Some fate - In July 2016, I first discovered PIDAN pets, which had not yet received financing at that time. I had a cup of coffee with the founder Mr. Ma Wenfei at ZOOCOFFEE near Yaohan in Pudong. At that time, Mr. Ma Wenfei was still very unfamiliar with the capital market, but he had advanced concepts in product design, a forward-looking vision of the pet products market, agility in thinking, and clear marketization. The expansion strategy has given me a deep impression. We can all relate to how shoddy pet product manufacturing in China is. On the spot, I encouraged him to raise angel round financing and quickly reached a cooperation. Then, we worked behind closed doors for three days to prepare the first official BP for it, which completely outlined the market demand for cat pet products and the potential of PIDAN, and took the lead in positioning PIDAN as the concept of consumer upgrade products in the pet industry. This led to the creation of PIDAN Pets. Gradually enter the capital market, and in just two years, it has been favored by first-tier funds such as Qingliu Capital, Kunzhong Capital, Chengdu Capital, etc., and even the quota is scarce! It was not until July 2018 that it completed Series B financing of 60 million, reaching a new milestone.

In the past two or three years, China's pet manufacturing industry has also focused on manufacturing and low-cost products. Aesthetics have evolved into an ecology of redesign, high appearance, and new retail scenario-based experiential sales, and mid-to-high-end pet product brands such as FURRYTAIL and Xiaopei have emerged.

The pet industry has also become a hot industry in the investment community after more than a year. Perhaps the indissoluble bond with the pet world will continue.

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01 PIDANCARE, which had good intentions, unfortunately encountered Waterloo

The PIDAN brand, which has been running wildly in the pet products industry and won the hearts of countless cat owners, this year During the Spring Festival, PIDANCARE was launched - providing value-added door-to-door feeding services for cat owners who are not at home during the holidays. The monthly sales volume of this service is nearly 2k. However, the value-added service brand itself, which hopes to strengthen its relationship with users, unfortunately encountered a waterloo. PIDANCARE was unable to provide users with the expected promised services, which caused angry cat slaves to fight back on Weibo. We feel very sorry and let’s review the reasons.

What did the users complain about

The door-to-door service of 120 yuan to 170 yuan per time did not provide door-to-door feeding on time, the after-sales customer service lost contact, and the cat was hungry, which caused User anger and distrust of brands.

Why did this happen to PIDAN?

-The PIDANCARE personnel who were originally trained to perform the contract did not come, resulting in a shortage of manpower

PIDAN as early as October 2018 Monthly recruitment of PIDANCARE door-to-door staff:

-PIDAN said it uses regular employees, but in fact it recruits many college students part-time, which further aroused user dissatisfaction after the incident

-PIDANCARE’s response to the route Weak experience in overall operation and maintenance such as design, insufficient response to the worst situations, and insufficient manpower deployment in advance, seriously increasing the difficulty of problem solving

02How did PIDAN conduct crisis public relations after the problem was exposed?

Based on our understanding of PIDAN, its requirements for staff have always been very strict, and working in PIDAN is not easy. Why did PIDAN’s explanation after encountering Waterloo arouse users’ incomprehension? From February 2nd to February 10th, PIDAN officially issued four articles to deal with the crisis. Can the CEO’s words impress users to save the crisis?

PIDAN’s CEO speaks

Hello everyone, I am the CEO of pidan. We are really, really sorry for the current problems with pidancare, and we are doing our best to remedy them.

Next, we will report the progress of problem handling to you at any time in a more candid and transparent manner, and do our best to solve the issues that you are concerned about.

Some of the issues that everyone is currently concerned about, the solutions are as follows:

......

What I want to say, since February 3, after learning about Shanghai pidancare As soon as there was a problem with personnel scheduling, I started to deal with it immediately, so I only announced the above plan today. If we really only wanted to make dirty money from this business, we would not bring the pidan logo and bring huge credibility risks to our company. The original intention of this business is to provide a door-to-door cat service product that consumers can trust. It was because we were blindly confident and underestimated the various emergencies during the Spring Festival that the actual results were completely contrary to the original intention...

I know that many people were initially willing to choose and trust pidancare, partly because of Trust in pidan, but we did not show the corresponding ability. I'm sorry, I'm really sorry for everyone.

I also live with cats, and I can totally relate to it. I also understand everyone’s disappointment, anxiety and anger. We accept all criticisms of us and will never avoid them. Again, I'm sorry that we ourselves have betrayed these precious trusts. We will do our best to solve the problem and compensate everyone. We sincerely ask for your supervision.

After speaking out, it is still difficult to appease users' emotions:

pidan, without fulfilling the contract in time, also squeezed volunteers to complete the services they should have completed based on excess profits, and became a Rescue object.

“The service fee charged by pidan online is 120-170 yuan per day per order. However, in the past two days, I contacted various rescue organizations to find volunteers to come and feed the cats, but the reward was only 1,000 yuan for 12 orders per day.”

Shanghai volunteers who wanted to help cats went to pidan's company, hoping to help. But I haven't been able to receive orders from the company for a long time.

“We are short of manpower. We are already so busy that we can no longer cope with it.”

Even if we receive the dispatch order, the route is not properly planned. One person’s order can go around Shanghai for a long time. Circle, a huge waste of time and cost.

“As PIDANCARE O2O door-to-door service, the most important thing is route planning and efficient configuration. It is precisely this underestimate that makes solving the problem difficult.”

