Please tell us about your business, roles, and responsibilities

What challenges did you face in construction sites, and what was the decisive reason that drove your company to introduce LINE WORKS?

Mr. Miyaji:

In constructing a shield tunnel that easily covers several kilometers in length, about 20 employees are stationed on site, and about 50 other contractors work on a site-by-site basis. As the operation manager, I am in charge of overall management—I check up with the people in charge to grasp the progress in field. However, I felt it quite cumbersome to check up on each individual through a phone call or an email, and again deliver the information to other employees. I thought we needed a safe and more convenient tool for communication.

 

Mr. Sato:

With the number of employees decreasing due to a shortage of workers, and with the recent situation of reducing overtime work and providing holiday leaves, the construction industry is striving to reform the way we work. In order to drive for the same results as before, we need to increase work efficiency to improve the overall productivity.

We thought that reducing the waste of time through seamless communication on site was absolutely necessary. Especially at construction sites, people working in remote locations have to collaborate very closely. So, after examining various communication tools, we concluded that LINE WORKS is the most suitable because of its easy-to-use interface and its renowned security equipped with a system that prevents information leakage. Up until now, 84 out of around 200 workshops in the Civil Engineering department of Taisei Co.,Ltd. have introduced LINE WORKS, and are utilizing it.

Do you have any tips for using LINE WORKS in construction sites?

Mr. Miyaji:

Since various associate companies take part in construction sites, we used a design that can remind us of the work content for the message room icon. For sites where personnel change frequently depending on the progress of the project, we made a special rule that all workers use their face for the Contacts profile icon. This enabled our workforce to easily recognize which group message room they are in, and who is in it.

 

Mr. Sato:

Since radio waves cannot reach some spots inside the tunnel, we installed Wi-Fi to enable communication. Moreover, since it is quite inconvenient to type a long message with a phone in construction sites, we installed a shared PC that enables employees to log-in to their accounts in major locations in the field.

How exactly is LINE WORKS being used?

Mr. Miyaji:

Employees working in the field can now quickly report various issues with LINE WORKS instead of a call or an email. We can grasp the situation more clearly and vividly with attached photos and videos. Moreover, since we can now identify safety issues at a glance with a video, safety managers like myself no longer need to visit the scene in order to inform other employees of what we have learned and what to be careful of. It is almost like going on an online ‘safety patrol.’

As we can now deliver information through group message rooms at once, I can deliver the project’s progress to the employees or relevant personnel much faster than before. Thankfully, I no longer need to explain the project’s progress in detail during morning and evening assemblies when everyone gets together. Now day time workers transfer their duties to night time workers through LINE WORKS, instead of paper transition documents. LINE WORKS is easier to read than the paper document, and we can also check for the ‘read‘ notification. This has enabled employees to be clearer in the transition process. Furthermore, another big strength of LINE WORKS is that you can gather members and create message rooms to share information with only members who need them. Sparing the cost of delivering information to irrelevant workforce has contributed to improving work efficiency.

 

At sites where various companies work together, each company has to share where and what they are doing everyday with blueprints and progress schedules. Before, these documents were delivered in paper during morning assemblies; yet now, even employees who missed an assembly can access the information because we deliver them to everyone through attached files. It has even become possible to distinguish who has checked the information and who has not, so there is much less anxiety about whether the information is being delivered.

What changes did LINE WORKS bring to the field?

Which features other than Message is your company using?

How do you plan to utilize LINE WORKS in the future?

Mr. Miyaji:

I would like to try its various features and further streamline the entire field communication, improving work efficiency and productivity.

 

Mr. Sato:

In order to utilize LINE WORKS more effectively, I believe that it is important for the headquarters to regularly exchange feedback with each work station, and listen to actual use cases and feedback. After hearing feedback, we will encourage employees to utilize LINE WORKS according to the size and characteristics of each field.

※ All details, affiliations, and positions specified were gathered at the time of interview.

