Recruiting car owners as volunteers to participate in the auto show is a demonstration of confidence in their product and services by an automobile brand, according to Befo Driver.
Do you remember the Shanghai International Auto Show two years ago? I attended as an ideal ONE reservation owner. Two years later, I participated in the exhibition as an ideal car employee, the task was to receive car owner volunteers who came to support with my colleagues.
Walking up the steps at the International Convention and Exhibition Center, I was feeling emotional. What is the reason behind a car that makes users willing to become car owner volunteers cheering for the brand? I hope to find the answer from these three volunteers today.
Lao Ni: Only slept for three hours last night
Lao Ni is 40 years old this year and is in charge of a visual design company in Shanghai. When he heard that Ideal was recruiting car owner volunteers for the Shanghai Auto Show, Lao Ni was the first to sign up.
For him, purchasing the Ideal ONE was a bold and impulsive decision, while also opening up a brand-new car experience. Shortly after picking up the car, he joined the Ideal Club in Shanghai because of his rich design experience and became a member of the propaganda department.
April 21 was the first day the Auto Show was open to the public. Lao Ni arrived early and wanted to be in the first group to enter the exhibition hall when ticket checking opened at 10 o’clock.
Although he had received in-depth training beforehand, as a first-time volunteer, the thin and tall Lao Ni was still a bit restrained at the booth. Fortunately, with the guidance of the product experts, Lao Ni quickly got into the swing of things. He was so hyped up that he could even talk about the car to two groups of inquiring visitors at the same time, imparting his everyday car experience generously.
Talking about the most impressive thing of the day, Lao Ni mentioned that there was a brother who came from out of town and thought that the Ideal car was pretty good. However, when he heard Lao Ni say that he was a car owner volunteer, he was very confused and thought that the brand had paid car owners to be at the booth. This made Lao Ni very embarrassed, and he had to exhibit his volunteer T-shirt, cup, and car stickers, then waved his hand helplessly with these.
As we talked, I looked into Lao Ni’s eyes, filled with bloodshot veins. In fact, supporting the Shanghai Auto Show this time was not so smooth for Lao Ni, and his family persuaded him the day before not to come.
Since he is in the design industry, Lao Ni’s work is particularly busy. He worked until 3 a.m. the day before, only slept for three hours, and got up at 6 a.m. to tidy up his home and head to the convention center.Participating in a car show is a physical activity, as there is no place to sit on stage and volunteers must stand the whole time. Therefore, we arranged for the car owners who volunteered to have a lunch break from 12 pm to 3 pm. However, during this three-hour break, Lao Ni still worked on his laptop in the rest area. When it was time, he got up and went to the booth to start his afternoon presentation.
I asked Lao Ni why he was going through all this trouble. Lao Ni said it was for the sake of passion and commitment. In fact, Lao Ni only learned about Li Xiang after purchasing the Ideal ONE, and he believed that this brand is very pragmatic and conscientious. Whether it is the hardcore maintenance service, stylish software upgrades, or the attitude of immediately fixing problems, they have all done a great job. This is a completely new driving experience that he has never had before. As for commitment, Lao Ni believes that as a member of the Ideal Community, he must live up to the name of being a volunteer and fulfill the responsibilities of a volunteer. If given the opportunity, he would come back again next time.
On the Ideal booth, the tallest and strongest person is Da Bai. Like his name, he gives people a sense of security.
Da Bai is 33 years old and works in the field of marketing. Unlike other car owners who placed an order because they needed to take care of their children, his car needs are mainly for business receptions.
In the 5 months since he picked up the car, many of Da Bai’s clients have ridden in his car. Their first reaction is usually “why did you buy a domestic car?” When they got into the second row and found that it had the same electric independent seats as an MPV, they were surprised. They had never imagined that this kind of seat layout would appear in an SUV. By the time they arrived at their destination, their attitude towards the car did a complete 180-degree turn, saying that this car was really good and reliable, even though it was domestically produced.
