This autumn, it is more appropriate to use “eventful autumn” to describe the situation of Haidilao. In less than a month, Haidilao has been on the hot search twice-first Haidilao’s 72 yuan and 200g of gross belly, but actually only 138g; then, another Haidilao wholly-owned subsidiary was fined 20,000 yuan for overdue bean curd. .
At the same time, Haidilao’s proud “service” began to be questioned by more people. In a recent microblog survey on “Whether Haidilao over-serviced” launched by Sina Technology, 49.5% of netizens thought it was “over-serviced”.
Some netizens said bluntly, “Quietly eat a meal, go to Haidilao, find yourself uncomfortable”. Experts pointed out that service is the foundation of Haidilao. “If there is no service, it is a common and commonhot potshop”.
“I just want to have a quiet meal”
Recently, Beijing consumer He girl and her colleagues ate dinner at Haidilao, but found that the private invoice on the table was missing when checking out. It turned out that Haidilao employees mistakenly used the invoice as a paper towel and cleaned it up.
“I really feel that you are very good at serving customers, but you can’t ask us first when cleaning the table.” Ms. He reluctantly expressed her thoughts with the Haidilao employees. After the incident, Haidilao did not give a clear statement about Ms. He’s loss.
In fact, Ms. Ho’s thoughts are not a case in point. “Somewhat awkward”, “Do they not know that they have to ask for the customer’s consent before serving the customers?”, “Maybe they have been trained, a little mechanical”… There are numerous similar consumer feedbacks.
Among the hot pots, Haidilao’s biggest advantage to consumers is “service.”
“The basis of Haidilao’s expansion is service. Without service, Haidilao is a common and common hot pot restaurant. There are many similar shops on the market,” said Pan He Lin, executive dean of the Institute of Digital Economy, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law.
However, this advantage that once allowed Haidilao to ride out the dust has recently been often accused of “over-service.”
In a Weibo survey on “Whether Haidilao is over-serving” initiated by Sina Technology, 49.5% of netizens think that “If you over-service, I want to eat quietly”, and only 11% of netizens choose “I I like this passion.”
In an earlier Weibo survey, more than 5,000 people said that they “frequently experience excessive service”.
On Zhihu, in a post about “Why do many people dislike Haidilao’s excessive service?”, thousands of people even expressed their approval for similar experiences.
Is the service to increase the turnover rate?
In fact, Haidilao’s “over-service” is closely related to CEO Zhang Yong’s entrepreneurial experience. In the early years, he was born as a craftsman with a book in one hand and fry ingredients with the other, but the taste was always poor.
Zhang Yong found a way to achieve the ultimate in service. For example, if a customer drank alcohol and his stomach was uncomfortable, he would cook a pot himself.MilletCongee; the guest walks through the mud, the shoes are dirty, he will let the buddy clean the shoes. No matter what the guest needs, he will realize it without saying a word. It is precisely because of this that Haidilao relied on “extreme service” to break a path in the hot pot circle.
Is this service good?
Zhang Fei, a business model expert, believes that “Haidilao’s service is a way to acquire customers. When everyone goes to eat, basically what they eat is service. It is precisely because most restaurants in China have no service that makes Haidilao successful.”
In the view of Li Jianfeng, secretary general of the Hot Pot Professional Committee of the China Hotel Association, Haidilao’s services and products still represent one of the highest standards in the industry. He revealed that Haidilao’s attendants have been trained in their speech skills and can support their operations. For example, when the waiter introduces a place, he may tell the customer the location of the toilet and the small material table to save follow-up service time and increase the turnover rate.
However, this kind of service style with excessive training traces is also easy to be seen by consumers. For example, some consumers have reported that the snacks delivered by Haidilao employees after meals are in disguise to drive consumers to leave to increase the turnover rate.
Don’t make money from hot pot at all
What cannot be ignored is that Haidilao’s rate of overturning in recent years has been declining, and the unit price of consumption has also been rising. Haidilao has also been controversial by public opinion because of the price of “7 yuan a bowl of rice and 1.5 yuan a slice of potato”.
From 2016 to 2020, Haidilao’s Taiwan turnover rate was 4.5, 5.0, 5.0, 4.8 and 3.5 times/day respectively. In the first half of this year, the turnover rate once dropped to 3 times/day.
