The "Knocking" Remote Office Door: Wechat'S Unexpected Traffic

Editor's note: epidemic prevention and control can not be relaxed, but the resumption of production and normal operation of enterprises can not wait for a long time. At this time, telecommuting has played an important role in the operation of many enterprises, such as WeChat, Ali nail and other remote office platforms are widely used by many enterprises. In practice, WeChat and other platforms are not only used for internal office work, but also for customer service and business development. The special circumstances caused by the epidemic have virtually led to the "universal education" of many enterprises' telecommuting operations. Some enterprises have even opened up customers through the comprehensive use of remote office platforms. This special experience may lead to new changes in the work and communication patterns of enterprises.

The sudden outbreak of the new crown pneumonia has spread all walks of life, and the "offline" of the offline economy has also spawned a large demand for online services.

Since January 23rd, he and his colleagues, WeChat's senior product director, have been working continuously for three weeks, and their working hours can reach 16 hours a day. Correspondingly, the iteration speed of enterprise WeChat is accelerating.

In the past three weeks, WeChat has been updating the frequency of one version. But in the past three weeks, WeChat has released 2 versions. If you calculate those functional iterations that do not need to update the client, it will basically be updated in 2-3 days.

In an interview with the twenty-first Century economic report, He Jing said that although the continuous overtime work is very bitter and very tired, this time, everyone's investment is very high. "In the face of the epidemic, we all want to do something we can do, although we can't rush to the front line like medical staff, but if we can help our customers overcome some difficulties during the epidemic, we are also proud of it."

In fact, WeChat is just a microcosm of the technology giants in the battle during the epidemic, but it has a certain uniqueness. From the function of remote office, there is not much difference between WeChat and Ali nails, but unlike competing products, WeChat can also communicate with WeChat. This ability to connect C terminals has become a "life-saving straw" for many enterprises to cope with the epidemic.

Xibei line blocked, online compensation

At the beginning of February, Jia Guolong, chairman of Xibei food and Beverage Co., said, "loan payment can only support March", exposing the crisis faced by the catering industry, and at the same time, a self rescue operation is also in progress.

Liu Ruiqi, senior manager of Xibei member's operation, told the twenty-first Century business news reporter that during the epidemic period, because the stores under the line were closed, Xibei began to increase its online business, which mainly consisted of three parts: takeaway, online shopping mall and recent group catering business.

Before the epidemic, there were about more than 100 outlets opened by Xibei, but so far, the number has doubled. Liu Ruiqi said, now Xibei daily takeaway business turnover is about 2 million yuan, online revenue accounted for more than 80% of total revenue.

In the process of Xibei power takeaway business, WeChat has also played a crucial role in addition to the takeaway platforms such as the US and the hungry. "As early as 2018, Xibe began to build its own takeaway, shopping mall and other online businesses, but until November 2019 began to use WeChat, these online businesses have been maximized." Liu Ruiqi said.

Under Xibei's business scenario, enterprise WeChat mainly implements three functions: first, the deep connection between WeChat and customers is achieved through enterprise. In the past, if employees were allowed to add users to private WeChat, users and employees might have scruples, and the use of WeChat would be more formal. Not only that, Xibe put the link of online services to the WeChat employee's details page, which enables users to directly place orders through the staff who contact them, and also promotes the transformation of online services.

Second, through the open API interface of WeChat, Xibe opened the enterprise WeChat and the company's CRM (customer management system), so that employees can see the corresponding user portrait through the enterprise WeChat, such as eating habits, preferences, and how long they haven't arrived at the store.

Third, for a chain like chain such as Xibe, it is particularly important to move on and off, and Xibe realized the "Trinity" of the group, branch and store through the enterprise WeChat.

Liu Ruiqi believes that when customers place orders on other online platforms, Xibe and customers are segmented, but they are ready to deliver food through the middle platform to customers. But by WeChat, Xibei can precipitate user data. Based on these information, Xibei can provide more precise services to customers.

"Generally speaking, it is unified management and precise service. In this epidemic, this kind of deep connection with customers has played a major role." Liu Ruiqi said that since the official opening of WeChat in November 9, 2019, Xibei has added more than 90 thousand customers. At present, it has online interaction with at least 10 thousand customers per day.

Gloria makes use of "machine"

As a Brand Company for women's wear, Gloria is already the three oldest user of WeChat. Gloria executive general manager Deng Zhixiang twenty-first Century economic report reporter said that before the outbreak, Gloria's usual weekend's allocation and decision-making work is also done through the WeChat online office, so when the outbreak suddenly broke out, their working conditions were still in disorder.

According to Deng Zhi's recollection, at the beginning of two (January 25th), he observed that the development of the epidemic became more and more serious. At the beginning of the month four, the IT department was reorganized to inspect the office software of WeChat and non enterprise WeChat, and transmit some data to the Internet. At the beginning of five, some Gloria departments needed to start working online.

