Worldwide Service Network

Domestic Sales Network

Baosteel has essentially established in China a steel sales service network for the sales, processing and delivery of carbon steel, stainless steel and special steel products offering a comprehensive range of products and with numerous outlets distributed across the country as well as a steel processing and distribution service system with the largest steel processing volume, cutting-edge equipments and processes and processing outlets covering major regions in the country.

As at the end of 2012, Baosteel had 101 marketing outlets in China, including 6 regional companies, 6 franchisees, 3 other trading companies, 11 branches, 23 representative offices and 52 steel service centers with a cumulative processing capacity of 7.04 million tons (including 5.52 million tons of shearing capacity, 1.3 million tons of blanking/pendulum shearing capacity and 220,000 tons of cutting and pre-processing capacity), tailored blank laser welding capacity of 25.57 million pieces, 9.25 million wheels, 900,000 strokes of hot pressing and 880,000 strokes of hydraulic pressing.

Overseas Network

The overseas marketing service network of Baosteel, stretching all across the world with first-tier representative offices in four major regions including the Europe, Africa and Middle East region, the Southeast Asia and South Asia region, the Northeast Asia and Australia region and the Americas region, consists of 4 regional headquarters, 13 subsidiaries and representative offices and 2 processing centers which are responsible for the overall overseas trading services of Baosteel. After the establishment of NSM, the first overseas steel processing center of Baosteel in Italy in 2011, the construction of BGM, the first overseas new steel processing and distribution centre, in Korea has also commenced.

The Production-Marketing-Research Operation Model

In 2012, Baosteel has gradually established and optimized its production-marketing-research operation mechanism for solving customers’ problems in the production-marketing-research promotion system, which involved systematically channeling various problems reported by the customers to the respective production-marketing-research SBU groups, delegating the primary responsibility for solving the all types of customer problems to these SBU groups and following up, evaluating and promote the resolving of the customer problems in accordance with PDCA through systematic planning. The project commenced test operation in September and has since made various production-marketing-research promotion objectives more explicit and specific through the channeling of various customer problems and effectively enhanced the response speed of production-marketing-research activities to customer needs through the effective execution and resolving of such customer problems

Listen to the Users

Customer Satisfaction Survey

In 2012, Baosteel had zero complaint from customers for breach of privacy and no penalties for violation of laws and regulations.

Key Account Director System

For the purpose of realizing the transformation towards customer-oriented operation, enhancing response speed to customer requests and catering to the integrated needs of specific key accounts, Baosteel has explored the key account director service model under which dedicated service teams are responsible for supporting the development strategies of key accounts, establishing long-term communication and cooperation mechanisms with customers and planning and maintaining comprehensive strategic partnerships. The service teams will also play a leading role in the research, formulation and implementation of individual strategic solutions by various departments; devise individual marketing schemes and formulate marketing plans covering areas such as marketing plans, pricing policies, credit policies and customer visit plans.

Baosteel set up the pilot service team for SAIC Motor Corporation Limited (hereinafter referred to as “SAIC Motor”) on March 5th, 2012 to provide SAIC Motor with a comprehensive array of integrated inter-department services.

Service Hotline

In 2012, Baosteel Co., Ltd. Call Centre launched several “Customer Care” services, such as sending greeting messages (such as holiday greetings, birthday wishes and e-cards), reminder messages (such as acceptance of quality complaints) and other information push services to gain better understanding of and tighten the connection with customers, forge excellent customer relation management capacity, continuously improve the customers’ awareness of Baosteel Calling Centre and therefore enable the Call Centre to become a multi-functional and integrated customer interaction centre.

In 2012, the Call Centre answered a total of 17,436 incoming calls from customers with an average call completion rate of 98.75%. During the 251 working days, around 70 customer incoming calls were answered on daily average and the on-the-spot satisfaction rate of the Call Centre hotline was 96.55%.

Customer Visits

In 2012, Baosteel engaged in thorough efforts in all aspects of the entire customer visit process from planning, execution, implementation, feedback to improvement and made steady progresses with the help of the information system platform. Baosteel has planned and formulated 72 Top Management Visit Plans in 2012 by considering the dimensions of key accounts and products and summarizing the contribution levels of customers and strategic significance of products. By combining technical visits and business visits, Baosteel has drawn up a total of 4,052 visit plans to customers at direct supply and above levels led by various product sales departments and regional companies in the year. Through adequate planning in early stages and active day-to-day implementation, a total of 4,646 visits to customers at direct supply and above levels were implemented during the year (including 4,022 planned visits and 624 out-of-plan visits). The cumulative completion rate of the annual customer visit plan was 99.36%. During the year, 69 top management visits and exchanges were carried out. Through active interaction with the customers, these visits have made positive contributions to the promotion of exchanges and cooperation between Baosteel and its customers. In addition, the top management visits and exchanges have strengthened the strategic partnerships with key accounts and enabled Baosteel and its customers to better complement each other with their own strengths in areas such as market expansion and material application and realize joint development through collaboration.

E-Commerce

Marketing and e-commerce applications of Baosteel have always been dedicated to providing customers with convenient, efficient and value-added services and experiences. In order to adapt to the transformation towards a “customer-centered” corporate marketing mechanism, Baosteel has actively explored innovative e-commerce service models for customers. In 2012, Baosteel developed its mobile e-commerce services and designed and developed the Baosteel Online Mobile Commercial Services based on the Baosteel Mobile Commercial Services Middleware, among which the mobile marketing services for mobile phones were launched in June 2012 and the mobile marketing services for tablet computers were launched in December 2012. In order to enable convenient selection of materials by the customers, Baosteel designed and developed a customer-oriented professional product marketing service platform – dedicated pre-painting service area which was officially launched on October 28th, 2012.

Account Representative Management

The Technical Service Account Representatives of Baosteel Co., Ltd. provide strategic and key customers with one-stop one-on-one technical services and information communications, assist in tasks including customer technical services and product development and serve as the bridge and link between Baosteel and its customers. In 2012, the Technical Service Account Representatives of Baosteel Co., Ltd. eagerly participated in the application, promotion and trial use of high-growth new materials in key national projects and actively helped customers to source for substitutes for imported materials. 48 account representatives have visited and served customers on 5,295 working days, gathered 3,826 pieces of customer need information, resolved 2,491 problems through coordination and conducted 2,108 internal and external training and communication sessions.

The customer technical service team of Baosteel, creating numerous "win-win through cooperation” best practices in their services to key accounts, has not only realized economic gains but also fostered a reputable social image as well as social and customer recognition for Baosteel through its “Customer-Centered” operation approach and mechanism, despite the wintry iron and steel market with meager product profitability.

Awards by Customers

Customer Awards
General Motor – Global Supplier of the Year
2012 - Shanghai Hitachi Household Appliances Co., Ltd. – Most Valuable Supplier
2012 – Shandong Nuclear Power - Outstanding Supplier
2012 - Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle Company – Best Supplier
2012 – China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation – Excellent Partner
CIMC Raffles – Outstanding Supplier
Hualing Xingma Automobile – 2012 Outstanding Supplier