At the same time, Haidilao is still expanding wildly in recent years, and the increase in stores may be a reason for the decline in the rate of single store turnover. But before, Zhang Yong also expressed the loopholes in the company’s management in public: “Internal management has always existed. Whether before or after listing, I have always emphasized the weak aspects of Haidilao’s management in public. But because the performance of the past few years has been so good, The management problem is covered up.”
However, for Haidilao, the decline in the catering business will not shake the foundation of Haidilao.
“You think Haidilao is doing catering, but what they do is actually a brand and a supply chain. Zhang Yong is really smart.” An industry insider commented.
This statement is indeed reasonable.
Behind Haidilao, there is another company that is not well known to ordinary consumers, namely, Haidilao’s bottom material supplier-Yihai International.
Yihai International shares the same origin with Haidilao, even before Haidilao’s listing in Hong Kong. Haidilao’s major shareholders, Zhang Yong and his wife, are also major shareholders of Yihai International. Not only that, Zhang Yong and his wife also served directly in Yihai International. Zhang Yong himself served as a non-executive director, and his wife Shu Ping was one of the five executive directors.
In the first half of this year, Haidilao had a net profit of 94.52 million yuan, but the net profit of Yihai International in the same period has reached 349 million yuan. In the first half of last year, the domestic restaurant industry, including Haidilao, suffered heavy losses, but Yihai International’s revenue increased by 34% year-on-year; net profit was nearly 400 million, a year-on-year increase of 53%.
In the aforementioned general sales agreement between Yihai International and Haidilao, it is stipulated that Yihai International can use Haidilao’s brand to sell retail products on the market for free. Currently, these products include 70 products including hot pot bottoms, hot pot dips, compound seasonings, table sauces, self-heating small hot pots, self-heating rice, brewed foods, and snacks before meals.
Previously, Haidilao’s purchases accounted for almost half of Yihai International’s purchases, but in the first half of this year, the purchases only accounted for about 30% of Yihai International’s. In addition, about two-thirds of sales are mostly from Haidilao’s retail products.
Especially in the past two years, self-heating pot has become popular. Haidilao’s self-heating hot pot has already occupied a certain market in the industry. At the same time, Yihai International has also caught up with the market growth of compound seasonings in recent years. In the past three years, Yihai International’s revenue growth rate of Chinese compound seasonings has reached about 50%, even exceeding the growth rate of its hot pot bottoms.
Competitors “don’t talk about service”
In terms of the external environment, the circuits of Sichuan-style hot pot, Chongqing hot pot, copper pot shabu-shabu, Chaoshan beef pot and so on have become more and more refined, and various stars have also joined the hot pot circuit. Currently, Laowang, which specializes in pork belly chicken, is about to go on the market, and Ba Nu, which specializes in hair belly, is also grabbing mid-to-high-end hot pot customers… Haidilao’s leading position is under threat.
Perhaps it was because Haidilao saw the problem of “excessive service” too early, or because of the marketing strategy of its competitors, the current main concept of Baru Hot Pot is “not excessive service, pay attention to everything”.
According to industry insiders, in first-tier cities, the unit price of Haidilao and Banu is about 150 yuan. “Before the epidemic, Banu’s hot pot restaurants often swept out a large number of Moutai bottles.” This also means that the birth of Baru is dividing high-spending groups.
Of course, Ba Nu’s slogan of “not excessive service” has also been accused of “touching porcelain” Haidilao’s traffic. Relevant information shows that the earliest slogan of Banu was “Natural Color and Original Flavor”, but it did not form a communication topic. Later, Banu hit “Service is not the characteristic of Banu, but hairy tripe and mushroom soup are.” This slogan really made Banu really popular, but the propaganda also has a very obvious direction to Haidilao.
Although the service concept of “touching porcelain” twice brought traffic to Banu, it is inevitable to “lift a rock and hit one’s own feet”. “They are not over-serving, but they are not serving”, “In addition to the positive reception of dishes, almost half of the dishes can only be served after urging”… Similar consumer complaints are not uncommon.
“First of all, the catering industry in China should learn from Haidilao. When everyone’s service is ready, let’s talk about Haidilao’s over-service. When some companies talk about “not over-service”, they should also reflect on whether you Sufficient services are provided,” Zhang Fei said.
It is true that regardless of whether Haidilao’s service is excessive, it is not an excuse for other catering companies to slack their service.