Tell us about your company and individual roles

Mr. Kohara：

Our company mainly deals with remodeling and maintenance of the houses. We had converted into a corporation in 2004, and next year will be our 50th anniversary if we sum up the individual business years. We have total of 14 employees, 10 from sales-construction staffs and 4 from office workers. Since we are remodeling company, in which mainly focuses on construction, it is general that employees who form an estimation are also in charge of construction. Although I am the Representative Director of this company, I am also involved in overall working processes, from Sales to Construction works.

 

Ms. Kunihiro：

I am in charge of Sales business. Specifically, I am in charge of re-writing the estimates, which are initially written by other Sales employees or writing various documents down on PC.

What were the issues before the introduction of LINE WORKS?

What was the decisive reason that drove you to turn to LINE WORKS?​

Mr. Kohara：

In our company, we encourage all the Salesperson to take photos before and after the construction. When we were busy, and therefore, had to visit a number of construction sites in a day, it was found to be confusing when the photos taken at the various construction sites with 2G phones do not match with the customer information. We also felt the limitation with using 2G phone to either hold prompt communication or make quick responses. While feeling so, one of our customers introduced LINE WORKS to us.

The most decisive point of LINE WORKS introduction was that most of our employees have been already using LINE as personal communication tool. If personal matter is mixed up with business matter, there may be issues regarding information management. However, LINE WORKS prevents such issues by providing business accounts which are distinguished from their personal accounts.

How exactly LINE WORKS is being used?​

Ms. Kunihiro：

The most used situation is when we make responses to emergencies, such as water leakage and drain clogging. Especially, we receive a lot of inquiries about frozen pipes during winter time. Before introducing LINE WORKS, the employee who answered the customer phone call had to desperately find a Salesperson who can solve the emergency. After the introduction, however, we can now send customer address along with detailed situation explanation to the group chatting room, where entire Salesperson have jointed. Just by sending messages like ‘Can anyone go?’, we can immediately find available Salesperson to handle the situation.

 

Mr. Kohara：

Up until now, we have delivered the information such as customer requests, shipping information, and event information through bylaws. After introducing LINE WORKS, however, it became very convenient to notify all the employees. Also, there are employees whom we get to encounter only once a week, but even in such situation, we can communicate with them in detail.

 

We are utilizing Calendar function when writing daily work log. There is no difference in terms of its function to manage overall schedules by posting construction or customer meeting dates in advance. We, furthermore, use to adjust the schedules, such as change the presumably written schedule hours to the hours that actually took, and add types of works that employees have done.

 

That is, what once was pre-conditioned schedule in the morning transformed into employees’ daily work log at night. It is easy to see the works done on that day and it is also convenient for future reference. Hand-written work log was often omitted within the day. But, it is now possible to check the log whenever and wherever needed.

 

What kind of changes took place following the use of LINE WORKS?​

Mr. Kohara：

What I felt particularly effective in terms of communication is when confirming ‘finishing touches’ of the construction sites. Visiting all the construction sites is nearly impossible to do so. However, since site managers send photos through LINE WORKS chatting, it is now possible to acknowledge the details of the construction sites without making actual visits.

 

There were times when I could not make judgements on the situation and issue the work instructions accordingly if I was not present on the site. But, now I can instantly make judgements on the issue and deliver the instructions. Because I can also issue instructions immediately in case of any emergencies or problems, the overall working process became much favorable than before. It was impossible to do so in the past. As we reduced the amount of time wasted, we can now spend more time focusing on Sales activities, such as prospect customer development, consultation, and post-sales support. We can easily share messages through chatting room, and ‘completed’ message can now be sent after the work has done. We are deeply feeling that the style of work has changed.

 

It may sound exaggerated, but I believe that with the help of LINE WORKS, we could survive from the hardships that we faced at the end of the last year. Starting from the end of the last year, the entire construction industry became relatively busy. Specifically, the work has increased 125% more in December than the last year. Thanks to LINE WORKS, we could successfully handle all the chances given by reducing the wasted time. After the introduction, our achievement record has definitely improved than last year.

※ All details, affiliations, and positions specified were gathered at the time of interview.

Tell us about your company and individual roles

What were the issues before the introduction of LINE WORKS?

