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Text/Wang Pan
Source: Photon Planet (ID: TMTweb)
On September 21, the night when the price of Xiaopeng G9 was announced, many Xiaopeng employees, including Chairman He Xiaopeng, barely slept all night, and some friends even developed acne on their faces overnight. The next night, everyone continued to hold an all-night meeting to discuss.
All this is just because of mixed reviews after the press conference. Some users think that the product is very selling point. It is the most mature car of Xiaopeng so far, but there are also many complaints, such as too complicated options and bundled products. There is no intelligence whatsoever in sales, the “beggar version”, and so on. Among them, some users who originally planned to buy the G9 felt that it was difficult to choose and began to consider other brands.
However, He Xiaopeng also saw the complaints of users. He announced on the morning of the second day after the press conference that he would promote improvements internally and adjust sales and matching strategies within two days.
At 4:00 pm on September 23, 44 hours after the end of the press conference, Xiaopeng Motors officially announced to the public that based on the feedback from the majority of users that the choice of product configuration is difficult and the cost of selection is high, the company spent two days to readjust Product naming logic and price configuration, reduce the difficulty of user selection, and standardize intelligent and luxurious configuration.
After the announcement of this adjustment, the voice of complaining has been significantly reduced, and everyone really felt the sincerity of Xiaopeng. Many users who originally waited or chose to unsubscribe chose Xiaopeng G9 again, but some people will not come back to choose this car again. .
In fact, the overall sales strategy of Xiaopeng after the second adjustment was successful, and some friends even joked that this was the marketing that Xiaopeng had planned in advance.
From the official release to the second adjustment strategy, only 44 hours have passed in the middle. Such a rapid adjustment is beyond the cognition of many people, which is also the first time in the history of Chinese automobiles. We have seen positive feedback from users’ complaints, and it can be said that Xiaopeng reversed a negative thing with practical actions.
Of course, such a reversal is bound to be costly, that is, although the adjusted strategy is more sincere, it has also greatly reduced the gross profit of Xiaopeng G9, and the company will be further pressured in the stock market, which will also delay Xiaopeng Motors. The point in time when the overall break-even is achieved.
In essence, Xiaopeng Motors has no choice, either choose to offend users and be abandoned, or choose to swallow the bitter fruit of the moment, win the approval of users, and then think about coming to Japan.
What happened in the past 44 hours of Xiaopeng Motors is enough to be recorded in the history of Chinese automobile development. And it was during these 44 hours that we had a conversation with He Xiaopeng, and also participated in the face-to-face “Tucao” of the executives of Xiaopeng Motors.
In fact, with the launch of Xiaopeng 2020 G3, the configuration and battery life have been improved, but the price has dropped, which hurt the feelings of 2019 G3 users. The situation at that time was similar to this. If you sell well, you must have a low price. The team in charge of financing may also feel that this is right. Only if it sells well can you tell stories to VCs to complete a new round of financing, but the interests of old users are ignored.
When it came to the Xpeng G9 this time, we didn’t know which departments’ demands and ideas finally contributed to the pricing and selection strategy of the original version. It was not until the user’s complaints appeared that the whole company realized that something was wrong, and then had to quickly correct it.
Although the problem encountered this time was urgently resolved by the whole company without sleep for two days and two nights to discuss a new plan, the root cause of the incident still exists.
In my opinion, the reason why a company has such a situation more than once must be a problem with the company’s organization, culture and values. If we go deeper, there is a problem with the people behind it. For example, each department seems to have problems. They are all expressing their demands reasonably and striving for their own interests, but in the end no one comes to express their demands for users.
If each department only cares about the gains and losses of its own acre of land, the interests of users will naturally be ignored, or people who think about the interests of the company in the overall situation do not have enough right to speak, then this problem will not be solved. If it is fundamentally resolved, similar things will happen again and again.
Although such a problem is very difficult and realistic, fortunately, the company has found the problem. They have not hidden it or admit it, but have acknowledged the existence of the problem and are working to solve it.
To solve fundamental problems, we must start with organization and personnel, followed by culture and values. If we see a big change in the personnel of Xiaopeng Motors in the next year, everyone should not think that it is a “personnel earthquake”, but see that the company has really begun to resolve its own problems from the root. When it comes to the problem, you should feel relieved.
This time we adjusted the strategy, we saw that the users’ complaints did have a substantial effect, and Xpeng’s users also temporarily won the victory. It can be seen from the influx of orders after the adjustment of the strategy that caused the server of Xpeng Motors App to crash for a while . But such a victory is only temporary, and no one knows when a similar situation will occur again.
Next, Xiaopeng must find a way to solve the root cause, so that users can always reap such victories. Only in this way can it be possible to win the long-distance race to build a car.
Everyone involved in this G9 decision should ask themselves, what is the mission, vision and values of Xpeng Motors? To borrow Lei Jun’s words, who is Xiaopeng Motors and who is Xiaopeng Motors fighting for? Is it for the benefit of the department or the benefit of the user?
Since your brand mission is to “use technology to create a more convenient and pleasant travel life for human beings”, then in the future, this kind of blocking for users and increasing the cost of understanding for users is neither convenient nor pleasant, and even orders that are close to the door. Should we put an end to things that hand over people?
This time, users can be moved by your sincerity in admitting your mistakes and changing them, and come back to choose Xiaopeng G9. But what about next time?
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