Creating a Harmonious Community for Children and Pets via the Second Country Garden Services Customer Experience Innovation Festival

Some common problems in community life have seriously affected residents' sense of belonging, wellbeing, and pride. For instance, a owner did not keep his dog on a leash when walking the dog, making a neighbor be bitten by it; scattered pet waste severely polluted the living community's environment; families with working couples ignore children's education due to busy work; a lack of parent-child activities results in discordant family atmosphere...

As property service companies, it is our duty to solve neighborhood disputes, enrich community life, create ideal living and education conditions, and meet residents' growing material and spiritual needs. Country Garden Services, an industry leading company, held the Second Customer Experience Innovation Festival in 2022, actively practicing our social responsibilities. This activity, which themed on 'Lovely Kids, Pets, and Spaces' in the community, experimented with service innovation of a parent-child friendly and pet-friendly community, aiming at resolving community life problems and create a well-behaved and harmonious community in cooperation with residents.

Strict assessment standards received an enthusiastic response, pooled ideas drives the industry forward

There were a total of 174 innovative service proposals submitted by 33 units for this Customer Experience Innovation Festival, and after procedures of proposal submission, screening, implementation acceptance, and expert review, 16 proposals advanced to the finals. At the finals, the winning proposals and team services were selected through 'owner review', 'executive review', 'expert review', and 'online voting'. Among these procedures, 'online voting' attracted 400,000 participants to vote for these proposals, which received a warm response.

At last, the proposal of Clock out Activity for Pet-walking from Xinchengzhiguang in Country Garden Services's Jiangzhong/Foshan markets won the first prize; the Sky Farm - Lovely Space for Kids to Cultivating Plants from the Kaiwan Company's Nanning Wanddamao, the Recreational Area for Adorable Pets from Country Garden Tianqinyuan in the Henan & Shaanxi markets, and The League of Pet-keepers from Shili Yintan (Zone A) in the Eastern Guangdong/Huizhou-Shenzhen markets won the second prize; and the Kaiwan Company and the Henan & Shaanxi markets won the title of 'Excellent Innovation Unit Prize' owing to the large number and superior quality of submitted proposals.

Honor list of the Second Customer Experience Innovation Festival

Through this activity, Country Garden Services's projects jointly brainstormed and practiced a bottom-up experience innovation mechanism. In the future, these 'brilliant ideas' will be polished into innovative service models with distinctive brand attributes, and replicable service innovation will be provided for projects in different markets to enhance customers' diversified experience and provide reference experience on community innovative services for more property projects. Eventually, it can foster the sustainable and healthy development of the whole industry.

Innovative proposals solve the community life pain point and achieve shared benefits

With the improvement of the living standards of Chinese people and the increase in the number of pet keepers, pets have become indispensable members in many families. Yet, some chaos about pet-keeping have brought troubles to other residents in the community. As can be seen from the participating projects, the harmonious coexistence between people and pets in the community is the core pain point of owners.

The first-prize winning proposal of Clock out Activity for Pet-walking from Xinchengzhiguang in Country Garden Services's Jiangzhong/Foshan markets explored the pain point of pet-keeping and aroused wide discussion and resonance. Focusing on pet-keeping in the community, this proposal believed that the lack of designated pet-walking areas and corresponding facilities in the community would cause inconvenience to the daily pet-walking of pet keepers, and the behavior of walking pets without picking up feces affected the living experience of non-pet keepers and increased the daily work of cleaning personnel. Accordingly, the contradiction between pet keepers and non-pet keepers seriously affected the overall satisfaction towards the property service company.

On-site implementation video about the first-prize winning proposal:

Clock out Activity for Pet-walking' from Xinchengzhiguang in Country Garden Services's Jiangmen-Zhongshan/Foshan market

Targeting the above problems, Clock out Activity for Pet-walking proposed a clock-in mechanism: The property service company set pet walking clock-in spots in the area with fewer people’s activities, and guide owners to walk their pets on the particular lawn on a daily basis by getting gifts through pet walking clock-in. Through the diversion of people and pets, this proposal solved the disputes between residents due to pet-keeping, and improved the living experience of pet keepers and non-pet keepers. Additionally, through efficient social resources integration, operation expenses needed for this project can be borne by cooperative merchants and nearby cooperative pet hospitals, realizing shared benefits between residents, the property service company, and merchants.

Another focused topic by residents lies in children activities and education. The Sky Farm - Lovely Space for Kids to Cultivating Plants from the Kaiwan Company's Nanning Wanddamao discovered that although parents have booked classes for children, their children still lacked manual dexterity. Besides, because of the increasingly wealthy living standards, even if parents warned their children many times not to waste food, the children still did not realize the value of food, especially for urban children, they lacked knowledge of crops.

Therefore, in order to enrich parent-child activities in the community, educate children to cherish food, and improve their manual dexterity, the program innovatively transformed a vacant land to a 200-square-meter nursery base 'one meter vegetable garden' theme space. This practice allowed participating parents and children to experience the joy of harvest together, and offer the children incentives and the qualifications to adopt vegetables. Moreover, these little participants were able to get small gifts such as succulents and pot plants, which provided urban children with the chance to have a 'closer contact' with the vegetable garden.

On-site implementation photos about the second-prize winning proposal:

the Sky Farm - Lovely Space for Kids to Cultivating Plants from Kaiwan Company's Nanning Wanddamao

Through this innovative method of leisure, entertainment, and nature education, the Nanning Wanddamao project has successfully increased owners' overall satisfaction from 61.6% to 77.4%; at the same time, the seedling breeding base can provide planting seedlings for the project, saving RMB 40,000 to 50,000 per year for greening and creating a perfect space for parent-child interaction.

In-depth research on customer needs, continuous efforts on service improvement

In the process of shifting from rapid development to high-quality development, the property industry must not only focus on the construction of its own capabilities, but also explore customer needs in depth. Country Garden Services has already had an insight into the importance of changes in customers' personalized needs to company development, and established the industry's first customer experience research institute in August 2020.

In recent years, the rapidly growing scale advantages are complementary to high-quality customer experience which is the core competitiveness of Country Garden Services. Since its establishment, the research institute has been tapping the changes in the needs of owners and improving customer experience, so as to prepare for rapid growth in the future and the extension of the service radius.

Initiated since 2021, the Customer Experience Innovation Festival serves as a critical carrier for the customer experience research institute to promote bottom-up innovation, create an atmosphere of service innovation by all personnel, shape Country Garden Services's innovation IP, and ensure the implementation of the innovation model. It is Country Garden Services's ambition to make the community more friendly, more childlike, and more loving by enriching community parent-child activities and children's education services, regularly carrying out community cultural activities and convenience services on pets, and transforming facilities and sites for children and pets.