Cheyou group is now "control evaluation group"?
Car owners start with "control and comment routines"
Old car owners VS ideal control evaluation and predicament
Recently, a group of online chat screenshots showed that in a group chat named "Ideal ONE National Car Club Core Member", group friends "reported work" to a group member named "He Rui-Ideal Car" .
An ideal car owner told the Red Star Capital Bureau that the group chat was established by the ideal official, and it was used to win over the heads of the car clubs in various places.
Mr. Zhong, the owner of the Shenzhen car, told the Red Star Capital Bureau that his actual experience is basically consistent with the situation described in the screenshots on the Internet. Since the May 25 press conference, he has experienced the "fancy public relations" of an ideal car.
On June 6, Red Star Capital Bureau interviewed the ideal aspect on related matters.
The ideal staff stated that there is no "He Rui" in the staff structure, and Ideal Car does not have an official group of riders.
The rights protection of the ideal old car owners who have been making a lot of noise in recent days is related to the new car launch of the ideal car (LI.US) in May.
Many old car owners believe that Ideal Car did not disclose the new car launch plan in advance, and bought the "old model" after being induced by sales.
"We have collected information on more than 40 ideal car owners, and the case has been filed in Beijing's Shunyi District in the past two days," said Lawyer Qian from Jiangxi Bohuai Law Firm to Red Star Capital Bureau on June 6.
The mysterious core group reports to "He Rui" the dynamics of the rights protection of car friends
Ideal: There is no "He Rui" in the personnel structure
"Before, it was circulated on the Internet that the new car would increase the price by 10%, and in the end it was only 10,000 yuan." In angrily, old car owners kept asking Li Xiang to apologize and come up with a satisfactory solution.
But as of press time, Li Xiang has not yet responded.
The new car is only 10,000 more expensive than the old one. The owner of the old car complains of being "cut the leek"
Over the past few days, the rights protection of ideal old car owners has continued to ferment.
In the Weibo comment area of "Blasting" Ideal CEO Li Xiang, some car owners made a speech at Ideal Auto's store with leeks in hand, and other car owners said that they had contacted a lawyer to prepare for a joint prosecution.
All of this originated from a press conference.
On the evening of May 25th, Ideal Auto officially released the 2021 Ideal ONE at its spring conference.
According to reports, the revised Ideal ONE has undergone changes and upgrades in terms of cruising range, electric drive system, automatic assisted driving, seat comfort, rear space, etc., but the price is only 10,000 yuan more expensive than the 2020 model. , Depending on the color, the price range is 338-348,000 yuan.
Officials said that the new car will be delivered on June 1 this year.
With so many upgrades, the price was only 10,000 yuan more expensive. It was a good thing, but a large number of old car owners flocked to the Weibo comment area of Ideal Auto CEO Li Xiang, accusing them of being "cut the leek."
The Red Star Capital Bureau noticed that the old car owners were emotional. In addition to "buying old models", the most important reason was that they felt induced by sales and even cheated.
"I placed the order last year. I mentioned the car on April 30 this year. During this period, I have been repeatedly confirming with the sales whether a new car will be released this year, but the sales said no. As a result, Ideal released the new car on May 25. I was outraged. So, I said in the car friends group that I intend to defend my rights and ask for a statement from my ideals." The owner, Miss Yun, said to the Red Star Capital Bureau.
There are many car owners who are in a similar situation to Miss Yun. After not getting an ideal and satisfactory solution, the car owners decided to defend their rights.
However, the Red Star Capital Bureau found that while car owners are defending their rights, there is another wave of "unofficial" personnel to appease the emotions of these car owners.
Recently, a group of online chat screenshots showed that in a group chat named "Ideal ONE National Car Club Core Member", group friends are reporting to a person named "He Rui-Ideal Car".
A person familiar with the matter told the Red Star Capital Bureau that the group chat was established by the ideal government and was used to win over the heads of the Che Youhui associations. It is not a P picture that does exist.
According to an insider’s explanation, the above group chat content refers to the ideals after the spring conference, the voices of old car owners defending rights gradually appeared in the car friends groups in various places. In order to reduce these voices, another part of the staff is helping ideals to "control and comment". The screenshot is what they reported to He Rui for "control and evaluation work."
"That'Kang', who is in the Shenzhen Che You Group, often sends pictures of food to swipe the screen to offset the attention of rights protection. The person who mentioned'Kang' is the person in charge of the Shenzhen Che You Association and also the car. Friends of the group owner." The owner of the car, Mr. Zhong, said to the Red Star Capital Bureau, "The situation in our group basically matches the content of the screenshots. Later, someone in the group confronted the owner with the screenshots, and he was noncommittal."