Mr. Yamamoto  :

A purpose of Office Rationalization Committee is to introduce systems or tool which enables efficient working environment. We had a mission to find a communication tool that is suitable to use, since we did not have such tool. We used to use a groupware as a communication tool. However, there are limitations such as it can only be used inside the office and if the employees were to use outside the office, they had to connect VPN every time.

 

Moreover, not all the employees had the accounts to the groupware. Therefore, we had to use phone calls obligatorily in order to connect with other employees. Phone calls, fax, and groupware communication has been continued for decades.

Mr. Yamamoto :

Under such circumstance, important information such as announcements on personnel as well as medical checkup cannot be delivered to the all the employees. Especially, ‘Japan Construction Materials Corporation’ is consisted mostly with salesperson, and therefore, the administration department considered about not being able to share various information to them. In order to make sure the information is delivered successfully to each employee, some of the branches print out the written mail and receive the paper with the employees’ signatures on it. Still, it costed a lot of efforts.

 

Company provided cellphones were mostly 2G phone, which only provide calling feature. For this reason, we often use personal smart phones to communicate with the employees from both working inside and outside the office. Notably, the number of employees who are using LINE as a communication tool was increasing. It is unavoidable if the customer wants to communication through LINE, but this was still not perfectly suitable. Although we wanted to prevent our employees from use LINE as a business communication tool, we had no other option to replace it.

What was the decisive reason that drove you to turn to LINE WORKS?

Mr. Yamamoto :

We compared various communication tools to find the most suitable option. But, with the purpose of regulating the contacts held between the salesperson and the customers through LINE, we paid attention to LINE WORKS. For other applications, we had to install a certain program in order to communicate with the customers. However, LINE is already well being used by the people, including our customers. The most decisive factor for LINE WORKS introduction was that it is easily connected with LINE.

 

Also, LINE WORKS is cost-effective, when compared with other tools. We wanted all the employees to use LINE WORKS, instead of the current groupware that only certain portion of employees are using.

Mr. Ishizawa :

We were thankful about that there is no need for manual or education needed for LINE WORKS introduction. Because most of the people were already using LINE, we believed that the employees would soon be able to get used to LINE WORKS. We were not sure about the other tools since they had different user interface to LINE.

 

Mr. Yamamoto :

In 2017, we started a project to reform our working style, and 10 participants from the project started using trial version of LINE WORKS. And, soon we received positive feedbacks from the participants such as, ‘Response time gets faster’, ‘I can definitely contact everyone inside the company’, ‘Read notification feature is comfortable’. It took less than a month to actually introduce LINE WORKS to our company.

Tell us the specific use cases for LINE WORKS

Mr. Yamamoto :

Employees from the Administration department and salesperson are using the company provided tablets and smartphones, and the other employees are using LINE WORKS through their PC. We found most of our employees decided to ‘use LINE WORKS for every single contact made for business purpose’, and actively use the tool.

Especially, LINE WORKS is gaining a good reputation as it enabled smooth and comfortable communication between employees who are working inside and outside the office. Either when salesperson, who is working away from the office, needs to check the stocks of certain goods, or when desk worker has to check the price of the goods, it is very conveniently communicated through the tool. We are also using when reporting our supervisor about the agenda and its progress made to it.

Mr. Oshio :

I am currently in charge of recruiting at the Human Resources Department. The feature I found the most comfortable is survey feature. We survey all the employees about the current policies related human resource and employee welfares. The response rate of the LINE WORKS survey is 85%, and the response doubled the speed than paper survey, which is an incredible change. It is much easier to aggregate the result since we can download the result in CSV format. And, the result which provided with graph format is also helpful.

We are providing LINE WORKS accounts to prospective employees and use the tool as a communication channel between them and the recruiting team. For those prospective employees, we are using ‘Disable Search on the Group Contacts’ to prevent the contacts information other than oneself from revelation. We used SNS tool for prospective employee communication in the past. However, we did not use the tool as much as we expected since it was difficult to use. LINE WORKS, a similar tool that of LINE, was already familiar to the LINE WORKS interface. Due to this, many of the prospective employees are actively using the tool. The existing tool had a problem that we could not communicate continuously with the tool. We first logged in to the tool when first introduced, but gradually became not to log in. After using LINE WORKS, however, the rate of the employees logging into the tool did has not decreased much and therefore, vigorous communication has been continued for a long time. We also received positive feedbacks from prospective employees such as ‘it is easy to use’.