At present, the whole company of Gloria has started the state of telecommuting, and more than 80% of the workload is completed on WeChat, including ERP, reporting system, planning system and training system.

Deng Zhi said that for small and medium-sized enterprises like Gloria, the biggest pressure brought by the epidemic is cash flow. Because the clothing industry has to produce in advance, so many spring clothes and winter clothes are pressing in the warehouse now. How to cash in is the urgent matter at the moment. In addition, it is the morale of the staff. More than 1000 front-line employees of Gloria are mainly relying on royalty, but now the offline stores are closed, and their incomes will also be affected.

For this reason, Gloria began to require employees to do their customers' online operation from February 1st. That is, online sales can be achieved through the establishment of WeChat group and the connection between WeChat and customers. "Over the past 10 days, GMV has exceeded 1 million 200 thousand every day, the highest day is nearly 3 million, although it is far behind the income of more than 400 shops under the line, but these days, there is an explosive growth over the past online income." Deng Zhi said.

In fact, Gloria's online customer operation began in the second half of 2019, and some shopping guides already have a certain user base. During the epidemic, these shopping guides were invited by WeChat to purchase the order from the micro mall. Some of the sales in the past 10 days have increased by 10%-15% over the next month.

For the small program mall that started last year, Deng Zhi believes that the operation of small programs as the core allows brands to build their own platforms. From a cost perspective, there is no middleman, and enterprises can also maximize their benefits to consumers.

The epidemic has also become an opportunity for Gloria to launch online channels. According to reporters, in 2018, Gloria's online sales accounted for less than 10%. During the epidemic, Gloria hopes to make the proportion of the online scale as big as possible.

Deng Zhi said frankly, as a traditional brand, Gloria did not sell well in the past, and the precipitation of members fans still needs to be improved. Now, efforts are being made to do so. It is also hoped to save much of the losses and restore the experience of social marketing, laying the foundation for future restarting.

Universal education of office work

WeChat, which was born in 2016, is a product launched by Tencent for enterprise customers. He Jing told the twenty-first Century economic report that in the first three years of WeChat's business, three things were done step by step: the first thing was to connect the employees inside the enterprise, to move the business address book, the organizational structure, etc.

The second thing is connecting employees and offices. WeChat made a workbench, adding many applications, such as punch card, approval, report, meeting, online document, micro disk and so on. At the same time, based on API interface, enterprise WeChat also accommodates more service providers' applications, such as some customer management systems, ERP systems and so on.

The third thing is WeChat interoperability, which enables WeChat not only to support upstream and downstream interoperability among enterprises, but also to connect businesses and consumers.

Alibaba's nails are two years ahead of WeChat, and they are also pioneers in the enterprise office market. If you only look at the first two stages of WeChat's development, it will be more like a market follower, because from the point of view of product function, there is not much difference between WeChat and nails, and some functions are later released than nails.

But when WeChat realizes the ability to interoperate with WeChat, WeChat also has a unique competitive edge from other competing products. "WeChat is the only product that can provide interoperability with WeChat. With this capability, WeChat can also go deep into all industries," he said. Since 2019, WeChat has launched a solution to vertical industries such as finance, healthcare, education and retailing.

From the case of Xibe and Gloria, we can see that the interoperability with WeChat is also the key capability to help these enterprises recover the business losses under the epidemic. At the same time, through this epidemic, many enterprises have realized the importance of building online capabilities. Deng Zhi believes that after the outbreak, the boss of the traditional industry may reconsider the distribution of sales channels and sales patterns, and it will also accelerate the pace of digital transformation.

In He Jing's view, the online office demand caused by the epidemic is also a very good market education process, which brings people in many industries to this kind of office mode. The most intuitive change is that in the past, WeChat wanted to enter school. It may take a long time. But this time, the Education Bureau of Baoji has put 1300 schools into WeChat within three days.

According to the data released by WeChat, WeChat has already expanded hundreds of times since the beginning of the new year. In February 3rd, the first day after the end of the statutory holidays, the use of WeChat reached three times that of the same period last year. On the same day, even because the peak exceeded expectations, WeChat also had a short flow restriction. In addition, on February 10th, the server request of enterprise WeChat's backstage also increased by more than 10 times.

Enterprise market, Alibaba and Tencent have been doing many years. The two Internet giants are also most aware of the difficulty of doing B business. But the new crown pneumonia epidemic may become a catalyst for the office market. From the market, we can see that many new players have been actively entering, such as the byte beating corporate office suite flying book, the group's remote audio and video conference platform "MoTouch" and so on.

The epidemic will eventually pass away and people's lives will return to normal. Online enquiry, online class, online office or offline services will continue to be a supplementary content, but it is undeniable that after experiencing this epidemic, the technology and capabilities of office products have been enhanced, and at the same time, they have quietly knocked the door of corporate users.