On June 6, Red Star Capital Bureau interviewed the ideal aspect on related matters.
The staff of Ideal Automobile did not directly respond to whether they had arranged personnel to monitor rights protection activities in various places, but said that there was no person "He Rui" in the personnel structure, and that they had conducted internal verification of the screenshots on the Internet, saying that "there was no such operation."
In addition, the staff of Ideal Auto replied to the Red Star Capital Bureau that “there is no official group of car friends”.
Did not get a satisfactory answer
More than 40 old car owners plan to jointly prosecute
The car owners who did not get a satisfactory answer began to take practical actions to defend their rights.
"I have collected information on more than forty car owners. I have filed a case in Shunyi District of Beijing in the past two days." Lawyer Qian of Jiangxi Bohuai Law Firm told Red Star Capital Bureau, "Sales are not saying that they don’t know, it’s very clear. Saying that there is no new model, so we decided to sue for consumer fraud." Lawyer Qian said that some car owners provided incomplete evidence, and the case may be a little difficult. Right now, rights defenders are crowdfunding and preparing for a class action lawsuit.
Many media have previously reported that after a series of actions by the old car owners, Ideal Motors has already topped the list of car quality network brands and car series complaints. The problems are concentrated in "sales fraud" and "service attitude".
However, when the Red Star Capital Bureau checked the car quality network complaint rankings on June 7th, it saw that Ideal Car was in second place; when it was checked again on June 8, Ideal Car had fallen off the front page.
Car owners start with the "control evaluation" routines of the car friends group
Although the staff of Ideal Auto stated that "Ideal does not have an official car-friend group", many car owners interviewed told the Red Star Capital Bureau that they were brought into the group chat by ideal sales staff, and many car-friend groups have the same group. The "person in charge" manages these riders in a systematic way.
Mr. Zhong told the Red Star Capital Bureau that a senior salesperson of Ideal Motors in Shenzhen had made it clear to him, "It can be said that there is no official car club that is not recognized." When the car is picked up, the sales are pulled into the group, and according to the different time of picking up the car, they are divided into groups by number.
As far as the "Shenzhen 4 Group" where Mr. Zhong belongs, most users are users who bought cars from January to May 2021, and they are also the group with the most intense demands for rights protection in Shenzhen.
Mr. Zhong said that in a group of 500 people, there are about 50 ideal workers.
In addition, Mr. Zhong also found that the first few group members of Shenzhen 1-4 group are the same people, they are ideal first-generation users or senior car owners, and they manage the car friends group as the "head of the car club".
After interviewing many car owners, the Red Star Capital Bureau found that the control and evaluation behavior of the ideal car-friend group may be a system.
Routine 1
"Kicking people" in the group of riders
"After May 25th, the group of riders has become very strange." Mr. Zhong said that if the car encounters any minor problems, you can directly answer the questions from the Aite staff. The riders will also chat daily, and they have not found anything wrong. Appropriate, but after the press conference, "some operations became obvious."
"If someone scolds ideals in the group, or says they want to defend their rights, others will suddenly jump out and say that they support the ideals, and then quarrel with previous group friends. At first, we didn't think there was any problem, but we had different opinions and attitudes. That's fine." Mr. Zhong said, "Then the administrator or other people will come out and say,'Don't make a noise.' If you get confused, it will be fine, otherwise the human rights defender will be kicked out of the group chat. I am deeply impressed. On one occasion, a group of friends who were arguing with a certain rights-defending vehicle owner and helping to speak to Ideal were suddenly promoted to an administrator, and then the rights-defending vehicle owner was kicked out.”
Mr. Yang from Wenzhou claims to be the leader of the national rights protection of ideal car owners. He added, “If someone is fighting for rights in the group, the group owner said that everyone should stop it. When there is a plan, we can just sit and squeeze the wool. I see this. It was very uncomfortable, so he said, "As the owner of the car friends group, you want to fight for the interests of the car friends. Now you are neutral and you are helping the manufacturers." Then I was kicked out."
Routine 2
Delete posts on the ideal app
Mr. Yang said that in addition to the car-friends group, the ideal APP also has the deletion of posts, "They delete and ban posts in the APP, and those posts that are dissatisfied with their ideals are deleted completely."
