No information related with the“fridge door that cannot be sealed” is shown on the homepage of Siemens Home Appliances China since it was revealed in September 2011.
The video that shows the communication between Roland Geilke and consumers is hidden behind the link of advertisement of “after-sale service of fridge”. This reflected the current uncomfortable situation of Siemens. On the one hand, it did not want to admit its faults and guilt in the bad-quality fridge door; on the other hand, it was forced to be mild and apologetic to the consumers under the stress from the masses.
In this “accident of fridge door”, Siemens ignored the experience of consumers while attaching too much importance to the high-end brand image and reliable product quality.
Decreasing Market Share
China Monitor Market Co., Ltd collected data from 5932 stores in 746 counties of China and found out that the market share of Siemens in China’s fridge market was 8.47% in the first nine months of 2011, lower than the 9.88% market share in 2010 and 11.16% market share in 2009. The decreasing market share caused Siemens to drop from the second largest fridge brand in 2009 to the fifth one in 2011, while the four staying in front of it are Haier, Midea, Meiling and Rongsheng.
This means that the “accident of fridge door” in September is not accidental or a single case.
“The short-term decrease in market share is normal for all companies. But if the decrease lasts two years, the problem arises – Siemens’ fridge section is not as good as before. The decrease may be caused by the marketing method or the side effect of Siemens’ high-end strategy in China,” said Feng Hongjiang, a professor from Zhejiang Wanli Institute. He added that Siemens once won Chinese consumers’ favor with its good after-sale service. In Professor Feng’s hometown, a bridge that Siemens sponsored to build remain standing their, as intact and solid as before.
However, this well-established century-old enterprise failed to keep its principle of “quality and service”throughout its home appliances industry. After the revelation of this case, Siemens stuck to the statement that“our fridges have no problem” and then treated it with cold attitudes. Later, it held a press conference and stressed that “the problem is not whether the fridge door can be sealed or not but whether the consumer wants to seal it or not”, which caused more severe blames from the mass media. At last, it admitted that “it kept focusing on the innocence of product quality but ignored the consumer experiences”. This saying was not accepted by the consumers either, who thought that Siemens was too slow in making apologies.
Even after the acknowledgement of its error, Siemens only accepted the claims of consumers through its official Weibo and only promised to install the “door-closing facilitators” on the fridges of qualified consumers, causing people to doubt the sincerity of Siemens’ apologies. Since Siemens highlights the immunity to quality problem of its fridges, then why are there so many users reporting the problems of the “fridge doors that cannot be closed”? For this well-established enterprise, the consumer experi- ences or the corporate brand and credit, which one is important? Siemens did not give a definite answer and was blamed for ignoring consumers’ interest to keep its “brand and credit”.
Shift of Business Core
The problem is not reflected in quality and service. In the products that directly touch the consumers, Siemens is not free of problem either. In the past eight years, this German brand engaged itself in the high-end market with the said “zero-degree freshness keeping technology”; the updated “vacuum zerodegree freshness keeping technology”was only launched in 2010. In the Chinese home appliance field where new technologies and functions are coming out swiftly, this further reveals Siemens’stubbornness in product research and development. People doubt its “high-end positioning” was only for high prices in the market.
By now, Siemens has not fully realized localization in the design of fridges and other home appliances. Instead, its research and development system still highly depends on the German headquarters, which radiates its effect to China via global system. However, the consumers’ demand in China and the design system in Germany can not be flawlessly and seamless connected with each other. The said conflicts are never eradicated and thus caused the accident of fridge door.
Wang Qingwei, vice president of Siemens Home Appliances China, once said that fridge presently took 55% of Siemens’ home appliance products in China; washing machines accounted for 40% while the kitchen appliances took 15%. In the next five years, Siemens plans to increase the proportion of kitchen appliances to 20%-25%.