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Response to Customer and Voice of Customer (VOC)

Policy on Customer Support

In accordance with the Toshiba Group Standards of Conduct and Toshiba Group Customer Satisfaction Policy, Toshiba Group employees are committed to responding to requests and inquiries from customers sincerely, rapidly and appropriately. The basic approach, “Serve all customers with care,” formed in 1999 underpins Toshiba Group's customer support.

Revision of Rules and Manuals

In line with the establishment of the JIS Q10002 management system for handling complaints, “Quality Management-Customer Satisfaction-Guidelines for Complaints Handling in Organizations,” in June 2005, Toshiba revised its Customer Complaint Manual and the Basics of Dealing with Customers in April 2007. We are endeavoring to ensure inculcation of the revised manual by posting it on the intranet and conducting orientations.

Structure for Customer Support

Customer Support

We have set up product-wise call centers in various countries. Each call center formulates its own targets for improving the quality of customer support.

The managers in charge of the call centers in Japan have been conducting meetings four times every year since FY2005 to exchange information on developing and implementing plans, including telephone response skill training, CS awareness surveys for call center staff, and self-checks on response quality.

Major Call Centers for Individual Users
figure of Major Call Centers for Individual Users

Structure for Repair and Service

Toshiba Group's structure for repair and service is organized according to products. We are working to enhance repair and service quality so that customers can use Toshiba products safely for a long time.

In Japan, Toshiba Group is working toward improving the quality of services. For the same, an "After service Enhancement Working Group" has been set up to share issues and develop improvement measures.

Aiming to Improve Customer Orientation in Providing After-Sales Services

Improving customer orientation

At Toshiba Group, the companies in charge of repairing home appliances, elevators, medical systems, POS systems, digital MFPs, and PCs have formed a working group to share information on problems and make improvements.

To facilitate the provision of services tailored to the needs of individual customers and companies, the working group established a sub-group called the Toshiba Group CS Service Committee, which has close ties with the local community. The Group's activities include providing joint education for field engineers and sharing case examples of CS improvement in the area of services.

In the future, we will continue to integrate Toshiba's spirit of customer service and satisfaction throughout the Group in order to ensure the satisfaction of all individual and corporate customers.

Enhancement of Response and Support to Customers

Initiatives for Handling Inquiries from Customers

The Call Center Enhancement Working Group is responsible for planning and executing telephone response skill training, CS awareness surveys for operators, self-assessment of the quality of customer response, etc. for Toshiba Group in Japan.

In February 2011, as in the previous year, we held a Telephone Response Contest involving the participation of 22 operators in charge of customer services, selected from 17 call centers.

Through such events, we rewarded the efforts of skilled, customer-oriented operators and shared skills and outstanding responses among the call centers as a means to enhance their overall quality.

Initiatives for Providing Repair and Other Services

Providing quick services after the Great East Japan Earthquake

As a result of the Great East Japan Earthquake, the Sendai service station of Toshiba Service & Engineering Co., Ltd., which is responsible for repairing home appliance products, had to suspend its operations mainly because its buildings were damaged. However, on March 22, eleven days after the disaster, the company resumed its operations on a full scale as the communication infrastructure returned to normal.

During this interval, its personnel continued to attend to repair requests at the call center. In particular, there were many requests from affected people for repair of LCD TVs and water heaters, and at one time, the number of such requests rose to ten times as many as usual. In order to provide services quickly, a total of over 120 field engineers from the company nationwide were shifted to the Tohoku region for repair services. In addition, in cooperation with Toshiba Carrier Corporation, a temporary service station specializing in water heaters was set up in Sendai.

Despite the fact that some of the field engineers had also been affected by the earthquake, they promptly attended to repair requests, and this was greatly appreciated by many customers.

Toshiba Initiative: Toshiba Medical Systems Corp.