After introducing the Ideal ONE to 20 or 30 groups of audiences all day, Da Bai was asked a question that made him feel emotional by one of the viewers – “This car is 5 meters long, weighs 2.3 tons, and can run 550 km on 45 liters of gas. It only consumes 8 liters of gas per 100 km, how did you achieve this?” The viewer who asked the question is a fuel car owner with a 3.0T engine, and his fuel consumption has never been below 12 liters per hundred kilometers. Moreover, his car model is smaller and lighter than the Ideal ONE.The answer to this question is well known. The extended range electric vehicle technology allows the range extender (commonly known as an engine) to operate within an economical range while the battery can provide power during congested traffic conditions, reducing energy consumption during congested traffic conditions, resulting in a total fuel consumption reduction of about 20% compared to similar gasoline-powered vehicles. However, it is difficult for those who have not driven it to understand and can only obtain information from those misleading claims on the internet.
Previously, someone on the internet claimed that the fuel consumption of the Li ONE electric vehicle is 13 to 14, which Big White found ridiculous. He wanted to refute them, but decided it was pointless. “I don’t want to argue with them, I’ll use actual results instead.” This is why Big White became a volunteer car owner. He wants to use his status as a car owner to tell people who care about Li ONE how the car actually performs. Perhaps in the minds of many people, the credibility of salespeople may not be as high as the credibility of car owners.
Finally, Big White wanted to commend the product experts at Li ONE. They are young, lively, and professional, and the team is great. After volunteering for one day, he realized how difficult it is for product experts. He used to think that selling a car is easy, it’s just talking, but it’s actually not that easy.
Wang Chun: Why did I buy a car with my own money and promote it for the company?
Wang Chun is an IT engineer at a technology company. His voice is loud and full of energy when he speaks. He also has another identity, a horn player. After talking all day, his throat was a little tired. He joked that he hasn’t talked this much in the past two or three years. “Because the noise at the scene is too loud, we can’t hear each other clearly, and we have to shout to talk. Even my well-trained voice can’t take it.”
As for why he chose the Li ONE, there is a special story behind it. When Wang Chun listed his car purchase requirements, he found that only the Li ONE met them, but his partner strongly opposed it, with the simple reason that they didn’t know how long Li ONE could last. Unable to resist Wang Chun’s persuasion, they agreed to test drive it, and even kept insisting “seeing is believing, saying no means no.”
But after actually seeing and test driving the car, even though the car was easy to drive, had good visibility with two large side mirrors, good acceleration, and even met power demands under low battery conditions, his partner still did not agree to purchase it. It wasn’t until one day when they had dinner with a friend of Saint-Gobain (the glass supplier for Li ONE).At the dinner table, friends unknowingly began to criticize Ideal’s ideals: “They spent years making glass, and after installing the car, they added double-layered glass. They were the only ones. The windshield of the front glass is just as good as Porsche’s and has even stricter quality inspection standards. Other companies require glass bubbles to be no larger than 0.7 millimeters, while Ideal requires 0.5 millimeters, and it’s not a sample inspection, it’s 100% inspection. Three people were stationed to watch my glass, and a lot of goods were scrapped, resulting in a loss.”
Although the speaker unintentionally offended, the lover was still unyielding and decided to do research and buy a car. After searching for a long time, there was really no competitor for this price, model, and configuration. In the end, the lover reluctantly agreed to make the purchase. After buying it, the lover sat in the passenger seat watching TV every day and thought it was very comfortable. It was a very satisfactory choice.
As a volunteer car owner this time, Wang Chun kept it a secret from her lover, and her family thought she was going to work. She is a very rational person and calculates gains and losses very clearly. She thought that being a volunteer was not worth it because of the expenditure of time and energy. Nevertheless, Wang Chun still appeared on the exhibition stand on time.
“Spending my own money to buy a car and also promoting the company, what was I thinking?” Wang Chun insisted on coming because of the company’s corporate culture. The boss always emphasized not to do things correctly but to do the correct things. In Wang Chun’s mind, being a volunteer is the right thing to do.
“As a car owner willing to help manufacturers solve some pre-car owner doubts, there are too many strange rumors online. Some people come up with slanders without even test-driving. There’s a saying that rumors are easy to make but hard to refute, but what can we do? These rumors must be refuted, so I’m here.” Wang Chun said that only when Ideal Automotive continues to develop for a long time and the development is better, can the value of the car owner be increased. “We also believe that Ideal is doing the right thing. We bought this car for this reason. Developing the right car is doing the right thing. If this car is not really good, we will come out and criticize it.”
The above is the true voice of volunteer car owners. During the Shanghai Auto Show, we had 62 volunteer car owners on-site support. If you want to hear the real opinions of car owners, please come to the Ideal booth in Hall 5.1. We are waiting for you here.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.