We are currently using Board message feature when recruiting manager is communicating with prospective employees. We are also using the feature to check the attendance for nomination ceremony as well as collect opinion from the prospective employees before start their work at the company. We chose theme for each week such as ‘The book you like’ or ‘Recommending place travel after graduation’, and we encourage prospective employees to write their ideas and opinion freely on the board.

What we like the most is that now we have gained a place to communicate with the prospective employees since they are located nationwide. We also feel that prospective employees have reduced their feelings of worrisome before entering the company, as they can freely ask questions to the company. We believe that this will make a great contribution to the improvement of royalties from the prospective employees as well as prevention of the cancellation of their application.

What are the effects after the introduction of LINE WORKS?

※ All details, affiliations, and positions specified were gathered at the time of interview.

Tell us about your company and individual roles

Mr. Kazuhiro :

In IT promotion department, in which I belong to, the biggest duty is to manage company infra facilities such as PC, smartphone, phone, fax, and multifunctional printer. Other than this, our department is also responsible for developing and managing scheduling system as well as developing websites.

Mr. Yukinori :

Fujitsu Personals, like a trading company of Fujitsu products, sells Fujitsu products through dealers, not directly with end customers. I am in charge of the sales of the corporate-only distribution companies.

Mr. Kei :

I am part of the department in which responsible for in-house sales orders. We are proceeding from placing orders received from sales department to delivery and shipment management. It is also our mission to improve the workflow for our salesperson, encouraging them to work conveniently at the field.

What were the tasks to be concerned and how they were reviewed before LINE WORKS introduction?

Mr. Kazuhiro :

Because our company mainly focuses on sales, most of our employees are salesperson and work outside the office often. As contacting tools, the salesperson took cellphone, PC, as well as mobile Wi-Fi which needed when connecting to internet at the field. We mainly used phone calls or email to share information. In order for us to check emails outside the office, we had to turn on the PC and use mobile Wi-Fi to access to company LAN. For this reason, it was uncomfortable when making contacts  and we were not well connected to one another.

 

Most importantly, as salesperson, we had trouble contacting our customers when we communicate through emails. Large portion of our clients are Large-scaled appliance stores and most the managers there are actually dealing with customers at the stores, not working at the desk. For this reason, it took a great amount of time for them to actually check the email. And, this was our great problem to be solved. We had several clients asking us to communicate via LINE. But, we could solely use LINE since there was a security problem of becoming shadow IT.

What were the issues before the introduction of LINE WORKS?

Mr. Kazuhiro :

The requests from both customers and salespeople to use LINE have increased over time. Also, the risk of shadow IT has increased. Furthermore, like other companies, we had a mission to highlight: ‘reformation of our working style’. To solve this, we introduced LINE WORKS to our company. Since each salesperson of our company take control of several branches, they spend most of their time visiting those branches. For example, when they receive phone call from their client, they had to pull over the car. Also, if they want to check the documents, they had to turn on their PC and connect to the Wi-Fi. Like this, whether the request if more or less important, it required a lot of procedures and times for the salesperson to make response to the request. Not only this, but also they had to come back to the office to do the works such as printing the documents and so on. With all this, we were desperately looking out for a better solution to use working time efficiently. So, we decided to introduce a formal and official chatting tool that enables us to use time efficiently, available to use when working outside, and eventually help increase the overall company productivity.

We also reviewed several other chatting tools. But the reason why we chose LINE WORKS is that this tool is closely and well connected to LINE. By implementing LINE WORKS, we could lower the risk of shadow IT and for the corporate purpose, we could also be connected to our customers officially via LINE. We believed that such tool like LINE WORKS is mandatory to have if we eager to flawlessly deliver the information to our customers or manage the risks as well as working style reformation.

