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When silicon wafers come off the production line, they are just silent thin sheets. At the customer’s end, they may turn into color differences, edge chipping, twin crystals—or into a joke, a call of “Yuanyuan.” Mei Jun stands right at this turning point. He is the customer service manager at Gokin Solar—far from the production line, close to the customer.

In 2007, when he first entered the industry, PV was in the polycrystalline era.

Mei Jun did quality work in the workshop. A faint smell of silicon powder hung in the air, and the sound of equipment was endless all day. At that time, customer service was only a module under quality, like an inconspicuous workstation beside the production line, handling matters at the end of the process.

The industry tide turned fast. Monocrystalline technology broke through, and capacity jumped from MW to GW.

Mei Jun moved with the industry’s pace, from wafer quality to module quality and then to battery auxiliary material quality. He had touched almost every link in the industrial chain. These experiences later became his confidence—if you don’t understand the production line, you can’t understand the customer’s pain points; if you don’t understand the process, you can’t be a bridge between the two ends.

In 2022, Gokin was developing rapidly. Mei Jun joined and took charge of customer service.

As PV capacity leaped, customer service grew from a single “module” into an independent “department.” It extended forward to pre-sales order review, embedded deeply into in-sales on-site support, and covered afterward the full life-cycle management after sales.

“In the past, it was like aftermath handling; now it is more like a relay that never stops.”

“Many people say that ‘good craftsmen create things’ is a matter on the production line.” Talking about his understanding of “good craftsmen create things,” Mei Jun glanced at the customer report on the table. “Actually, not entirely. The production line creates objects; what we create is the value the customer can use with confidence. Together, that is complete creation.”

He has seen silicon wafers pass all parameters at the factory but fail at the customer site—perhaps due to differences in the transportation environment, the adaptability of the customer’s production line, or the pain of running in a new process. If you stick only to factory standards, the problem has no solution. What customer service does is cross the line of factory delivery, follow the product to the customer, and catch the problem.

Catching it depends on people. Mei Jun’s team has 11 people in total, divided into four regions: overseas, Jiangsu-Anhui, Zhejiang, and Sichuan. Each region has a supervisor, and supervisors directly interface with customers. Pre-sales organizes new project docking and supports order review; in-sales arranges long-term on-site support for key customers and coordinates with in-factory personnel; after-sales handles customer complaints, customer visits, quarterly senior-level mutual visits, and builds customer files and profiles for differentiated service.

He insists on feeding customer pain points back to the factory and back to the responsible departments, reducing problems from the source. For example, regarding contamination reported by customers, the customer service team organized data and meetings. After the production line adjusted processes and equipment, customer feedback dropped by 90%.

On the production line, good craftsmen finely polish every product; on the service side, good craftsmen safeguard every need, every response, every closed loop. In Mei Jun’s view, service itself is part of creation.

In the past year or two, PV industry prices have fluctuated, and capacity has waxed and waned. In such an environment, what are customers buying?

Mei Jun’s answer is direct: certainty.

He broke certainty into four things: delivery must be stable, arriving at the factory on time; quality must be uniform, batches consistent; rules must be transparent, prices transparent; exceptions must be fast, quickly closed loop. The market rises and falls; the meaning of customer service is to use internal certainty to hedge external uncertainty.

The mechanism followed. The team built an internal “iron triangle” group, established a morning meeting mechanism, and implemented the “0135” rapid customer complaint handling mechanism: 0-delay acceptance, cause analysis within 1 day, improvement plan implementation within 3 days, and shipment of improved products within 5 days.

This mechanism was born from real pain: “Customers reported that some complaints took too long to resolve and the improvement effect was not obvious.” The hardest link to solidify in implementation was root cause analysis—“Whether the root cause judgment is accurate directly determines the improvement direction. Once the analysis deviates, the rectification cycle will be endlessly extended.”

The BC adhesive anomaly was the hardest trial of this mechanism.

At that time, BC half-cells were just ramping up mass production, and the customer-side adhesive defect rate reached 2%. When the news came, the team formed a task force the same day, and the next day people were on site.

The task force soaked in the customer’s workshop, followed the production line, looked at abnormal sheets one by one, and collected data; on the other side, it coordinated with in-factory technology, benchmarked peer parameters, and located the root cause bit by bit. Mei Jun interfaced with customer departments, soothed emotions, and shared progress; at the same time, he watched the internal rectification rhythm to ensure every step landed on point.

The problem was not solved in a day. More than a dozen rounds were changed before and after, and the defect rate declined little by little. The customer went from continuous complaints at the beginning to later being willing to give time to verify and improve simultaneously. Mei Jun said, “Customers are not actually afraid of problems; they are afraid that you won’t face them or act. If you show real action, they can see it.”