Service training for X-ray CT equipment

Customer Support and Training Center (Japan)

Toshiba Medical Systems Corp. (TMSC) established a Customer Support and Training Center (CSTC) as a part of its efforts to improve customer services in February 2009 in headquarters, Japan. CSTC provides education and training for service engineers and user training worldwide in cooperation with its training center in Europe and training academy in the US. The inside of the CSTC has been built as a virtual hospital, with a training room for each product.

Also, training for image transfer using LAN is offered. In addition, for worldwide customers who are planning to purchase TMSC products, the center also offers practical training programs.

Toshiba Initiative: Toshiba Service & Engineering Co., Ltd.

Toshiba Service & Engineering Co., Ltd., a provider of repair and maintenance services for home appliances in Japan, has been continually providing training to enhance technical skills. In addition, since 2006, the company has held annual manner and ethics training for all service engineers, including those of partner companies nationwide, and in FY2010, about 1,430 participants including field engineers of partner companies and managerial staff attended such training. This way, the company has been implementing trainnings under different topics to improve the quality of skills for dealing with customers.

Education and Training of Employees on Dealing with Customers

The importance of customer satisfaction is emphasized in employee education and training in the skills necessary for dealing with customers is provided.

This kind of education is provided to employees, coinciding with their promotions.

Furthermore, Toshiba conducts briefings to employees on the "Basics of Dealing with Customers", a manual based on the JIS Q10002* management system for handling complaints. This is also made available on Toshiba's internal website.

* JIS Q10002: Quality management-Customer satisfaction-Guidelines for complaints handling in organizations in Japan

System to Facilitate Handling of Customer Inquiries and Claims

We have a database system to compile major customer inquiries and claims which we report to the concerned division and the top management.

We not only deal with customer inquiries and claims but also make efforts to prevent the recurrence such claims.

Checks and Audits concerning Customer Support

Since 2005, self-audits of major call centers have been performed once a year since FY2005 using the Call Center Quality Checklist unique to Toshiba.

High priority items which have low implementation status are focused, and targets are set. Accordingly, measures for improvement are implemented, such as customer response skill training, monitoring, etc.

Case Studies on Efforts to Improve Customer Support

Toshiba Initiative: Digital Products & Services Company

Your dynabook.com (Japanese website)

Digital Products & Services Company is expanding the scale of its call center in line with the increasing number of users. The company provides easy-to-understand tutorial software for beginners along with the purchase of PCs. Also, video clips available on the website that show actual operation of a PC corresponding to frequently asked questions are being enhanced quantitatively and qualitatively. Furthermore, Toshiba PC support service uses remote support so that customers, who are PC novices, can be guided to operate the PC.

The Japanese product website “dynabook.com” for the notebook PC dynabook contains a special feature, namely, “Your dynabook.com” which displays only necessary information, such as product specifications and support information on the PC model connected to the internet. Also, the video manuals have been enhanced leading to high ratings from questionnaire survey firms.

Toshiba Initiative: Toshiba Home Appliances Corp.

The majority of the customer inquiries for home appliances is concerned with inquiries related to the operations of such appliances. Keeping this in view, we continually update the user manuals of such products and post FAQs on our websites.

In FY2009, we added video clips explaining how to operate refrigerator under the "home appliance Q & A" of the website. We have been providing easy-to-understand explanations on our websites for inquiries which are frequent and are difficult to respond to via telephone.

Toshiba Initiative: Toshiba Elevator and Building Systems Corp.

Elevator Service Information Center

Toshiba Elevator and Building Systems Corp. provides maintenance service by specialist technicians as well as around the clock throughout the year (24 hours/365 days) remote monitoring using remote technology so as to ensure the proper and safe operation of elevators. In addition, it responds to the changing demands of its customers and adopts the latest technologies in providing maintenance service.

Also, It has in place an elevator maintenance support system with the use of a mobile phone that helps to quickly restore elevators in times of wide-area disaster such as earthquakes and at times of sudden malfunction of elevators.

