According to the Top 50 Global Construction Machinery Manufacturers in 2018 (Yellow Table 2018), China’s engineering machinery industry has witnessed strong rebound growth after years of declining sales data since 2017. For example, the excavator field has produced a double growth miracle and achieved the best sales performance in five years. It continued strongly in 2018; the excavator industry, concrete machinery, pavement construction and other power generating machinery, lifting and transportation machinery, metallurgical mining machinery, and other major areas have witnessed substantial growth. Chinese manufacturers such as XCMG, LiuGong, Zoomlion, SANY heavy industry, Lonking, ShanTui, XGMA, SUNWARD, and Lovol have all been promoted to the list of Top 50 Global Construction Machinery Manufacturers in 2018.
When viewing it as a whole, Chinese machinery manufacturing industry is gradually developing to the highest level in the world in terms of research and development of core technologies. This is also applicable at manufacturing and management levels, although there are still many issues to be solved in the globalization of China’s industrial enterprises in the overseas market environment. This is particularly notable in regard to numerous competitors and asymmetric information. For example, even if the quality-price ratio is good, foreign customers may still have doubts about the sustainability of China’s machinery manufacturing industry and its performance in after-sales services. This is one of the biggest headaches for Chinese companies in overseas markets.
Callnovo has conducted a summary and reflection on the service experience of Chinese machinery manufacturing oversea enterprises. Accordingly, it has been concluded that there are four major pain points for Chinese machinery manufacturing enterprises, particularly in overseas customer service and technical support, which may weaken their competitiveness.
1. The voices from end users are separated.
It is known that, among the surveyed enterprises of Chinese machinery manufacturing industry with overseas business, 83% have a certain business layout in major overseas markets. The overseas distribution channels of most enterprises essentially rely on the cooperation with overseas local dealers. The company headquarters are far away from the end-user’s information channels, and there is little feedback from customers. General after-sales issues are usually absorbed directly by dealers, unless headquarters can get feedback from the dealers by email or telephone when the problems affect the interests of dealers commonly. Although the Chinese headquarters periodically tries to obtain after-sales service information from dealers and end-users, the amount of information is invariably incomplete, untimely, and insufficient.
2. Decentralized channels of communication
Local distributors in other countries and local end customers have a larger variety of contact methods, which could be various channels such as telephone, SMS, Email, WhatsApp, WeChat, Facebook, email, etc. Their market information and end-user feedback are often only circulated between the final customer and the distributor. This further leads to an increased gap of communication between the headquarters of Chinese enterprises and their overseas end-users.
3. Inability to control the quality of dealer’s service
Since the end customer and the dealer communicate directly through various decentralized channels, the headquarters does not play the leading role in after-sales customer service. This results in its inability to monitor and control the quality of the dealer’s service. Therefore, several indicators of the after-sales services are often inaccurately collected and communicated to the headquarters, such as the response speed, professionalism, and manners of the dealers’ after-sales service.
4. The lack of professional staff
In the Chinese machine manufacturing sector, the lack of professional staff is also a main issue. Talent is a key factor for Chinese enterprises in providing excellent after-sales service once they go abroad. In the practice of the strategies of globalization and localization, Chinese enterprises are in want of, in various countries, local channels for customer service representatives and talented staff in management. At the same time, most Chinese companies also lack the global brand recognition of their employers.
To better develop themselves, under the ‘new situation’ of the Belt and Road, headquarters of Chinese enterprises need a solution to seamlessly link headquarters, distributors, and their end customers. Through our close-knit, proficient, and communicative teams,, we can directly and uniformly support customer service and technical support, as well as understand and control the quality of services of the distributors. More importantly, we can obtain feedback from first-line users in the market.
In consideration of the above-mentioned shortcomings and needs of overseas Chinese machinery manufacturing enterprises, Callnovo Global Multilingual Call Center, which has been engaging in the field of after-sales service for nearly 20 years, has customized a one-stop multichannel solution for Chinese oversea enterprises involved in the production of power machinery, crane transport machinery, agricultural machinery, metallurgical mining machinery, chemical machinery, textile machinery, tools, instruments, and other mechanical equipment. The Call Center aims to help these companies obtain better performance in their after-sales services. The main areas of applications are as followed:
1. Through the centralized management of global representatives with over 30 languages, Callnovo provides one-stop global native-language customer service and technical support for enterprises to support their oversea end-users and dealers.
2. Callnovo can assist enterprise headquarters in obtaining 800 toll-free numbers all over the world, and they will enjoy the best rates provided by the local communication service providers, build an efficient and friendly brand interactive channel for your overseas customers, and gain further development opportunities.
3. In order to match the mission scenarios of different roles and pursue a more efficient and user-friendly strategy of customer service, Callnovo tailors the characteristics, configuration, and integration of overseas after-sales service in mechanical engineering, automobile manufacturing, medical equipment, and other industries. The CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system integrates service work orders, SMS, email, telephone, APP, artificial intelligence, etc. into a system which flexibly interfaces with the company’s own business system. It is not required for each business role to log in to multiple systems to work on a unified platform, enabling uninterrupted and unified management of liaison and after-sales services in overseas markets, 24 hours per day.
4. For companies with a large amount of overseas services, the technical team of Callnovo Call Center has introduced a multilingual artificial intelligence customer service that improves efficiency and reduces costs. In the case of relatively concentrated and repeated problems, if the knowledge base is completely established and the intelligent customer service robot is improved, although not regularlt, Callnovo’s AI robot can answer the users’ inquiries individually and intelligently. Moreover, Callnovo can even deploy multiple rounds of dialogues, which are AI customer services that responds proactively, making the self-service of the end-users much more efficient.
After deeply exploring the need of enterprises for the vertical management on overseas customer support and after-sales service, Callnovo has customized corresponding solutions to break through the complicated technical support docking and system docking in various industries. It aims to deliver excellent services to the enterprises’ end users and ultimately win the end users’ trust in the enterprise’s brand.
This solution realizes the unified management of service, monitoring, and information flow for the customer service of the Chinese machinery manufacturing sector. Callnovo Call Center has established a fast and light-hearted overseas multilingual customer service and technical support team for its clients, providing their business departments with professional pre-sale and after-sale support, as well as an after-sale management department. It helps with the management of after-sales departments and successfully closes the gap between the headquarters and the distribution of Chinese enterprises. It also closes the gap between the end customers in the world and distributors in various countries, as well as facilitates their communication and transmission of information. Last but not least, the Call Center also effectively grasps the core data and important resources of the market. Through obtaining timely feedback from the market, the headquarters can continue optimizing their business processes by obtaining feedback from the market in a timely manner. Through this they are able to discover the core issues of their customers, refine market demand, improve and promote iterative products, and lay a solid foundation for the survival and development of many Chinese companies.