Activities to Improve Customer Satisfaction
Management
Social Issue
In recent years, the rapid digitization of society has led to customers gathering substantial information on the Internet, and then sharing and disseminating that information using various means of communication. In order to further improve customer satisfaction in this environment, we believe it is necessary to obtain and analyze data on the Internet, identify customer opinions and values, and utilize this information in providing products and services.
Importance for the Casio Group
Due to these changes in the awareness of customers, it has become more difficult to differentiate Casio’s products from the products of other companies on the basis of product functionality alone. Casio believes it is important to increase confidence in the company’s brand and improve customer satisfaction by analyzing customer perspectives collected from social media and a variety of other information channels, as well as failure details on products brought in for repairs, and incorporating this analysis into product development leveraging cooperation among the relevant departments.
Policy
We leverage creativity to raise customer expectations and generate excitement while enriching peoples’ minds, hearts and lives worldwide. Through three major customer satisfaction (CS) activities, Casio is working to improve after-sales service and product quality. It is using consumer feedback to improve products and services, in order to maintain customer trust and provide peace of mind.
After-sales CS
- Enhancing staff training programs to improve product knowledge, repair technical skills, and customer service skills
- Boosting customer service quality by having staff acquire public qualifications
- Improving customer service sites
Functional CS
- Striving to ensure that customer feedback around the world is always delivered directly to the right place within the company and to take unified improvement measures
- Working to improve product functions
Quality CS
- Compiling and analyzing information on customer inquiries and product defects around the world
- Striving for early detection, rapid response and prevention of recurrence of problems
From product planning and development to after-sales service, Casio works closely with customers to envisage the ideals for products, and implements group-wide improvement activities such as proposing improvements to product planning and development and providing services that enhance customer satisfaction. With three main customer satisfaction activities as the basic policy, Casio consolidates customer perspectives from a user-first point of view, shares the information across organizations, including at the senior management level, and uses it in improving after-sales service.
Casio also released internal guidelines for all employees to increase their understanding of customer satisfaction. Casio encourages each and every employee to recognize and take action on the opportunities they have to take the initiative on customer satisfaction in the course of their duties.
Activity Results
Customer Service Initiatives in Japan
In order to respond to customer inquiries regarding Casio products, a customer contact department was created in 1981.
With the vision of making all customers lifelong Casio fans, the department works to improve trust in the Casio brand by directly interacting with individual customers on a daily basis and responding appropriately to their inquiries, recognizing the value of this important contact point with customers. At the same time, the department is playing a role in business management based on the user-first principle by ensuring that the customer feedback it receives is delivered to the company.
The department also strengthens mutual cooperation with the customer support centers set up at local sales companies around the world, improves the customer experience in ways suited to each particular region, and establishes systems to reliably collect local customer feedback.
Emphasizing the sensibility of “consideration”
The Center is constantly working to expand its channels of communication with customers, as communication styles diversify with changing social trends. The Center works hard to provide the support that customers expect via each channel.
In these efforts, the Customer Support Center strives to respect customers and serve them based on the wish to be helpful. At the same time, the staff do not simply answer callers’ questions; they strive to accurately grasp the core reasons for each inquiry, and to solve these problems appropriately , while emphasizing good interpersonal communication. Casio also strives to keep improving the value of the customer experience by conducting periodic satisfaction surveys concerning customer service respon.
Sharing customer feedback and making improvements from the user-first perspective
The center shares opinions and inquiries received from customers with relevant departments such as the development and sales departments. This customer feedback is then used to make even better products and services.
At the same time, Casio is actively working on improvement from the user-first perspective, based on analysis of customer feedback.
Specifically, Casio is striving to provide mechanisms that allow users to resolve problems themselves, by providing content designed from the user-first perspective on its customer support websites, which serve as important touchpoints for customer interaction. Similarly, we leverage cooperation with local customer support centers, mainly to augment FAQ sections on customer support websites around the world.
