Hanasaku Life Insurance Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Hanasaku Life”) has seen rapid growth in the number of policies since it began operations in April 2019. With the rapid growth of the company’s business, its contact centers, which are the main points of contact for customers, experienced an increase in the number of calls, and the contact centers urgently needed to be expanded and strengthened to improve customer satisfaction in addition to providing stable support to customers.

“Until then, we had been operating two centers in Roppongi and Ikebukuro, but we decided to add another center in Osaka in order to build a system where we could always have a stable phone connection,” said Ms. Igarashi.

Therefore, BELLSYSTEM24 proposed the implementation of BellCloud+, a cloud-based next-generation contact center platform that can be used whether on a small or large scale and for a short or long period of time, without the need to build a server or data center. The goal was to expand the centers in a short period of time while reducing initial costs and to achieve smooth coordination between the Tokyo and Osaka centers.

“The flexibility to expand the cloud-based voice platform, the omnichannel capability, and the ability to support home-based services as optional services were the key factors in our decision to implement BellCloud+,” said Ms. Igarashi.

The implementation of BellCloud+ has resulted in four main improvements.

The first is the expansion of the voice platform to accommodate the rapid growth of the business. “Expanding contact centers requires system assets and construction costs, but with the cloud-based BellCloud+, these were not necessary, so it was easy to expand. At the same time, we were able to keep costs down,” said Mr. Jodai. As a result, he said, Hanasaku Life was able to smoothly launch its newly established Osaka contact center in a short period of time.

The second is to have made the contact centers home-based. BellCloud+ incorporates cutting-edge technologies, one of which enables security-guaranteed home-based services. Therefore, Hanasaku Life began to operate multiple bases in Roppongi, Ikebukuro, and Osaka, as well as home-based operations.

“We were increasing the number of agents as our business expanded, and the work-from-home option was a key element of this implementation,” said Ms. Igarashi. Mr. Jodai added, “It is a great advantage to be able to build a center and make it home-based simply by connecting it through the Internet.” The start of home-based operations has also strengthened the center in terms of BCP.

Ms. Igarashi said, “By analyzing the calls, we are able to improve our contact center operations and follow-up with operators. In addition, 'AmiVoice' allows us to listen to recordings by selecting the necessary parts, which reduces the burden of checking customer inquiries.” Mr. Jodai added, “‘AmiVoice’ is equipped with a function that instantly converts voice into text, so when a customer speaks quickly, we can confirm his/her words by repeating them while referring to the text. Furthermore, in insurance contact centers, customers sometimes speak of unfamiliar names of diseases, so it is also useful for repeating and confirming the names."

In addition, the CTI linkage has reduced the time required to search for customer information. By displaying the customer’s information in a pop-up window on the computer screen when we receive a call, we can easily confirm the customer’s identity and respond to the call smoothly without keeping the customer waiting. Also by using this function, we can make a call by clicking on the customer’s phone number on the CRM without having to search for customer information again, which has also led to increased productivity.

They say their goal is a “hybrid operation of humans and systems.” “As a service to our customers, we must continue to pursue the ability for them to contact us anytime, anywhere. BellCloud+ makes it possible. We would like to take advantage of any options that will be added in the future that are necessary for our company,” said Ms. Igarashi. Mr. Jodai continued, “As the number of calls in our contact centers continues to increase with our growth, we plan to increase the number of agents. In order to respond to this situation, our centers must continue to expand efficiently while maintaining stable quality. We will continue to make use of new functions to achieve this goal.”

“We expect BELLSYSTEM24 to continue to make proposals based on Hanasaku Life’s concept of ‘Work on New Things’ in terms of both systems and operations,” said Ms. Igarashi and Mr. Jodai.