How We Were Forced into Video Inspections

On the afternoon of August 10, Kwame, a customer in Ghana, finished a video inspection of an XCMG 50 wheel loader and committed on the spot. That was our twenty-seventh deal closed through remote inspection this year. Six months ago, if you had told me a customer would wire over a hundred thousand dollars without ever seeing the machine in person, I would not have believed it myself.

This was forced on us. Forced to what degree? At the end of March, our Q1 order book was half of last year's.

The Customers Couldn't Come

March through May used to be peak inspection season. African customers would fly into Guangzhou, we would pick them up and bring them to the Panyu warehouse, and they would look at machines one by one and negotiate on the spot. In Q1 last year we hosted thirty-one groups of customers. Every day there were customers squatting under that tree by the warehouse gate, smoking and bargaining.

This Q1: zero. Flights stopped, visas stopped, customers could not come. Under that tree by the gate, only our own people were left smoking. Chidi said on the phone in February: he had trusted this business for eight years, and now he could not even touch the machine; how could he dare wire the money? I had no answer for that. Put me in his place and I would not wire it either.

But orders could not stop. At the end of March I told Zhou Li: let's try video inspections. He said I was crazy; what can you see on a video? I said even if we cannot see much, we have to do it. Not doing it is waiting to die.

The First Inspection Was a Mess

April 9, our first video inspection. The customer was Mohamed in Tanzania, the machine a SANY 215 excavator. It embarrasses me to remember it now.

I held my phone up as I walked around, and the moment I stepped under the boom the signal dropped. In a forty-minute inspection the connection cut four times. Mohamed kept shouting from the other end: go back, I did not see that part clearly. I would walk back and the signal would drop again. The warehouse has a sheet-metal roof, and under the sun it is thirty-eight degrees inside. I held up the phone drenched in sweat, the lens fogged over.

Worse was the angles. I pointed the phone at the track shoes; he said he could not see the wear and asked me to get closer. Up close the image blurred; back away and he could not read the tooth height. When we started the engine to run the functions, the moment it fired up he could not hear me and I could not hear him: two men shouting into their phones.

The inspection ran an hour and a half. At the end Mohamed said, let me think about it. He never bought that machine. After hanging up I threw my phone on the desk. Xiao Wang did not dare say a word.

That night I sat in the warehouse until eleven, writing down the whole process step by step. I listed seventeen problems: signal, lighting, angles, noise, sequence; everything was a problem.

The Process We Settled On

In late April we fixed the process: five iron rules.

One, fixed camera positions. We pulled a dedicated broadband line into the warehouse and bought three phone tripods. Signal is tested at the inspection spot in advance; weak spots do not get used. Before each inspection we hang a sign on the machine with the date and the customer's name, proving the video was shot live for you, not pulled from stock.

Two, item-by-item operation, following the checklist. The list has sixty-three items, from the chassis number to hot-engine exhaust. Each item is called out as it is done, and we do not move on until the customer says pass. Customers can add items on the fly, anytime.

Three, one continuous take. From the moment the engine starts, we record without cuts or stops. Whatever the customer wants to see, we film it, rulers and flashlights in frame. The original video file goes to the customer the same day. One continuous take is really a promise to the customer: we have no chance to cheat.

Four, wear points get measured with calipers, and the reading goes right up to the lens. Track tooth height, bucket tooth length, pin-and-bushing clearance: we report numbers, never looks okay or about right. Whatever number the customer wants, we measure it on the spot.

Five, after the inspection we issue a written report in both Chinese and English, signed by Lao Li. The report states plainly which parts were replaced and where the paint was touched up.

To film welds clearly we bought two high-powered flashlights, one to light and one to shoot, plus a used fill light. Lao Li laughed at me: you are turning inspections into a TV shoot. I said when the customer is eight thousand kilometers away with nothing but this screen, filming it badly is the same as lying to him.

The First Deal Closed Online

On May 6, Peter, a customer in Kenya, did a video inspection of a road roller under the new process. It took fifty-eight minutes. For all three of his questions, the caliper reading went right up to the lens. The next day he wired a thirty percent deposit.

The machine reached Mombasa in early July. After receiving it, Peter sent back a video: the machine started, made two passes on the site, and he said it was just like in the video. That sentence made it all worth it. That word, same, is worth more than any certificate.

By the end of July we had run forty-four video inspections and closed twenty-seven deals: a sixty-one percent close rate. That is lower than in-person visits, which close at eighty percent, but sixty-one percent saved this year's business.

Peter later inspected two more machines, both over video. He told me he is now better at inspections than we are; he takes the checklist and asks for track tooth height first. I believe him. We were not the only ones forced to adapt; customers were forced to learn how to read a machine too.

Video inspection saves the customer's airfare and time, but it does not save us anything; inspecting one machine went from two hours to three. But the customer does not have to fly. That is its lifeline.

If you want an inspection, book three days ahead and bring your list of questions. The original video, the inspection report, and loading photos: you get all three. If any number does not add up, come back to me.