Ideal Motors denied the deletion of the post to the Red Star Capital Bureau, but some Guangdong car owners showed to the Red Star Capital Bureau that their own post on "The Fate of the Liar", clicked on the link to become "content review."
Routine 3
Swipe with other topics
In addition to kicking people directly in the car friends group, Mr. Zhong also found that using other topics to distract attention from rights protection is another ideal "control evaluation" method.
"It's just those few people going back and forth. When others talk about rights protection, they will suddenly switch off the topic and talk about food and recharge. Anyway, they just swipe away the content of rights protection. Many friends who don't'climb up stairs' just I can't see these things anymore." Mr. Zhong said, "The'Kang Ge' in the screenshots of the Internet transmission is operated in this way, and it is basically consistent with my actual experience."
Routine 4
Call before the conference
According to media reports, an insider of the ideal car sales system said that all employees of Ideal Motor learned about the price and product changes of the new car at the same time as consumers on May 25. "These are all confidential information. Sales are also unaware."
However, some car owners told Red Star Capital that they had received ideal calls a few days before the press conference.
"Someone received a private number, and I received a call from the ideal official 400." Mr. Yang said to the Red Star Capital Bureau, "The general idea is to tell us old car owners not to make trouble before May 25. I will definitely Will give old car owners a satisfactory plan." The call date is displayed as May 23.
This means that ideals have long been prepared for the mood swings of old car owners, but correspondingly, car owners have already anticipated rights protection matters.
According to the recording provided by Mr. Yang, when communicating with Ideal’s official website, Mr. Yang made it clear that if the old car owners’ rights and interests plan provided by Ideal after the press conference cannot be satisfied by the car owners, he will cooperate with lawyers to prepare for the lawsuit.
Why would Ideal rather spend great efforts on "control evaluation" and "public relations" rather than revealing new car information before the sale?
What side effects does the change of sales model bring to ideals and other new car companies?
Observed
/ Ideal Dilemma /
After a short profit, it returns to a loss state
"I believe that the original intention of the Cheyou Group is not to control the evaluation, but this time, I found that the routine is very deep." Mr. Zhong said to the Red Star Capital Bureau.
So why would Ideal rather spend great efforts on "control evaluation" and "public relations" rather than reveal new car information before sales, and even maintained an "excessively low-key" at the Shanghai International Auto Show in April?
The ideal sales data answers this question to a certain extent.
In the first quarter of 2021, Ideal delivered 12,600 vehicles, Weilai delivered 20,000 vehicles, and Xiaopeng delivered 13,300 vehicles.
In terms of delivery volume, Xiaopeng does not surpass the ideal much, but the growth rate is even more obvious.
In the first quarter, Weilai increased by 422.7% year-on-year and 15.6% month-on-month; Xiaopeng increased by 487% year-on-year, and only slightly increased by 3% year-on-year; the ideal delivery volume increased by 334.4% year-on-year, which is already behind, and the quarter-on-quarter is among the "Three Musketeers". The only decline was -13%.
In addition, the financial report shows that the ideal total revenue for the first quarter of 2021 is 3.58 billion yuan, an increase of 319.8% year-on-year, but a decrease of 13.8% from the fourth quarter of 2020.
At the same time, the net loss in the first quarter was 360 million yuan, compared with a net loss of 77.1 million yuan in the same period last year, and the loss was further expanded.
The profit of 107.5 million yuan in the fourth quarter of 2020 is mainly due to the income generated by short-term financial product investment.
In other words, after a short period of profit, the ideal has returned to the state of loss, and the successor is weak.
/ Industry difficulties /
Changes in sales model bring side effects
For Ideal and other new car companies, the increased risk of being accused of "cutting leeks" is also a side effect of changes in sales models.
The self-operated model of placing orders on the official website and picking up cars in stores allows car companies to go from behind the scenes to the front and talk directly with consumers.
This model eliminates the trouble of "middlemen earning the price difference" for auto companies, and also loses the barrier protection of intermediary dealers.
In other words, under the traditional dealership model, car companies have given dealers a certain amount of power and space to transfer profits.
The result of this is that different consumers may get different prices for different sales in different stores.
Under this model, if consumers feel that they have “lost”, the object of rights protection is generally 4S stores, rather than directly finding manufacturers.
How to resolve the conflict between consumers and enterprises under the direct sales model?
How to deal with the price rise and fall, the alternation of new and old products, and the relationship between new and old car owners?
How to maintain the image of the company and management?
These problems may not only be left to ideals.
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News Reporter Yu Yao
Intern reporter Xie Yutong