprises as per the different fields or phases of development

Field of theory: perfection seeking

In practice, satisfaction management will also face certain challenges:

Challenge I: satisfaction trap

As per the survey, satisfaction trap may exist - the enterprise invests both manpower and material resources to improve products and services, so that the customer satisfaction is increased. However, customers do not recognize such improvement. In a bid to remove the "Satisfaction Trap", the enterprise could provide the customer with better experience through higher quality and more diversified products & services. Thus, the customer's perception exceeds expectation and customer loyalty is enhanced.

Challenge II: ceiling effect

It is said that the degree of satisfaction affects the enterprise's profit-making through the customer conservation rate (loyalty). However, someone also points out that the customer conservation rate will remain still when the customer satisfaction arrives at a certain level. Therefore, it does not remarkably affect the increase of enterprise's profits. Such ceiling effect enlightens the enterprises in two aspects: on the one hand, enterprises shall improve the customer satisfaction to a certain level via procedure improvement and performance control, so that the customer conservation rate could reach or be close to the optimal value; on the other hand, when the customer conservation rate arrives at the limit value, the enterprise shall keep the rational degree of satisfaction via pre-warning indicator, sustainable improvement and customer value subdividing.

Challenge III: how to make effective measuring

As the measuring standards for customer's experience on products or services, the degree of satisfaction features subjectivity and wave property. Thus, higher requirements are proposed for truly and effectively measuring of consumer satisfaction. In practice, the third party's market study and consultative body could assist the enterprise to build the proper index system for the degree of satisfaction as well as fully participate in the satisfaction survey and analytic process thereof, so as to ensure the quantification and accuracy of decision-making.

Satisfaction survey management: find the right way

Specifically, in the course of satisfaction management, the enterprise shall pay close attention to following points:

Strategic positioning: The satisfaction management could be used not only in the enterprise's different fields, but also as the key item to balance the scorecard, to diagnose and improve the entire operation system. As it is used at the very beginning, the enterprise shall ascertain the positioning and objectives of satisfaction management.

Open mind: The satisfaction management is a tool used for fully learning about the customer's perception, experience and evaluation. So, the enterprise shall positively participate in the index system design, problem diagnosis & improvement and examination.

Using outside brain: The specialized processing capacity shall be available for satisfaction management due to its strategic position and overall importance. So, the enterprise could seek the assistance from "Outside Brain" - professional consulting company or organization to solve the issues as below: custom-made index system; independent, objective and authentic data; standardized quality control & implementing procedures; satisfaction survey-related training; suggestions on optimizing of satisfaction management.

Improving focus: The satisfaction management shall eventually produce the fruitful result. So, the enterprise shall regularly track and evaluate on the result of satisfaction management in terms of product quality, service level, customer loyalty, customer response speed, employee satisfaction and enterprise's profit-making.

Resource allocation: The satisfaction management is used to learn about the customer's demands, timely feedback the market information and make sustainable improvement. So, certain resources shall be available for it in such aspects as satisfaction management organization; satisfaction data collection; satisfaction report & feedback mechanism; tracking and evaluation system for satisfaction result; detailed regulations for satisfaction management examining and budget management.

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China's auto after-sales service evaluation system has undergone a change from copying foreign systems in the early phase to gradual localization at present. In the future, the system will experience a transition from being service guideline-oriented to being customer-oriented.

As China's first company conducting after-sales service satisfaction surveys, Sinotrust began to carry out auto after-sales service satisfaction surveys as early as in 1998. On the one hand, after-sales service evaluation is concerning about service process and standards; and on the other hand, it is about consumer experience and perception. In the first place, customer expectations come from their knowledge about automakers' service standards. With the rapid growth of the auto market, customer experience and customer expectations increase accordingly, which requires automakers to improve their service standards.

Today, service satisfaction evaluation has changed a lot. Firstly, after-sales service satisfaction is an important management tool for automakers because it can help build brand image and word of mouth, create and adjust service standards and provide support for dealer assessment; secondly, it is an effective tool for regional management with the functions of analyzing the universal and particular problems with dealers and helping regional management to enhance customer satisfaction; finally, customer satisfaction is also an effective way to maintain a good relationship with customers, improve dealer services and enhance customer loyalty.

Carrying out after-sales service satisfaction surveys in China must conform to the characteristics of Chinese consumers:

Firstly, Chinese consumers have a modest and reserved character and they seldom use such words like "very dissatisfied" or "very satisfied" when rating their satisfaction. So we should try to avoid using such extreme words in the questionnaires.

Secondly, in China, 80% of customers are first car buyers who are not as experienced in car using and maintenance, and they rely much on after-sales services and care much about customer care services like maintenance reminding, service explanation and follow-up service. So a higher weight should be assigned on the customer care section in the evaluation system.

Finally, the development of regional markets in China is unbalanced and the cultural disparities between different regions result in diversified car-purchasing considerations. Therefore, satisfaction surveys should cover wide areas rather than a few central cities.

To gain a comprehensive and objective understanding of the current status of auto after-sales service satisfaction, we need to adopt multiple means and whole-process synthetic solutions in the satisfaction survey process. "Multiple means" include qualitative and quantitative research methods——identifying poorly-performing sections through a large-scale quantitative research and then discovering the specific problems, customer needs and improvement recommendations thought focused group discussions; or identifying the problems through shop visits, mystery shopping, workshop tests, etc. if necessary. "Whole process" covers understanding of customer expectations, optimization of service flow, service flow examination, service training and creation of satisfaction improvement plans.

Based on our extensive experience in satisfaction surveys, Sinotrust classifies consumer requirements for after-sales services into four levels: The most basic and crucial requirement is professionalism and standardization——professional service skills and standard reception and service process; the second requirement is openness——open and reasonable price and transparent service process; the third requirement is promptness——high service efficiency and short waiting time; the fourth requirement is user-friendliness——initiative in reminding customers of tips on maintenance, improving facilities in customer lounge, and providing round-the-clock roadside service substitute mobility service.

According to Sinotrust, the after-sales service evaluation system has basically met consumers' requirements for professionalism, standardization and openness, but regarding promptness, user-friendliness and reasonable charges, there are still gaps with customer expectations. For instance, it is very necessary to build an after-sales service evaluation system that is focused on customer experience.

In the next three to five years, after-sales services will still be dominated by automakers, but with the expansion of fast repair chain shops, automakers must change the evaluation pattern so as to compare and compete with the independent after-sales service providers.

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