Beike took a path that no one had ever taken before.

Real estate is the main asset of most families, but they may suffer huge losses due to a momentary oversight during the transaction process.

Recently, Ms. Chen took a fancy to a second - hand house with a total price of 3.435 million yuan. She signed a house purchase agreement with the landlord on the same day and agreed to pay the full amount for the house.

During the transaction process, the seller said that the house was in a mortgaged state, with a remaining mortgage of 2.45 million yuan and a mortgage release fee of 100,000 yuan. Ms. Chen hoped to push forward the transaction as soon as possible and said that she could advance 2.45 million yuan for the seller to release the mortgage first, and then continue the transaction after the mortgage registration was lifted.

As a result, after Ms. Chen made the transfer, the seller disappeared.

Data from courts in many places show that in recent years, due to major changes in real estate market regulation policies, it has been difficult to predict the market operation trend, resulting in a high volume of disputes over housing sales contracts.

When the real estate market enters the era of "good houses", the community space and the hardware level of houses have been greatly improved. The entire ecosystem of real estate transactions, especially the management system and service standards in the transaction process, should also be upgraded to form "good services" that match good houses.

Who will guarantee the transaction safety of consumers? Finally, someone has started to explore.

Source: Official enterprise website

01 

From platform supervision to performance guarantee

In 2024, Beike set up a special service guarantee fund internally, with an annual scale of 100 million yuan. This fund is specifically used to resolve disputes that occur during the transaction process.

According to the latest data statistics of Beike, nearly 100 million yuan was spent from the guarantee fund in the year of its establishment.

The story of spending money is indeed fascinating, but "spending money in the right way" is only the first step. The input - output effect is more important. It is the product and service capabilities formed after the investment that drive the enterprise forward.

Those who have used Beike know that once there is a problem during the transaction process, Beike has a special customer complaint channel, and all these complaints will enter Beike's management system.

After setting up the special guarantee fund, Beike selected 46 business experts from 19 cities covered by its business to form a "Platform Customer Complaint Rule Management Team". This team summarized customer complaint cases from the past three years, refined standards, and formulated a set of "Platform Customer Service Standards" for nine service roles in three major transaction links: housing source maintenance, transaction appointment signing, and transaction processing.

This set of "standards" summarized from "lessons" provides clear operation guidelines for brokers and can effectively avoid a large number of potential transaction risks and disputes in advance.

However, the complexity of the second - hand housing transaction process and a large amount of asymmetric information mean that there is no 100% safe transaction. What if an accident occurs? At this time, the platform's ability to identify potential transaction risks and provide a safety net becomes the most crucial barrier.

Source: Official enterprise website

In fact, as a platform, Beike had been clarifying the operation standards for brokers before 2023 and promoting brokers and brand owners who directly serve customers to improve their service capabilities through various internal and external channels.

During this period, when analyzing the implementation effect, transaction data, and improving the average service level, Beike found that due to objective reasons such as different service capabilities of some brokerage brands accessing the platform, there were differences in the service commitment terms offered by different brands, and the performance and compensation capabilities of stores of different brands also varied greatly. Simply relying on Beike's platform to formulate standards and rules for supervision could not create a safe transaction environment.

So, Beike decided to step in and use platform funds to provide a safety net.

This move by Beike means that the platform has changed from an external supervisor to the main party responsible for solving transaction service problems, thus making the compensation process after an accidental transaction simpler and faster, and increasing the controllability of the compensation plan.

In the process of using the service guarantee fund to provide a safety net, Beike also innovatively implemented the "C first, B second, and shared compensation" mechanism. Based on the principle of "being lenient even when in the right", it gives priority to protecting the rights and interests of the party that abides by the contract, greatly reducing the cost for consumers to safeguard their rights.

02 

Platform - level guarantee

While setting up the 100 - million - yuan guarantee fund and compensation mechanism, Beike also launched a comprehensive upgrade of service commitments and transaction regulations across the entire platform and in key cities.

Behind each transaction regulation formulated by the Beike platform, there are almost "lessons bought with money".