How was LINE WORKS introduction?

When first introducing LINE WORKS, we started with dividing the data into two types: the data we can send and the data we cannot send. For example, payment graph can be delivered to the customers’ LINE, but the detailed information on the pricing should not be delivered. Starting by making such guidelines, we enabled all the employees to use LINE WORKS without feeling burdensome.

During trial period, we reviewed about how each department has been utilizing LINE WORKS at the regularly held executive meeting. Specifically, we shared opinion like ‘our department is using it in this way’ or ‘how to use it under such circumstances’ during the meeting. While sharing such opinion and tips, we also set the operation rules. It was easier for younger employees to get used to LINE WORKS due to its similarity. But, for some of the executives, they used the tools satisfactorily while the other was not. Once corporate president uses the tool, the employees naturally use the tool as well. By sharing tips and opinion on LINE WORKS utilization at the executive meeting, we were able to insist the entire department to use the tool with the idea to ‘This time, let’s our department use the tool such way’.

Moreover, it was notable point that LINE WORKS could be configured not to leave the data on the smartphone. We had concerns from the executives like ‘what if information leaks when smartphone is missing’. However, by introducing the feature like ‘Restriction for file download’, we explained that the random person can view the file but cannot download if the feature is activated. As a result, we could alleviate such worries.

How exactly LINE WORKS is being used? Also, what are the effects after the introduction of LINE WORKS?

Mr. Kazuhiro :

The sales department activated connection with LINE and communicate with the customers including large-scaled stores via LINE WORKS. As an example of LINE WORKS utilization, when the area manager from headquarters send product distribution graph through LINE WORKS, the salesperson send the graph to the customer’s LINE account. Previously, we either printed the document or we turn on the PC and send via email. After the introduction of LINE WORKS, however, we can deliver the information to our clients without going back to our office. We started to lessen the use of papers since we no longer have to print out things.

 

We had to send emails for each purpose individually including simple greetings and contacts in the past. But with LINE WORKS, we could simply done it with stickers. The tool has also enabled us to finish our work at the field by allowing us to report the work log even without going back to the office. Also, we could shortened the wasted traveling time and use the time efficiently instead. That is, we could change the way of working.

 

In the communication perspective, as we can deliver the idea and thoughts to the entire company through push notification, delivery of idea and thoughts have become more actively held than before. We are feeling that every voice from our employee is well delivered to the whole.

Mr. Yukinori :

Contacts can be made simply and fast via LINE WORKS. We are utilizing the tool to communicate with the department in which support managing the order and delivery of the products. For example, we used to have phone calls and emails to make contacts like ‘Please check the order since we cannot dispatch the product due to its problem’. However, prompt reply to such message was often impossible, especially when the employees are giving out counsels. With LINE WORKS, however, we could immediately send the reply to simple matters, and eventually improved the contact speed.

 

Mr. Kei :

As we are responsible for supporting sales, we often share and communicate information about the order and delivery. It was unavoidable to experience delay in phone call communication if the communication partner did not answer the phone calls. It has become easier to prioritize tasks as we no longer have unnecessary waiting time. We are feeling that it is much easier for us to be connected to the sales after LINE WORKS introduction.

Example of chatting room talking about the order and delivery

※ All details, affiliations, and positions specified were gathered at the time of interview.

Tell us about your company and individual roles

Mr. Yanagisawa :

The business that our company operates is the public information industry that carries out printed materials or Web-based planning, production, logistics, and promotion according to the customer’s request. We have total of 280 employees currently working together. About half of whom are front-line employees, including sales and planning, have about 20 employees from general affairs, about 20 employees from manufacturing management, and about 100 factory operators.Myself as a representative director of Tokyo headquarters, I am responsible for maintenance of company equipment, and for the review and make decision of the newly introduced system.

Ms. Dokoi :

I am a member of planning department, and in charge of planning to make the customer request in a visible form. Along with this, making correspondence to the phone calls while salesperson is out of office is another important task of our department staffs.

How did you share information before LINE WORKS integration?

