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Sustainability Material Issue 10 Pursuing Customer Satisfaction and Trust
Objective
Promote and reinforce customer-oriented business activities by improving customer support quality and the value of products and services.
| Indicators (2030) | Reflection of customer opinions in all products and services so that customers will continue to choose them |
|---|---|
| Progress (2023 results) |
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| Globally Common Measures to 2030 |
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So that we may leverage inquiries received from customers to develop new products and improve our products and services, such inquiries are registered in a database operating under a strict personal information management system and shared across the Company through an information sharing system that excludes personal information.
Items that are considered impactful to customer satisfaction and product use, and insights gleaned from contact with customers are shared daily to top management- and product development-related departments in the form of the VOC*1 Letter. Through such efforts, Lion works to improve customer support quality by gaining an understanding of the customer’s perspective and by quickly considering and responding through improvement measures.
Customer feedback comes from a wide range of sources, including not only telephone calls and emails, but also SNSs*2 and the like. An internal dedicated organization (The Consumer Service Center) interprets and analyzes such this feedback and proactively disseminates information gleaned from it to the relevant departments.
*1 VOC: Voice of Customers
*2 SNS: Social networking services (such as X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, etc.)
More information about how our customer feedback is put to concrete use is available here [Japanese]
In the course of developing and improving products and services, Lion places the utmost priority on customer satisfaction. At the same time, by implementing environmental conservation activities and further enhancing the corporate governance system, we aim to ensure the high level of trustworthiness that stakeholders expect. Currently, government agencies, consumer groups and business associations are working together to promote customer-oriented management initiatives at companies. In January 2017, Lion voluntarily declared that it would proactively work toward customer-oriented management, and we report progress on this front on our website and to the Consumer Affairs Agency. In July 2024, we will reestablish our customer support policy and declare our commitment to prioritizing customer support throughout the company. We have also voluntarily declared that our customer service efforts are in compliance with ISO 10002. We will continue to promote prompt and appropriate customer support activities throughout the entire organization.
More information about Lion’s customer-oriented management declaration is available here
More information about Lion’s Compliance with International ISO 10002 Standard is available here
Lion received the Minister of State’s Award in the Good Practices of Consumer-Oriented Management Awards sponsored by the Consumer Affairs Agency in 2020, and in 2021, won the Selection Committee Chairman’s Award together with Kao Corporation. This award recognizes companies that have made a consumer-oriented management declaration and implemented outstanding initiatives based on such declarations.
Spurred on by this award, Lion will continue advancing consumer-oriented management and contribute to the realization of a sustainable society.
The Consumer Service Center receives an enormous volume of customer inquiries every year. In 2023, we received approximately 80,000 inquiries (excluding those sent to direct-to-consumer sales divisions), 99% of the previous year’s volume. By content, questions about product use, retail outlets that carry Lion products, product quality, safety and other topics accounted for approximately 80% of all inquiries, while complaints and inquiries regarding problems and similar topics accounted for around 20%.
Going forward, we will continue aiming to provide an environment that facilitates customer inquiries while responding to inquires in a sincere and timely manner. Contact information for inquiries by phone or email is available on the customer support [Japanese] page of Lion’s website.
Information regarding customer support is available here [Japanese].
Inquiries by Type (2023)
To be able to solve our customers’ questions and concerns anytime, anywhere—24 hours a day, 365 days a year, the customer support page of Lion’s Japanese-language website offers answers and solutions to common customer questions and problems as well as examples of products improved based on customer feedback, attracting considerable customer traffic. In addition, we have introduced a service that allows customers to locate products and store locations, as well as a chatbot program.
Going forward, we will continue to provide useful information to customers.
Examples of products developed or improved based on customer feedback are available here [Japanese].
Lion strives to hire and develop the necessary human resources and foster an open and frank corporate culture in order to create innovative products and services that provide a high level of value to customers.
We are working to foster a corporate culture in which all employees think and act based on an understanding of the customer’s perspective.
We hold events for new graduate hires and product development staff, etc., in which they listen to recordings of customer inquiry calls to experience hearing directly from customers. These events help participants understand the importance of the Company’s contact points with customers and serve as an impetus to think about customer perspectives in their work. Furthermore, we report on the status of customer inquiries at regularly conducted meetings with planning and development departments and related divisions and operating sites (businesses and plants) and share such information internally.
Going forward, we will work to further enhance employee awareness in order to better provide products and services based on customer perspectives.
We are working to foster a corporate culture in which all employees think and act based on an understanding of the customer’s perspective. As part of our response to Japan’s severe demographic graying, we have a set of equipment that simulates the physical conditions of old age on hand at all times at the Consumer Service Center. By listening to feedback from our senior customers and wearing the simulation equipment while looking at product labels or holding product containers, we strive to deepen our customer insight and foster consideration and understanding of seniors and all customers among our human resources. These insights and considerations are put to use in product development, customer support and communications.
We are expanding the range of these efforts to include not only staff involved in product development, but the communicators that staff our phone lines, the Meisters of Daily Life engaged in communication efforts, and even new employees.
We hold phone service training in which customer support phone operators learn the skills to quickly and accurately understand and respond to the issues that customers seeking support have as well as a broad knowledge of Lion products and related topics. Specifically, we offer training in which operators discuss a wide range of case studies to mutually reinforce their skills, study groups focused on the health and living issues behind products, and training in pronunciation and word choice to make themselves easier for customers to understand over the phone in order to enhance communication.
We have the results of these activities evaluated by a third party and strive to provide service that will better satisfy customers.
Lion monitors its corporate brand penetration with the help of a market research company. The survey shown below examines the likelihood of product users recommending Lion products and services, the degree to which they feel they need such products and their desire to and their preferences at the time of questioning (for the purposes of the study, the Lion product users targeted were male and female general consumers over the age of 16). We will continue to gather objective data on customer opinions in order to provide high-quality products and services.
| 2018 | 2019 | 2020*1 | 2021 | 2022 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall number of survey respondents | 752 | 784 | 783 | 773 | 783 |
| Of these, current product users | 644 | 641 | 664 | 628 | 640 |
| Response rate*2(%) | 85.6 | 81.8 | 84.8 | 81.2 | 81.7 |
| Recommendation rate*3(%) | 43.6 | 43.1 | 47.6 | 40.0 | 44.7 |
Data from “Brand Strategy Survey,” Nikkei Research Inc.
*1 Overall scores of hygiene product suppliers increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
*2 Refers to the percentage of total survey respondents who reported that they currently use such products and services.
*3 Refers to the percentage of current users who intend to recommend the products and services.