Obviously before the problem occurred Insufficient prediction, underestimation of the situation, weak crisis public relations capabilities and inexperience after problems occurred have all led to the re-fermentation of user anger.

03 Irrational one-sidedness

Pet owners They all regard their pets as treasures and part of the family. Therefore, PIDAN users are exactly the "fanatics" among a type of users. The rise of PIDAN is due to a deep understanding of pets and the natural home environment. It has captured the minds of users and developed a super love and bonus for the PIDAN brand. However, once the pet experience is endangered, the same users will defect to Domino. . We can understand the user's mood, and it seems that PIDAN is not to blame. However, in response to these complaints from users, we try to understand PIDAN's behavior from a commercial and rational perspective:

PIDANCARE itself has no objection to charging< /p>

A company should aim to make profits. As a service, the biggest cost is labor cost and company operation and training expenses. If it is a non-profit enterprise, how can it produce high-quality products and services?

Completing the goal is the first priority

Regardless of whether it is part-time or full-time, after a problem occurs at PIDANCARE, the most efficient, timely and complete service should be the primary goal. The company can provide high subsidies + experienced volunteers, so that Only then will it stimulate users’ reputation and enthusiasm for volunteer participation.

Standardized door-to-door service

Pet feeding is very difficult to standardize, and the links involved include pre-sales and after-sales: key storage, familiarity with pet equipment (added Food, changing drinking water, removing cat litter), disposable supplies (hygiene status of door-to-door personnel), uploading video records, etc. Training for complex situations is essential, and it is difficult to provide standardized services in the short term in the face of emergencies. For the company, risking its reputation to challenge difficult services is actually not worth the gain.

Complex soft supply chain

Door-to-door feeding itself is a low-frequency thing. The most difficult thing is to fully deploy manpower and optimize routes. Faced with emergencies, it was extremely difficult for PIDAN, which was already short of manpower during the Spring Festival, to optimize routes.

04Is there any other breakthrough point in door-to-door pet feeding service?

For low-frequency services, the company’s own R&D route configuration is obviously a matter where input and output are not proportional.

We imagine:

1. Is it possible to purchase map software and dispatch settings from mature companies?

2. The holiday period itself is the off-season for personnel. More importantly, is it possible to cooperate with platforms such as Meituan, Ele.me, and SF Express? The benefits are: the food delivery platform itself has complete geographical coverage and convenient transportation access, and the identity security of self-operated food delivery personnel is guaranteed, and high-quality personnel can be selected and trained in advance.

Finally, we hope to see PIDAN adopt a smarter and more sincere approach to crisis public relations. Only by exceeding expectations, financial compensation, and reputation recovery from core users, and making every effort to gain users’ understanding, can PIDAN be saved. Brand. At the same time, avoid the commercial minefields of seemingly wonderful door-to-door services and test them in advance. In particular, don't underestimate any user's feedback. It is very necessary to deal with extreme situations. However, PIDAN is still very young, and this incident is an unprecedented challenge to the entrepreneurial team. Bringing users a high-value life experience for people and pets is the original intention of this young team that has worked hard all the way. Both PIDAN and users should cherish the hard-won achievements and there is no need to let excessive anger and saliva destroy a young team.

PIDAN brand history:

In an era of quietly upgrading consumption, pets are humans’ friends. In the early days, the completion of their products was low, and most pet owners could only choose production. Processed products of poor workmanship. Inspired and touched by years of cat-raising experience, pidan founder Ma Wenfei established pidan studio in Paris, France in 2014, focusing on designing products for cats. In January 2016, pidan's first cat litter box igloo was officially launched; in July 2016, the igloo cat litter box won the 2016 German Red Dot Design Award; in 2016, pidan's turnover was 3 million; in 2017, only In 6 months, pidan has grown from 3 million in the whole year to 3.5 million in monthly sales, confirming the power of "product first, design king". In the same year, in order to meet the requirements of more pet lovers, pidan launched a dog product project. From the birth of the first draft to continuous revision, from mass production preparation to JD crowdfunding, in mid-to-late April 2018, three models were launched tailored for dogs. Healthy designed food bowls are finally available to the public. According to the "2017 Pet Industry White Paper", the entire pet consumption market reached 134 billion yuan this year. "Quality-oriented" consumers have become the main consumer group. This group of consumers has a higher willingness to consume brand products, but at the same time , pet products show a very typical "category, no brand" status, product completion is low, and consumers' aesthetic and functional needs cannot be met. This is an opportunity for new brands to be born in the pet products category, and it is also the reason why new brands like pidan can grow.

pidan's business is expanding to all categories of pets

pidan adheres to the heart of "full of goodwill, creativity, courage and determination" and is committed to providing more comfortable and reliable communication and coexistence between humans and animals. Pleasant experience. pidan products are all independently developed and designed by its designers. While focusing on the aesthetic appearance, they also strive to improve the usability, giving pets and pet owners the same comfortable and pleasant experience. When the B round of financing was launched, pidan founder Ma Wenfei also revealed in WeChat: "pidan's dog products are here, and we will serve 3 appetizers first. You can see whether they are good or bad. We will not only expand to dog products, but also rabbits." Hamsters, amphibious aquatics, those that have appeared in human history or will appear in the future, we will expand the past. pidan's mission is to fight for human individual loneliness, and we believe that living with animals is the best way to combat it. ”