With the corporate philosophy “Information Revolution - Happiness for everyone”, the SOFTBANK Group is committed to making its SoftBank shops better able to satisfy customers, which requires to develop highly skilled service-minded staff.

SOFTBANK MOBILE provides all shop staff with training programs which come in many ways according to levels and roles of staff and purposes such as sharing the vision of the SOFTBANK Group and improving service manner, product knowledge and other matters. Those programs are available not only in classrooms but also in e-learning through a PC, iPhone and iPad. There are about 70 courses available for e-learning that can be taken anytime and anywhere. A certificate system has been established for assessing the knowledge and skill levels of customer-serving staff at SoftBank shops and certified staff wear a special pin on the left of the chest. Also those SoftBank shops which meet high service quality standards are certified as the Premium shop to ensure experienced staff offer support to customers.

In “Service Manner Grand Prize 2010”, SoftBank shop staff who had won regional contests demonstrated their skills in role-playing skits. The No.1 of all the contestants was awarded for the best service manner staff. The video footage of the demonstrations is distributed to SoftBank shops in Japan as a learning tool for service manner.

SOFTBANK BB held the 1st SOFTBANK BB Service Manner Contest in 2010, where contestants showed their skills in role-playing skits under the theme of “Making a proposition to customer in an easy-to-understand way.” The contest serves as a place to share best practice for improving customer satisfaction, not to mention as a place to commend excellent sales staff.

Please refer to the link below for more details.

• SOFTBANK MOBILE Certificate System (SOFTBANK MOBILE Corp.) (Japanese only)
• SoftBank shop (SOFTBANK MOBILE Corp.)

The call centers of mobile phone services, comprehensive broadband services and fixed-line telecommunication/Internet services provided by the three telecommunications companies of the SOFTBANK Group ask calling-in customers for their cooperation in a customer satisfaction survey aimed at improving service quality and operator expertise in answering inquiries. The system for recording each operator's performance is then utilized to provide feedback to operators and to improve internal training. Supervisors at call centers and senior managers, including officers in charge, check survey results on an ongoing basis to improve customer service quality.

Feedback from customers is shared with related divisions and reflected into operational measures aimed at improving service and operations. Examples of subsequent improvements are available on each company's website.

Please refer to the links below for more details.

• Efforts to improve customer satisfaction (SOFTBANK MOBILE Corp.) (Japanese only)
• Efforts to improve customer satisfaction (SOFTBANK BB Corp.) (Japanese only)
• Efforts to improve customer satisfaction (SOFTBANK TELECOM Corp.) (Japanese only)

Yahoo! JAPAN has a link to the Yahoo! JAPAN Help Center on the top right of almost all website pages for quick answers to users' questions. The Yahoo! JAPAN Help Center lists frequently asked questions by category to enable users to quickly find the information they need and also offers an alphabetical search function.

To enhance its customer service, Yahoo Japan Corporation founded the Yahoo Japan Customer Relations Corporation in 2008, a subsidiary specializing in customer support that answers inquires from customers using Yahoo! JAPAN. Opinions and requests from customers obtained through customer support are immediately reported to responsible departments for service improvement and new service planning.

Please refer to the link below for more details.

• Yahoo! JAPAN Help Center (Yahoo Japan Corporation) (Japanese only)