In the end, not only was the anomaly stabilized, but the process plan for half-cell slicing was also determined. This helped the customer break dependence on a single supplier, and supply chain risk actually decreased.

Mei Jun and the team say that every report sent out is not a procedural document, but a letter of commitment to the customer. The meaning of the mechanism is to make this commitment land steadily.

Customer service work does not show itself in good times; what reveals true character is always when problems arise.

In 2023, there was a concentric circle quality anomaly. That was one of the densest periods of Mei Jun’s travel: the suitcase stayed in the trunk, and he moved through three or four cities a week. During the day, he checked disposal plans against production line data and synchronized rectification progress; at night, he joined internal review meetings to watch the implementation rhythm. His phone was never on silent 24 hours a day.

There were naturally arguments, anxiety, and pressure from all sides. But there were also moments that stayed in his heart for a long time.

The most memorable was going to a customer to communicate the plan for using risk wafers. Before going, he made full preparations and imagined the other party’s emotions. When he pushed open the meeting room door, the atmosphere was indeed tense—long-unresolved anomalies had put both sides under great pressure.

The other party’s quality director looked up, saw him, smiled first, and called out: “Oh, Yuanyuan is here.”

The two words “Yuanyuan” come from “concentric circles.” A joke, like a finger gently plucking a taut string, instantly relaxed the stagnant atmosphere in the meeting room.

That day’s communication went exceptionally smoothly. Everyone sat around the table, set plans against production data, divided batches, and scheduled progress; one matter after another was sorted out clearly. When he walked out of the meeting room, Mei Jun’s heart was warm. He knew clearly that behind this joke was trust accumulated over years of cooperation. The customer did not pursue responsibility from the opposite side, but by default treated Gokin as a partner solving problems together.

“Cherish trust, and only then can you achieve good service.” Mei Jun often says this. But truly understanding its weight came precisely in such a tense moment, from the bit of relaxation and goodwill the other party offered.

During Mei Jun’s tenure, Gokin’s comprehensive ranking at the customer end steadily rose from the middle of the industry to the forefront. Customer return losses fell by 22% year-on-year. Batch return rate fell by 94% year-on-year, and customer complaint rate fell by 88% year-on-year. Behind the numbers are orders held one by one, losses stopped by extinguishing risks in the bud again and again, and trust built again and again.

A contract binds responsibility; trust holds up crises. The former starts cooperation; the latter lets cooperation cross cycles.

Customer service work always faces problems directly and absorbs emotions; it is a double test of mental strength and steadiness. Yet the team Mei Jun leads has always been very stable.

To lead such a team, Mei Jun’s method is: systems manage people, processes manage matters, culture gathers hearts.

In terms of systems, rights and responsibilities are clearly divided. Morning meetings review matters, not people; where something was not done well, it is pointed out on the spot and improved next time. Mei Jun always says that in customer service, you must face problems directly; you cannot hide.

In terms of processes, the old lead the new. When newcomers first join, they dare not speak to customers, so experienced employees take them to make calls and visit sites, teaching them to hear what customers imply. Experience is passed down through real battles again and again.

But systems and processes alone are not enough. Mei Jun knows clearly that this work, on the spiritual level, must have something that underpins it.

Most of the team are post-90s and post-00s, with different personalities: some are steady and reliable, able to sit on a cold bench and chew through complex data; some are outgoing and lively, good at dealing with customers, able to ease even the most rigid situation; some have跳跃 thinking and always come up with new solutions; some have solid foundations and know process parameters by heart. Mei Jun does not use one standard to check everyone, but uses each person’s strengths.

If someone has been in a bad mood recently, he will find a chance to chat privately; if someone asks for leave for family matters, he will arrange the on-site work well. He says that everyone comes out to work not only for a salary. The team is like brothers and sisters; when something happens, they carry it together; when difficulties come, they help together.

When asked whether there is any particularly proud young person in the team, Mei Jun smiles and says he is proud of every one of them.

To newcomers, he says they must inherit two kinds of craftsmanship. One is reverence for quality: every customer demand is not a small matter; it connects to the product life cycle and the customer’s production rhythm. The other is pragmatism and frankness: do not evade problems, do not make promises lightly, and once promised, definitely deliver.

From the polycrystalline workshop in 2007 to today’s service network covering four major regions, Mei Jun’s eighteen years are also the eighteen years of the PV industry moving from the margins to the mainstream. The industry cycle still rises and falls; objects have completion and destruction, cold and warmth have cycles. Only one thing does not change: when customers open the box, what they buy is never just the product itself, but also the sincerity and action of an enterprise that, when problems arise, does not evade, does not pass the buck, and dares to face them and continuously improve.

That is precisely part of creation.

Far from the production line, close to the words “good craftsman.”