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For many years, no one cared about it, but once it caught fire, everyone knew about it. This sentence can be used to describe the currentPolar FoxIt couldn't be more appropriate.

Recently in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, a moving Arcfox car suddenly caught fire. It is understood that the car itself belongs to a car rental company called "Hangiao Car Rental". At that time, the driver was driving with passengers near Mogan Mountain when he suddenly smelled gasoline. About a minute later, smoke began to come out from under the central control storage box. The driver and passengers fled the scene immediately, and the car caught fire immediately after getting off.

Judging from the video circulating on the Internet, only the cockpit of the car was burned, and the front and rear of the car were still intact.BAICThe manufacturer also came to the scene to conduct an investigation. The leasing company originally hoped that the official could solve the problem and find out the cause as soon as possible. However, they did not expect that the next wave of operations would directly make the on-site personnel dumbfounded...

Covering the cloth and cutting the logo in one go, Jihu became a "star" overnight

According to people at the scene, without the consent of the fire department and the car owner, the staff of BAIC Arcfox first covered the burning vehicle with black cloth, and then used a screwdriver and a hammer to forcibly pry up the car logos, including the Arcfox logo on the front of the car, the four wheel logos and the ARCFOX subtitle logo on the rear of the car, and covered them up.

Some careful netizens even discovered that the staff member responsible for cutting out the car logo in the video wore his work clothes backwards, and the other staff member was not wearing clothes with the Polar Fox logo. It can be said that the "details" were taken to the extreme.

The smooth movements made the employees of the rental company unable to stop them. Some netizens even commented: "This is called professionalism."

Not only that, the attitude of the relevant personnel on the scene was also justified. When the employee of the leasing company asked the manufacturer why the car logo was removed, the reply was: "We don't accept interviews before there is a final decision." When the relevant leader came over in the afternoon, he said bluntly, "What's wrong with removing the logo? We authorized it. The worst that can happen is that we will lose money."

When the communication failed, the rental company had no choice but to call the police. From the perspective of the car rental company, the vehicle is a personal property and the manufacturer has no right to destroy it without permission.

In addition, the employee of the car rental company also revealed that the company had purchased a total of 10 Polar Fox electric vehicles, and the one that caught fire was a new car purchased just two months ago, but she did not expect an accident to happen during operation. This made her seriously doubt the safety performance of the entire vehicle, and she was also dissatisfied with the behavior of the manufacturer who came to the scene. The rental company asked Polar Fox to publicly apologize on its official Weibo and Hangzhou media platform, and give corresponding handling opinions.

Fortunately, the official company of Arcfox responded to the incident on the same day. In this statement, Arcfox stated that the data such as the voltage, temperature and insulation of the vehicle's power battery were normal before the fire. After the fire was extinguished, no abnormality was found in the vehicle's power battery and no signs of burning. However, the fire department is investigating the specific cause of the fire and will announce the results as soon as they come out.

In addition, Arcfox also stated that during the accident handling process, the improper behavior of the staff brought bad feelings to the car owner. Arcfox expressed sincere apologies and will strengthen internal management and training to prevent such behavior from happening again.

But what’s interesting is that the official live broadcast room of Polar Fox gave another explanation, saying that the staff was not trying to peel off the car logo at the time, but prying the hood to cut off the power, and the fire was on the roof, not the battery.

You should know that under normal circumstances, the handle for opening the hood is located at the lower left of the driver's seat, and it is indeed possible that it would be burned in the event of a fire, so the idea of ​​cutting off the power by prying the hood is feasible. However, looking back at the live video, it can be clearly seen that the position where the BAIC manufacturer used the screwdriver to press against the car logo, rather than prying the hood, which made the explanation of the official live broadcast room of Polar Fox "ruined its reputation again."

In fact, this is not the first time that Arcfox has handled front-line public opinion in this way. The Carrot Express taxis in Wuhan also use Arcfox vehicles, and they also cover the vehicles with cloth after an accident, which coincides with this fire incident.

I don’t know whether this is a unified action formed after the official centralized public opinion training, or a subconscious action of the employees of Polar Fox to enhance their sense of ownership. But no matter what, Polar Fox’s response and handling of the public opinion crisis make it difficult not to question its public relations level and product quality.

It is understood that affected by this accident, some car owners have chosen to return their cars.

To become a high-end brand, Polar Fox still needs to explore

Before new energy vehicles reach a certain level of maturity, the probability of accidents is not low, including spontaneous combustion and stalling, which frequently make news headlines.

Generally speaking, when faced with an emergency, the attitude that manufacturers should show is to ensure user safety first, discuss solutions with users in a sincere and peaceful manner, and then issue a statement based on the communication results to calm public opinion, give users and the market an explanation, turn big things into small things and small things into nothing, and then quietly improve product quality in private. This is a relatively appropriate solution to public opinion handling.

Because for such an emerging industry that has attracted much attention from the society, it takes a long time to accumulate quality endorsements and corporate reputation, and maintaining the existing customer base should naturally become the primary task of the new brand in seeking development. What's more, a brand like Arcfox that aspires to be high-end should provide a service level that matches its brand style.

What is a high-end brand? In simple terms, consumers spend more money to buy such products, partly because of rational investment based on product strength, and partly because of emotional investment, the latter of which is often referred to as "brand premium". The origin of "brand premium" can be divided into the company's service level, the emotional value it provides, and so on. Obviously, in the handling of this incident, Polar Fox received a "negative score" in the emotional value sub-item.

In fact, BAIC Arcfox obviously did not have a complete set of public relations actions from top to bottom. After the official blog issued a statement, the official live broadcast room added unnecessary details, adding a lot of criticism from the outside world to the entire incident. At present, from the unprofessional response of front-line employees to the insincere attitude of the official handling, it is easy to make the company's reputation, which is not influential enough, worse. In the situation of the involutionary new energy market, such negative news can easily cause heavy damage to the brand of Arcfox.

Moreover, Polar Fox has just recovered from a relatively low state. According to the latest sales data, Polar Fox sold more than 8,000 vehicles in June, a three-fold increase year-on-year. Although this was supported by B-end sales (online car-hailing, etc.), it can still produce acceptable book data. In order to fully support the development of Polar Fox, BAIC has invested 100 billion in research and development funds to help it focus on the new energy field. It can be said that Polar Fox carries almost all of BAIC's wealth and hopes.

If the failure is really due to social events, it will be a real blow to Arcfox.

In conclusion:

In the negative events related to automobiles, there have actually been many cases of handling public relations crises, which can be used as internal references to "prevent problems before they happen." However, the performance of Polar Fox in actual exercises not only failed to meet the proper crisis handling standards, but even deviated from common sense, and made mistakes that everyone could see. Therefore, it was quickly fermented and magnified, so that the comment area of ​​the official platform of BAIC Polar Fox had to be closed.

This reflects that the training of front-line employees of Polar Fox needs to be improved, and also exposes the crisis hidden behind Polar Fox's brand management. In the new automobile era, word of mouth is becoming more and more important. If Polar Fox wants to achieve sustainable development, in addition to relying on technology, it must also work harder in this aspect.