Dealing with Customer Harassment
In recent years, customer harassment has become a social problem, and we have set up a Customer Harassment Countermeasures Committee to deal with this issue on a group-wide basis. We have established a group-wide response policy and set up an internal website so that we can grasp the current situation across the entire Casio Group. We have put in place a system to deal with customer harassment on a group-wide scale. We will continue to strengthen our systems to protect the dignity of all employees and respond in a unified manner across the Group.
Breakdown of Customer Inquiries in Japan (Fiscal 2024, Consumer Products)
| Fiscal 2023 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Item | Japan | Overseas |
Timepieces |
42.5% |
77.2% |
Education (calculators, electronic dictionaries) |
10.1% |
18.5% |
Electrical Musical Instruments |
5.7% |
3.2% |
Other Consumer Products |
11.7% |
0.6% |
System Equipment |
30.0% |
0.5% |
Total |
100.0% |
100.0% |
Breakdown of Product Inquiries
Customer Satisfaction Initiatives in Japan
The service departments at Casio, which are responsible for customer satisfaction in after-sales service, continue to work to improve repair skills, product knowledge and skills for communicating with customers in order to provide after-sales service that satisfies customers. In addition, Casio is building a questionnaire system using its text messages in an effort to earn even greater customer trust and respond immediately to ever-changing needs. By listening to the evaluations and opinions of customers, Casio is working hard to develop a service system that prioritizes customer needs and lifestyles and improves convenience.
Reliable service quality
Casio Techno, which repairs Casio products, strives to help its employees earn public certifications and professional qualifications such as first-class and second-class watch repair technician certification — a Japanese national certification — so that they can quickly adapt to continuously advancing product functions and provide service quality that satisfies customers.
By training employees so that they are expert not only in repair skills but also possess extensive product knowledge and are good at responding to customers, Casio Techno aims to provide customers with even higher quality, detail-oriented services. Casio believes that it can promise to provide customers with services that deliver peace of mind and happiness precisely because each individual employee is working to acquire advanced technical skills and become a person who can please and earn the trust of customers.
Pursuing convenience for customers
The Akihabara, Yokohama, Nagoya, Osaka and Fukuoka Service Stations offer a quick battery replacement service (completed in about 60 minutes). They also provide same-day repair services for electronic dictionaries, which are essential tools for learning and exam preparation.
Casio is also working to improve convenience tailored to meet customer needs and lifestyles, such as through its online repair request service for watches, which allows customers to check the estimated repair cost by entering a description of the item they want to repair online, and then immediately request repairs.
Raising brand value
G-SHOCK stores, which are directly operated by Casio, also feature a maintenance booth dedicated to providing after-sales services. We also offer a service for replacing watch batteries or adjusting the links of watch bands in about 60 minutes.
There are nine of these maintenance booths, such as the one in the G-SHOCK STORE NAMBA, which opened at Namba Parks in Naniwa-ku, Osaka-shi in March 2024. By providing consistent services from sales to after-sales service, the booths are striving to raise Casio brand value by energizing communication with users.
G-SHOCK STORE SHIBUYA
G-SHOCK STORE NAMBA
Casio will continue to adjust and enhance its services to match customer needs for each product to ensure that customers remain loyal fans of Casio products.
Customer Satisfaction Initiatives outside Japan
Outside Japan, 10 local subsidiaries and about 1,000 partner companies carry out after-sales service for Casio products (as of March 2024). We hold an annual general meeting with these 10 local subsidiaries to share information, decide policies, and discuss strategies.
Casio holds regular technical skill courses for repair technicians in order to raise repair skill levels, aiming to ensure that customers around the world receive high-quality repair services. In addition, Casio constantly surveys and improves repair times, repair quality and costs at each site. In addition, our directly managed stores are also implementing initiatives that emphasize direct communication with customers in each area, such as the SOHO Service Event in the US.
Meeting with overseas group companies in May 2024
Repair centers operated by group companies outside Japan
We are also working to improve customer convenience, such as by offering a smartphone app with a function for finding service locations in China.
The CS Headquarters periodically holds remote quality control circles involving repair sites outside Japan. Through inspections at repair sites, it strives to solve issues experienced in each country. Casio will carry out remote quality control circle activities at sites outside Japan on a continual basis in the future, and it will connect these efforts to further enhancement of repair quality.