Mr. Yanagisawa :

Previously, all of our employees were working under 2G phone-oriented circumstance. That is, the company provided devices so called ‘2G phone’ to the all the staffs at the sales department, to some staffs from manufacturing department, and asked them to share information. Other than that, we have been basically using PC for general office communication.

In terms of system environment, we have a groupware which has been using to share office board or data. For office communication, we are using groupware email. Specifically, we make an extra mail server for independent domain only for our company, and use it when communicating with our clients.

We are still using fax when working. There are times when our clients send document through FAX. Also, FAX once was the main communication between manufacturing and sales department. Because fax-oriented communication leaves record, our old way of communication became a habit.

What were the issues under such working environment?

Mr. Yanagisawa :

Our old groupware could only be used under restricted network condition. Also, we could only operate the groupware with Windows. For this reason, our designers, who are most likely to use Mac, could not use the groupware. Another restriction we faced was that because we could not check both groupware mails and computer mails when using 2G phone or smartphones, it was inevitable to use extra cell phone-operated mail in order to contact the salesperson who is out of office.

Since last year, the company started to rent our tablets to the salesperson. This has enabled them to check the groupware and computer emails even outside the office. But, there are still a lot of critical issues remained such as running slowdowns since tablet was not perfectly fit tool to both groupware and PC email check-up. In order to improve efficiency, we wanted to integrate the four types of communication tool: groupware, computer mail, cell phone mail, and fax.

Even in the perspective of corporate culture, there was also a decentralization of information. This may be the idea of a printing company, but printing industry have the notion that “printing=proof”. When an announcement was received from our general affairs department, we printed out the notice and share with all the other employees. This means that there was always a notice board passing around. We often printed out the emails received, and directly write reply and send it through fax. Under such circumstance, we were always thinking about the solution to such issues.

When thinking about way of working, we wanted to integrate the tool to solve the problems which this industry has; a culture of night working. Email communication takes longer time for writing, and eventually let all the collaborators to call each other to find out whether the email is successfully delivered and checked by the targeted recipient. If the phone call is successfully connected, we feel that the working goes smoothly. If not connected, however, the caller have to wait for the communication opponent to call back, while leaving the work unfinished. This was so much waste of time. To solve this, One of the tasks was to reduce the time wasted by allowing people to work in extra hours, such as traveling time, and to create an environment where they could focus on the tasks at their hand.

What was the decisive reason that drove you to turn to LINE WORKS?

Mr. Yanagisawa :

Because our company has a business of making homepages and videos, people who are not familiar with IT cannot work together. Even when dealing with our clients, we had this worrisome about the possibility of whether we can ‘give suggestion that impress the clients’ or not, without using the most advanced and the latest tool. We further thought we should introduce state-of-the-art systems even to reform the old system and consciousness.

What we considered the most when integrating a new tool was the ‘possibility of a successful settlement’. We have been introducing various services to develop our working environment. However, many of those services were not as much as used than we first expected. So, this time, what we considered the most was that whether the tool is up-to-date, easily operated and used system, and ultimately, can this tool ‘successfully settle down’ to our office communication culture. A few departments were communicating with the free chatting tool. But, not utilizing the enterprise version of the chatting tool sound unstable and dangerous in terms of security. By adopting LINE-like, and therefore friendly LINE WORKS to our office, we determined that we could ‘eradicate the risk of Shadow IT’.

Also, LINE WORKS provides essential collaboration features such as Home board, Calendar, and Cloud. With all this, we thought that once LINE WORKS is introduced, we could realize the ‘Renewal of our groupware’, and share the large-sized data, which needed for printing works, with no extra effort.

Like this, it was LINE WORKS, a complete collaboration ecosystem, which offers all the necessary features.

What are the effects after LINE WORKS introduction regarding the way of working or office communication?

Mr. Yanagisawa :

Our company considers information sharing with our bosses very important. Staffs from management department are fully responsible for this process. If we share information through phone calls, it is impossible for us to keep track of issues in real-time, and have to wait for someone from the management department for the report. In this sense, LINE WORKS chatting is very convenient. Taking LINE WORKS integration as an opportunity, we changed our office communication from office phone to smartphone.