In 2019, Ms. Xie bought a house at a franchised store of Zhengzhou Lianjia. During the transaction process, due to the misleading of the broker, Ms. Xie failed to distinguish between the company account and the private account and transferred the house purchase money to the broker's private account. Eventually, the broker embezzled more than 2 million yuan of the house purchase money illegally.

Ms. Xie faced huge losses. Although the service was provided by the franchised store, as the brand owner, Zhengzhou Lianjia advanced the compensation for Ms. Xie's losses.

This incident triggered reflection within the Beike system and became a catalyst for Beike to establish a systematic compensation mechanism and transaction regulations to plug loopholes in the system.

After nearly a year of operation of the 100 - million - yuan service guarantee fund, on November 14, 2024, Beike officially released the "Beike Platform - level Service Commitment" to the public.

The current platform - level service commitment has a "3 + 3" structure, including three commitment items that have been launched nationwide: "Authentic housing sources, compensate 100 yuan for each fake one", "If the transaction fails, the commission will be refunded without reason", "If there are property arrears, the losses will be advanced first"; and three commitment items that have been piloted in some cities and will be gradually replicated nationwide: "Meet all the standards, the house payment will be guaranteed by the platform", "Disclose water leakage problems and compensate for losses", "No telemarketing, compensate 100 yuan for each harassment".

"3 + 3" Platform - level service commitment

These six service commitments are all based on Beike's big data and real past cases, summarizing common, high - frequency, or high - loss transaction scenarios.

However, priority compensation is a sense of responsibility, not the ultimate goal. The original intention of Beike is to avoid transaction risks and improve the transaction environment.

Therefore, behind the platform's safety - net mechanism, for each of the "3 + 3" service commitments, Beike has reconstructed a standardized transaction process and clear management rules.

Only in the platform management mechanism at the city level, Beike has defined five types of potential capital loss risks and 37 risk characteristics, sorted out and established the urban risk management organizational mechanism and process standards to create a high - standard transaction service model for the industry.

For example, the first - ever capital safety service commitment launched in cities such as Zhengzhou and Wuhan includes service requirements for the entire transaction process. At the signing stage, by watching a video on capital risks and signing a "Transaction Risk Notification Letter", both parties will be clearly informed and their risk awareness will be enhanced.

Beike will also create a "Beike Official Service Group" for each transaction to ensure that all roles in the group are certified, the capital information is transparent and interactive, and both parties can keep track of the capital dynamics in real - time. In the process of following up on contract performance, Beike implements a strong reminder mechanism to ensure that customers receive timely reminders and guidance at every step of the payment process. At the same time, it upgrades the management rules, promotes the intelligent connection of various systems, changes from passive and lagging inquiries to active monitoring, and makes the data of the payable and actually paid house payments knowable, visible, and manageable.

Through the standardization of the service process and the empowerment of corresponding tools, the Beike platform provides clear operation guidelines for brokers, minimizing transaction risks and disputes. Even if an accident occurs that is not caused by the consumer's subjective behavior, there is still a compensation mechanism and guarantee fund to provide a safety net.

It can be said that the compensation mechanism and the "3 + 3" service commitment are like two safety lines for real estate transactions. One prevents problems before they occur, and the other minimizes losses. The double guarantee ensures safe transactions.

This is a pioneering move in the industry. Behind taking on more responsibilities and promoting safer transactions, Beike has to mobilize a large number of employees, including those in product, technology, jury, and urban experts. Just the quality service commitment project team has reached hundreds of people. It is really spending money, deploying manpower, and exerting efforts to solve the most headache - inducing problems in the industry.

03 

Who is the service for?

The platform model emerged in the Internet era. On the one hand, it connects products and services to consumers (C - end), and on the other hand, it aggregates brand merchants (B - end) to provide consumption scenarios and traffic.

Therefore, the real service objects of the platform should include both the C - end and the B - end.

Beike's launch of the "3 + 3" platform - level service commitment and the 100 - million - yuan service guarantee fund is actually an upgrade of the platform's service capabilities for both the B - end and the C - end, forming a shared - responsibility mechanism.