Toshiba Initiative: TOSHIBA TEC Solution Service Corp.

photo of TEC Engineering Corp. Contact Center

TOSHIBA TEC Solution Service Corp. Contact Center

TEC Engineering Corp., in charge of POS system maintenance, monitors networks around the clock throughout the year for customers with service contracts and provides support, remote maintenance, and failure recovery services.

In order to enhance the level of customer satisfaction, the company solicits customer opinions to understand customer needs and mobilizes them to improve the level of services as well as daily operations.

Policy on Sharing and Utilization of Voice of Customer

The Toshiba Group Standards of Conduct and the Toshiba Group Customer Satisfaction Policy state that Toshiba values the voice of customer and strives to provide products, systems and services that deliver customer satisfaction.

Framework for Sharing and Utilization of Voice of Customer

At Toshiba Group, all parties concerned, including top executives, share information on customers' complaints, opinions, and requests about our products and services received through our daily sales, repair, and service activities, and via telephone or the internet, in order to improve the quality of our products and repair services.

Based on frequent inquiries from customers about Toshiba Group's video and information devices and home appliances, we discuss how to make improvements for each product at periodic meetings held by divisions in charge of product design and development in order to have customer feedback reflected in our products.

figure of Framework for Reflecting VOC in Business Activities

Checks and Audits for Sharing and Utilization of Voice of Customer

In 2007, Toshiba Group introduced self-audits concerning sharing and utilization of voice of customer based on the proprietary CS Promotion Checklist. We are working to enhance the quality of our activities by sharing best practices among departments.

Improvement of Products Reflecting Voice of Customer

After the launch of new home electronic products, Toshiba Group collects VOC via its sales team, service personnel at call centers, and the website. The VOC is analyzed and the results are shared with product planners, quality managers, and sales groups so as to use it effectively for product improvements. This mechanism has become an integral part of the Group's business operations.

In overseas markets, Toshiba Group conducts VOC analysis and inperson visit surveys to identify the needs of customers in regions with various climates and customs.

Toshiba Initiative : VOC-based knowledge disclosure on the Toshiba PC support website in Canada

TCL's “Ask Toshiba” website

Toshiba's Digital Products & Services Company, taking into account the fact that many inquiries at its call centers in Japan and overseas were related to the use of PCs, has enhanced the information on its website.

For example, Toshiba of Canada, Ltd. (TCL) inserts links to its customer support site “Ask Toshiba” as desktop icons on PCs, on the tool bar of Web browsers, on “favorites” menu bars, and so on in advance, making it easy for customers to access the customer support site. “Ask Toshiba” enables customers to search its knowledge database for answers to their inquiries by PC model, thus increasing customer convenience. This improvement has helped to reduce the number of telephone inquiries related to the use of PCs.

Toshiba Initiative: Disclosing VOC of "REGZA" customers

Toshiba Digital Products & Services Company has been executing opinions of customers to enhance the "Omakase Donpisha Kougashitsu" (automatic adjustment of the highest image quality) function and hard drive recording function, and to improve the REGZA Program Guide of our REGZA LCD TVs.

In addition, part of the VOC is disclosed on our website as reference for the selection and use of the products.

Toshiba Initiative: Development of a mammography system minimizing discomfort and anxiety

One reason for the low rate of breast cancer screening using mammography is discomfort and anxiety at the time of screening. To reduce patient discomfort and anxiety, we developed a system that reflects the opinions of radiological technologists and patients.

At Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation, application specialists, who serve as the interface between medical fields and development teams, gather the opinions of medical specialists and patients for execution in product development.

The patient-friendly design based on ergonomic principles, which provides features, such as armrests to cushion the arms (patent pending), use of material conducive to comfort for those portions that come into contact with the body, and rounded contours to help create a relaxed atmosphere, has won numerous design awards in Japan and abroad, including the Good Design Gold Prize 2007, Germany's Universal Design Award 2008, iF Design Award 2008, and Red Dot Design Award 2008.