There are three things every Chinese can’t escape: water, air and wechat. Wechat, with about 900 million monthly users, has long been the infrastructure of China’s mobile Internet ecosystem.
Gone are the days of navigation when you could find a new continent with a compass. Today’s Internet is more like the Ancient Roman Empire with the Mediterranean as its inland sea, where all roads lead to prosperity. Apparently, wechat is that Rome.
From the beginning, wechat for commercialization shows extraordinary restraint, restraint to every slight change may cause users and the collective attention of the Internet industry. Let’s take wechat Wallet as an example. Up to now, many people know the three sections of wechat Wallet entry — Tencent services, limited time promotion and third-party services. Tencent services at the top have long been in the state of “eight short of one”. Try to ask, Tencent lack for integration of services? Please have a look first, fellow students QQ and classmates alipay:
What’s more, mobike is still alone in the limited-time promotion, and jingdong Optimization and Didi, which are strategic partners, can only be ranked in the third-party service. Is the wechat team unwilling to abuse the product concept of market dominance, or waiting for an opportunity?
However, with the launch of WeSure, that’s all history — Tencent says users will be able to directly purchase, inquire and settle insurance claims through wechat, and in the future, log on to QQ.
Bridge bean sacks, there will be a small partner to verify the message back: there is no Tencent service or 8 services in my wallet; Meanwhile, some netizens said they had already experienced it.
Is it possible that some of them used fake “wechat”?
In fact, wechat has adopted grayscale publishing technology this time, and officially confirmed that only one percent of users will see the new entry. So, what about the joy of being chosen by God?
The children who were chosen
The impetuous business environment, even the giants can’t deny — Tencent’s tests will soon be replaced by another industry hot spot, and both the old drivers and the little transparent have become so numb that we ignore the two fundamental issues in this matter:
1. Why does Tencent use insurance service to make up the last function gap?
2. Why Tencent chooses grayscale test?
First, why insurance?
Tencent wants to include insurance services as one of its main self-owned services, which must mean that the market has become too big for Tencent to sit idly by.
Do not be deceived by the inherent impression of insurance promotion in the past. Whether it is the active performance of the capital market, or the insurance regulatory commission, which often appears together with the Banking regulatory Commission, all prove the huge power of the insurance industry from the side. How big is the insurance pie for our little penguins? Here, you just need to look at one set of data:
- In 2015, the premium income of original insurance reached 2,428,252 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 20.00%. The balance of funds used was 11.179549 trillion yuan, up 19.81% from the beginning of the year; Net assets reached 1,608.970 billion yuan, up 21.38% from the beginning of the year.
- In 2016, the premium income of original insurance reached 3,095910 billion yuan, up 27.50 percent year on year. Funds utilized totaled 13.391067 trillion yuan, up 19.78% from the beginning of the year. Net assets totaled 1.724601 trillion yuan, up 7.15% from the beginning of the year.
- In 2017, the premium income of original insurance reached 2,765.418 billion yuan, up 20.45 percent year on year. Fund utilization balance reached 14.462591 trillion yuan, up 8.00% from the beginning of the year; Net assets reached 1,823,208 million yuan, up 5.75% from the beginning of the year.
Dare you ask: out of trillions of markets, how many have outperformed inflation and real estate? Whether it is the original insurance premium, or the growth rate of fund utilization balance and net assets, it is beyond our ordinary people’s cognition.
Ant Financial, my classmate, has prepared for it several semesters in advance, and many old insurance players are also actively expanding new businesses with the help of the Internet. As for the performance of the transferred student, we need to continue to observe.
Two, why must be gray release?
Why Tencent will choose the form of grayscale release, rather than strong online + online marketing + a lot of public relations copywriting.
First, “it is a matter of great importance”. When it comes to insurance business for the first time, the full launch of insurance business will pose a great challenge to Tencent’s business capability, not to mention the agency business, in which there is 900 million yuan to run in, and any small bug may evolve into a big problem.
Balance experience, public opinion and competition. Tencent sells insurance, which seems basically synonymous with irresponsibility. No matter how social progress, insurance is not a high-frequency behavior. If the title changed to “wechat online insurance business, tens of thousands of front-line salesmen will be laid off crisis”, then a lot of insurance salesmen will cry faint in the toilet. Non-high-frequency entrance + industry disrupter + competitive products, at this time, the stability is the most needed state of an excellent product.
Risk control. The biggest effect of grayscale publishing is to reduce risk. Tencent chose grayscale release this time, which can not only make the new functions online as soon as possible, but also keep enough adjustment and optimization time to ensure the stability of the overall system.
Experienced product managers, operations and technical personnel are no strangers to grayscale publishing, which is also called Canary publishing in foreign countries. For example, the common Chrome browser has a corresponding Canary version. Greyscale publishing, often associated with A/B testing, was first piloted by Google and is now part of the basic workflow of many tech companies. Although China started late, Chinese science and technology Internet companies have gradually begun to popularize grayscale publishing and A/B testing since 2015.
Grayscale release is generally divided into two types, one is self-built platform and the other is third-party professional platform. AppAdhoc A/B Testing platform is more commonly used on third-party professional platform. Grayscale release its products and achieve good results, whether it is the launch of new functions or product revision and iteration. All users can freely adjust the user traffic of the new version, effectively reduce the probability of large-scale online accidents or major bugs, and ensure a good user experience to the greatest extent.
Wechat only grayscale 1% of users, but enough to poke half of the Internet circle G spot. It is not that Tencent is getting its hands on a new trillion-level market, but that it has taught many players a lesson in how to complement their own products and reduce the risk of product iteration.
1% is small, multiplied by 900 million, but it is also 900W of massive data, how many enterprises try their best can not achieve this 1%. As the Internet industry becomes more and more mature, channels, commerce and marketing become more and more important. But when and where is the end of entanglement?
Everyone is equal when it comes to user experience. To stand out, user experience is not less important, but more important. It is not only necessary to have advanced product concepts, but also to learn the thinking of “data-driven decision making”, and make good use of grayscale publishing and A/B testing. Only this is the way to win.
Write at the back:
WeSure is only Tencent’s insurance agent business product, not “Tencent’s insurance” in the real sense. And the real behind the insurance products behind the hero – Taikang online, due to space constraints this article has not been able to expand the explanation, interested partners can “Taikang online” and “gray release” for the keyword baidu.