Du Yixia: A Dedicated Guardian of 'Kunlun'

She has worked quietly in the Zhejiang market for fifteen years as faithfully as on the first day, fulfilling her mission as a guardian of 'Kunlun' through tireless effort.
She is Du Yixia, a specialty oil sales representative of the East China Branch. In 2001 she joined the Zhejiang representative office of East China Lubricant as an outside recruit and has stayed for 15 years. From the automotive oil department to the industrial oil department and then the specialty oil department, through 15 years of quiet study and down-to-earth work, with the firm will of a Communist Party member and the fine quality of loving whatever work she does, she has grown from an outsider who knew nothing about lubricant performance or the market into a professional salesperson familiar with the local market and lubricant performance. In fifteen years of communicating, negotiating and cooperating with customers she has won widespread customer trust and satisfaction: in 15 years there has never been a single overdue receivable, a single business error, or a single failure such as an error, late submission or omission in statistical reporting. Her thoughtful and meticulous customer service has won unanimous praise from superiors and colleagues and the trust and recognition of users. In 2014 she sold 5,300 tons of transformer oil and 34,000 tons of rubber oil.
She says, 'Doing your own job well, loving your post, making selfless contributions and bearing hardship without complaint - that is the utmost loyalty to your career and your work.' As a Communist Party member she has always held herself to this belief. In August last year, Zhejiang Electric Power received a batch of tank-container KI20X transformer oil; sampling tests by its quality inspection department showed the breakdown voltage did not meet the standard, and it reported the matter to the company. At the time she was in Ningbo developing end users of transformer oil and had already fixed a meeting time that could not be changed. After concluding talks with the end user, she immediately rushed from Ningbo to Wenzhou to help the Liaohe plant handle the matter, filtering the oil at the Zhejiang Electric Power transformer plant on both Saturday and Sunday until the oil met the standard, then returned from Wenzhou to Hangzhou and carried on working without a rest. This is only one very ordinary snapshot of her fifteen years of shuttling around the Zhejiang market handling a maze of business. Once would have been fine, so would a year, but she has kept at it for fifteen years, which is all the harder for a woman; because of her dedication, overtime is routine, and her daughter once said with a hint of jealousy, 'My mom is more attentive to customers than to her own family.'
She says customers may be big or small, but sincerity makes no distinction. Since joining the Zhejiang representative office she has set herself one principle: whenever a customer raises a need there must be an answer, and if something cannot be solved she immediately consults the plant and the parent company. Last November, Sanbian Technology Co., Ltd. was to export transformers to the Philippines, including KI25X transformer oil produced by the Karamay plant. Customs clearance required submitting a test report showing that the oil contained no PCB, which was a new subject for her, and she coordinated fully to resolve it. As Sanbian Technology was not qualified to issue the test report, the certification had to be obtained through the trade promotion council of the oil's place of origin at the consulate; as there is no trade promotion council in Karamay, the Taizhou trade promotion council was eventually enlisted to help with the product certification at the consulate. In the end the transformers and the oil were exported smoothly, and the user was extremely grateful.
She says one should start with small things, because details decide success or failure. As long as a customer reports the product type and quantity needed, she proactively prepares the contract as required and faxes it to the customer for confirmation; she always considers matters from the customer's point of view and solves practical problems for them, so that customers feel attentive service throughout the business process. Once, when visiting a customer, the customer mentioned that, limited by equipment, only one group of tank containers of transformer oil could be received and unloaded each day, while railway station detention penalties were severe: 200 yuan per ton on the first day and 400 yuan per ton on the second, with penalties doubling rapidly. After learning of this, and in order to reduce station detention penalties, she submitted a report to the company asking it to consult the supplying plant so that only two groups of tank containers would be dispatched each time, with staggered arrival times - a small adjustment that solved the customer's deep worry.
She is just such an ordinary and unremarkable sales representative, doing ordinary and trivial sales work, yet what is truly admirable is her persistence. It is because of guardians of 'Kunlun' like her that 'Kunlun' has achieved its brilliance.