Source: Official enterprise website

As mentioned above, the "3 + 3" platform - level service commitment first promises service standards and corresponding priority compensation to the C - end. For situations with a relatively high probability of occurrence, such as accidental termination of transactions, property arrears, and house water leakage, or those that cause relatively large losses to consumers, the platform upgrades the service standards and provides a safety net, enabling the C - end to enjoy safer and more convenient services.

The improvement of Beike's quality service this time is not limited to providing transaction safety guarantees for the C - end. It also proposes a shared - responsibility mechanism between the platform and the B - end (brand owners), complementing the service and compensation capabilities of the B - end.

If a customer complains to the platform, the C - end will be compensated first according to a unified processing standard. Then, a detailed fact - finding will be conducted with the brand merchant (B - end). Liability will be determined based on whether the B - end has met the service standards required by the platform in this process. If the B - end has fulfilled its responsibilities, it does not need to bear the compensation, and the platform will bear it. If the B - end has not fulfilled its responsibilities, the platform and the B - end will share the compensation.

Ge Jing, the Chief Quality Officer of Beike, explained, "This allows the C - end to get a quick solution, and on the other hand, it can share the compensation cost and pressure of the B - end (brand). This is a relatively major change in our customer complaint handling process this time."

With the platform sharing the cost, the B - end can focus its energy on the construction of the broker team and the improvement of service capabilities, which is conducive to its long - term and stable operation.

Statistics show that after Beike launched the platform service commitment guarantee and the shared - compensation mechanism, 388 brand owners have voluntarily joined the compensation alliance, covering 76 cities across the country. And Beike's city companies have improved the efficiency and fairness of service management by sharing the compensation cost.

The platform takes the initiative to assume responsibilities, making transactions safer, more reassuring, and simpler. This not only improves the consumer experience but also enhances the interaction and cooperation between service providers and the platform. There is more trust among the platform, brands, and consumers, a credibility mechanism is established, and the transaction environment in the entire market can evolve positively at a fast pace.

04 

Using "black technology"

Currently, the Beike platform has established customer complaint handling standards and safety - net handling solutions for hundreds of scenarios, and uses the "3 + 3" platform - level service commitment and the 100 - million - yuan service guarantee fund priority compensation mechanism to ensure the safety of millions of transactions every year.

With such a large coverage, combined with the long transaction cycle, long transaction chain, and complex multi - node characteristics of second - hand housing transactions that can last for several months, and reaching more than 400,000 brokers on the platform, Beike's technological accumulation and advantages have also played an important role.

For example, in the case of timely screening and "water leakage disclosure", Beike can quickly provide a reasonable compensation range based on historical data and current market prices, greatly improving the efficiency of damage assessment and reducing the time cost and error of evaluation.

The property handover process is also a very prone - to - dispute stage. Different from the past, when items had to be manually registered and checked one by one, and the brand and model of items were described in pure text, Beike uses VR recognition technology to establish a clear property handover list.

VR can accurately cut pictures and bring the item pictures into the property handover list. Brokers only need to click to confirm the items that the buyer and seller agree to keep, and a property handover list that reflects what is "seen" and what is "obtained" can be generated, making the agreement clearer.

Beike also uses a large number of online systems to record the property handover process, trying to avoid service deviations caused by individual differences.

"The real meaning of technology lies not in itself, but in how it is used." This quote from the famous astronomer Carl Sagan can be used to annotate Beike's technological applications.

Conclusion

The judicial system is the last line of defense for resolving disputes, but in the business context, enterprises are the primary responsible parties for promoting the positive evolution of the industry.

In the real estate brokerage field, from the initial chaotic competition to the current situation where improving service quality is the main means, it is inseparable from the positive force promoted by the Beike platform.

In 2004, Lianjia proposed "no price difference", and in 2011, it launched the real housing source campaign, announcing the farewell to the old era. After that, the operation models of mainstream brokerage companies have moved towards a service competition, and the space for deliberately creating information gaps and conducting under - the - table operations has been squeezed smaller and smaller.

In 2018, Beike was born. Relying on the platform to form