The end of the year is approaching, and often at this time of the year, NIO will release battery swap policy services during the Spring Festival.
A few days ago, NIO changed its normalcy, although this year, as always, announced that the battery swap service was "free of service fees", but it needed to pay additional electricity fees, which was very different from the previous "full free".
At the same time, on January 25, NIO released the 2024 version of the worry-free service product, which is divided into three versions: "Light Enjoyment Edition, Happy Enjoyment Edition, and Premium Edition". In this regard, many car owners expressed doubts about "service shrinkage". So, what has changed this year? And what is the reason behind NIO doing this?
This service product will be a recombination of insurance and service fees, and change to a "car insurance + three-stage ladder" service fee model: divided into an entry-level light luxury version with a premium of + 499 yuan, and a premium version with a premium of + 1399 yuan and a premium version with a premium of + 4999 yuan.
Among them, the premium version can be regarded as replacing the previous worry-free service, but there is a reduction in the overall shrinkage, including the reduction of scooter points, the reduction of value-added service coupons from the previous 35 to 20, and the car reward without points.
Enjoy Edition: Approximately equal to the previous insurance worry-free. Note: The previous insurance worry-free includes unlimited free maintenance pick-up and delivery of the car, 2 free paint repairs per year, 1 free basic maintenance, maintenance scooter up to 5 days, unlimited door-to-door tire repair, 15 value-added service coupons, 3000 car points, annual inspection agency, and annual enhancement of vehicle traffic.
To some extent, the launch of the light version can be understood as "worry-free tire repair", which is mainly aimed at users who use fewer cars, and expands the coverage of NIO's worry-free service with a lower entry threshold.
In addition to lowering the entry threshold, the core adjustment of this change and the old version is the cancellation of points cashback and the reduction of value-added service coupons.
After all, in the past, NIO car owners had no worries about purchasing services, not only 20,000 points after purchase, but also 750 points every month. After a year, I not only enjoyed the "Haidilao-style" service, but also "made a small profit" as long as the wool was in place.
Therefore, Weilai has now replaced all the points with useless "cattle value", which is equivalent to a net loss of several thousand yuan per year for most Weilai car owners, which is naturally unacceptable.
Li Bin explained the reasons for the 2024 iteration of worry-free service, including: different users use different mileage, the previous worry-free service product was not fair to some users, after this iteration, 90% of users can be satisfied, and 10% of users may feel unfair. Although some service rights and interests have been cut, NIO's services are still incomparable in the industry. ”
In addition, worry-free service has always been a loss-making business for NIO, which is caused by many reasons, partly because NIO's rules are not very reasonable, and users have formed some holes in the performance of services. And Li Bin is also blunt: "This year we must be careful in our calculations, and the general direction of NIO this year is cost management." ”
However, with the shrinkage of the two "sharp weapons" of free battery replacement and worry-free service, on the one hand, it has caused dissatisfaction among old car owners, and on the other hand, it has also reduced the desire of new users to buy.
As a result, in the live barrage of the service-free communication meeting, many netizens directly expressed their hearts, such as: asking Weilai to transfer the rights and interests back, and some people questioned who Li Bin's so-called 90% of the users were, and some users also said that this was not a communication meeting at all, but a real notification meeting.
At the same time, there are also opinions on the Internet that the price of Weilai models is now inflated, and the confidence lies in the service, since the pricing of Weilai cars covers the premium advertised as "high service", it should be paid for now. At the beginning, many users chose NIO because of the service, but now the service rights and interests of NIO have shrunk rashly, which is "false publicity" for these consumers who choose NIO because of the service.
Of course, NIO is also very aware of the consequences of this, but in the case of sales not seeing the light of day, it can only "survive with broken arms". It can be said that Weilai's "success" also serves, and "failure" may also be because of service, at least in the current situation, "moving the knife" to its core advantages is equivalent to drinking water to quench its thirst for Weilai, and how to increase sales is the most important problem at present.