Kunlun Lubricants Wins the Retail End Through Customer-Centric Service

As China's lubricant market has opened up, competition in the domestic lubricant market has become increasingly fierce. In a bid to win end customers, some lubricant companies have pulled out all the stops with little to show for it. Kunlun, a leading Chinese lubricant brand, focuses on product quality and technology while vigorously strengthening its softer capabilities, and comfortably wins the end market through customer-centric service.
A Fiercely Competitive Lubricant Market
Today, describing competition in China's lubricant market as white-hot is no exaggeration. Statistics show that China has nearly 4,500 lubricant plants of all sizes and more than 6,000 lubricant brands, supplying 4.5-4.6 million tonnes of lubricant a year. And if a large share of these are small and medium-sized enterprises, the strength of foreign companies is even less negligible.
After China's WTO accession, the lubricant tariff fell from 9% to 6%, and the lubricant market was one of the first markets in China to open to the outside world. Beginning in 1992, internationally renowned brands such as Shell, Mobil, BP and Castrol entered the Chinese market one after another; leveraging resource advantages such as partnerships with automakers, multinationals quickly penetrated every corner of the Chinese market and captured most of the profits in China's lubricant market.
Under such severe market conditions, lubricant companies began seeking breakthroughs in order to survive and grow. Some well-capitalized foreign enterprises pursued acquisitions and domestic plant construction to cut costs and expand market share, while some domestic small and medium-sized enterprises hoped to win the market with low-price strategies. Facts have proved, however, that low prices inevitably come with low product quality, and with consumers today focused on product quality, low-quality, low-price offerings clearly cannot win over end customers. Chinese lubricant companies continue to face a daunting situation.
Focusing on Soft Power, Kunlun Wins Through Service
While some lubricant companies keep fighting over hard metrics, Kunlun Lubricants, a leading Chinese lubricant brand, strengthens its soft-power capabilities even as it focuses on hard strengths such as quality and technology, winning the favour of end customers through customer-centric service.
On the one hand, Kunlun is committed to providing customers with more convenient service; Kunlun oil change centres and a customer service hotline are important means to that end. The Kunlun chain of oil change centres integrates auto parts resources from multiple brands, breaks down vertical monopolies and, on the basis of transparent pricing and service, provides a one-stop package covering vehicle maintenance, repair, quick service, detailing and parts supply, so that car owners can settle everything in a single stop and the distance to consumers is shortened. The Kunlun customer service hotline offers technical consultation and product usage guidance, greatly convenient for car owners.
On the other hand, Kunlun's service is more people-oriented. Adhering to a philosophy of caring, Kunlun Lubricants does all it can to provide humanistic care to the driving community; to this end, Kunlun has sponsored the Good Samaritan Driver of the Year selection for five consecutive years. A senior executive of Kunlun Lubricants said that compared with simply adding service facilities and improving service content, Kunlun's caring service is undoubtedly more humane and more inclusive.
It is precisely this people-oriented service that has won consumer recognition and approval. In recent years Kunlun's product sales have risen sharply and its high-end market share has increased considerably, making Kunlun the true leader among Chinese lubricant brands.