All the employees including the salesperson who are working outside the company for the most of time, can now easily join the chatting rooms collaborate together with the office staffs. Boss can also create a new group and communicate with multiple employees at the same time, meaning that LINE WORKS enables real-time collaboration. Of course, information sharing has overwhelmingly improved.

I often mention to my colleagues that face-to-face meeting is only required for ‘consulting’. On the other hand, occasions like ‘reporting’ or ‘contacting’, do not necessarily require face-to-face meeting. Just by minimizing the time for the face-to-face meeting, for those staffs who work at the Tokyo office can now be able to deal with most of their works. By putting extra efforts company-wide, such as implementing LINE WORKS, reducing the frequency of face-to-face meeting, and not using the paper notes when meeting, the company could cut employees night shift time by 30 to 40 hours monthly.

LINE WORKS is much convenient than fax when quickly checking the printouts. What we do with the LINE WORKS is to simply take photos of the part that we marked in red, and send those photos. Unlike fax, which only provides the document in black color, it becomes much more convenient to understand the color documents. We further do not have to worry about missing or broken words. Most of the outside office workers are also feeling comfortableness to this.

Ms. Dokoi:

I am utilizing PC version of LINE WORKS as I am spending most of my working hours in office. PC version of LINE WORKS is also well-made and therefore, easy to use. Before LINE WORKS integration, we had to wait for the salesperson in order to check either customer inquiries received or the art works we delivered. Instead of waiting the salesperson to come back to office, we can ask them questions directly using LINE WORKS.

And, we found it very convenient. With the Message feature along with ‘Read’ notification, both enable us to immediately communicate about the issues with the salesperson. This way, we do not have to wait for the salesperson who is returning late to the office.

So far, when we receive phone call from our clients about finding the salesperson, we had to use phone-operated mails to send the message like ‘Please call OO’ to the salesperson. And, this process was cumbersome to everybody with no doubt. Since phone-operated mails could not be checked whether the targeted receiver actually received the mail, we eventually had to call back the person to double check whether they read the mail or not. However, there were times when the salesperson could not answer the phone calls and vice versa. Since LINE WORKS provides the ‘Read’ notification, we can assure that the message is successfully delivered to the salesperson. That is, LINE WORKS definitely offers the great working environment, in which we all can concentrate to our own works.

With LINE WORKS, we can deliver the message to a large number of employees regardless of positions and departments they belong. Specifically, when the problem occurs, we can send essential information through LINE WORKS to all the employees, who are related to the problem, from all different departments including sales and trading. Before LINE WORKS introduction, we had to contact each individual from different department to either check or report the problem. With LINE WORKS group chatting feature, we can collaboratively share and solve the issue together with the people related.

Unlike phone calls, the chatting leaves a conversation history, which is very convenient for further process. Because someone in the chat room replies to the issues at least, the overall correspondence time has reduced dramatically, and this also helps us improve our service.

Mr. Yanagisawa :

We can say that LINE WORKS is more compulsory with the ‘Read’ notification than any other collaboration tool. There is growing moods and perception that more and more people think that received messages should not be remain unread. Of course, sending replies to the messages are getting easier day by day, and this definitely helps us response time and rate to the messages as well as the issues.

Ms. Dokoi :

Unlike ‘Reference’ feature in the email, we all feel like we are key members to the issue.

How do you want to utilize LINE WORKS in the future?

Mr. Yanagisawa :

We are expecting LINE WORKS to be well utilized when sending notices, which General Affairs Department staffs send to each department, although we are not fully utilizing Home feature.

We would like to open categories for each department on Home feature. Currently, we are leaving various information from each departments on either LINE WORKS chatting room or note. We are thinking about leaving those information on the Home Board as well. For those information which we want to publish for longer period of time, we think Home feature is much suitable to upload. This way, there will be no worry for the information to be accidentally ignored by others.

We just started a new LINE WORKS chatting room on printing process control, and we are eager to utilize further at the construction site.

※ All details, affiliations, and positions specified were gathered at the time of interview.