Tell us about your company and individual roles

Mr. Kojima :

We are a consulting company based in UK. We are carrying out global and neutral consulting business focusing on architecture, office transfer, and IT. We are mainly responsible for infra systems and its related projects which are the base of the enterprise as well as strategy and project management, introduction and management for daily tasks. The scope of our work ranges from IT, and facilities to audio visuals.

Mr. Kudo :

One of our strengths is that we can suitably make response to the IT-related construction projects. When creating a data center or server room, we also provide consulting services on ordering or managing the budget for vendor companies.

What were the issues before the introduction of LINE WORKS?

Mr. Kojima :

Since 2/3 of our employees reside and work at client companies, communication with those employees were not fluently made than we expected. Also, because of those employees who are residing at the client companies use the email domain of the client, they had to login to our company account with other electronic device to check the internal emails. With the tendency of checking the business-related email first, instead of checking the internal email, the employees could not answer to internal emails promptly. It is true that we have global information portal sites, which are commonly used by our employees. However, since its major language was English, it was hard to use the tool in Japan.

We also used Skype or SMS for internal communication. However, because each employee uses all of the different means of communication, they had to call each other if they had to make urgent contacts.

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

Mr. Kojima :

Until now, we have been renting out 2G phones to employees who reside outside the company. But, we changed the mobile device from 2G to iPhone recently. Based on its change, we came up with an idea that we should introduce a new tool to our company as well.

Mr. Kudo :

When using SNS which are commonly in use, we had to ask contact information to each employee. With LINE WORKS, however, we could find out the contact information of all the employees even without asking for them. It was appealing for us to be able to start with the least explanation on the first introduction of the LINE WORKS since it has same method of usage as the LINE, which is used by as many people as the infrastructure of society already. When introducing the tool, it was almost mandatory to make usage guide or manual of the newly introduced tool. However, there was no need for us to make documents on the tool when introducing LINE WORKS. We found shortening of such unnecessary work was great benefit of LINE WORKS.

Mr. Horiuchi :

We have went through several tools. But, we chose LINE WORKS because it is easily adopted, provides service with low cost, and employees were already used to its usage. In fact, no inquiry was received from the employees on the very first day of the introduction. We thought that employees were not using the tool well. We even worried and considered further about the utilization of the tool. Yet, we soon found out that all the employees were already got accustomed to the tool, and therefore, there was no question drawn from the users.

How does the internal communication at your company changed after the introduction of LINE WORKS?

Mr. Horiuchi :

It has become easier for us to communicate with the employees dispatched and working the client office. Until now, communication has been inconveniently held since the employees were using different communication tools. Specifically, we had the employees who mentioned that they ‘have not read the internal PTS emails’ or there were the employees who are reachable through Skype and vice versa. After the LINE WORKS introduction, it became clearer to find the right person to contact. Also, even though we do not receive the response in a prompt manner, we can assure that the message was read through ‘Read’ notification.

Being able to handle the problem immediately is another point which has improved. For example, there are at times when the employees dispatched to the client office. sometimes accept the offer which goes beyond its original scope of the work and as a result, it gets harder for field workers to handle the issue. Even in that case, we can quickly receive contacts regarding the issue and manage it. We did not even know that there was a problem in the past. So, we believe that there were a lot of cases when the employee handle the problem alone. As can communicate under the better circumstance, the volume of the communication has increased as well as clarity of the conversation has improved.

How does the internal communication at your company changed after the introduction of LINE WORKS?

Ms. Susa :

We often have communicate with the employees stationed at the client office using the group chatting room made by team basis. In some cases, one manager take on a number of projects and its members. By creating groups on a project basis, manager can both manage the project and share information much easier than before. Also, we are writing contents what is called ‘Monthly report’ on the board such as notice on the virus or company news using Home feature. On company news, we publish contents like internal office event or introduction of the hard working teams and so on. By frequently sharing such news, we are reinforcing the employees’ sense of belonging to our company, even though they are working outside the office.

Mr. Horiuchi :

We are frequently using the chatting room made by project basis. Because most of our work is with regards to office infrastructure, we are mostly using the chatting room when sharing photos taken at the field and ask our engineers for opinion. It is convenient since we can share the situation immediately. If we only communicate through texts, there is possibility of communicate partners feel offensive during the conversation. Using stickers, however, we can also express our feelings and emotions, which enabled us to share messages smoother than before. Of course, foreign employees have naturally been using the tool as well.

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

Ms. Susa :

Basically, it is the field with high mobility rate of the labor and most of the employees are dispatched to clients’ office, it is inevitable for them to have low sense of belonging to the company. We are hoping to increase the sense of unity for the entire company by actively carrying out company vitalization policies such as company news, events or even clubs with LINE WORKS. We would also like to use LINE WORKS for individual human resource supports.

Mr. Horiuchi :

We would like to introduce usability of LINE WORKS to as many employees as possible. We also want to develop a bot which handles company FAQ.

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

Please explain briefly about your company

We are a law firm providing legal services related to commercial and real estate -overpayment claims, mortgage counseling and proceedings, wills and inheritances, commercial registration, real estate registration, etc. Founded in 2011, we are now running 11 offices based in the Kanto region.

What made you introduce LINE WORKS to your firm?

At Histoire, we have a call center where clerical staffs receive inquiries or requests from clients before they are sent to judicial scriveners. In order to help judicial scriveners focus more on providing the best legal services to clients, we try to have other tasks besides consultation done by clerical staffs.

We have grown rapidly since the very first opening in 2011, and the number of our judicial scriveners and office workers have increased accordingly. We didn’t use e-mail for internal communication, but when there was an urgent message from the client such as asking for the office location or notifying early/late arrivals, we used LINE to let the judicial scriveners know.

However, as the number of employees increased exponentially, we felt the need for business chatting tools other than LINE. With LINE, there was a concern for security issues since it was hard to control every group chat or communications of retired employees. In addition, we had problems matching employees’ faces with their LINE accounts, with more and more people participating in the group chat. But above all, the employees didn’t want their private LINE accounts used for work, which made us turn to LINE WORKS.

What were the decisive factors in introducing LINE WORKS and the advantages of using LINE WORKS?

The decisive reason which led LINE WORKS introduction was that it provides similar infrastructures to LINE, and therefore, no extra education needed. Before introduction, employees used LINE because they could not respond instantaneously to their clients via email. With this, we anticipated that if we integrate LINE WORKS, this would enable our company to provide the employees similar user experience that of LINE.

Also, our company needed a mobile-friendly communication tool for judicial scriveners, who are spending most of their time meeting or traveling with their clients outside the office, and only have a limited time to stay online. We have already tried different other communication tools, but most of them were difficult to use on mobile and failed to settle down after their trial period. In that respect, LINE WORKS was very easy to use with our smartphones, and we could naturally settled down to this tool without feeling any difficulties.

What are the benefits after LINE WORKS adoption?

The level of employee satisfaction has largely increased due to the separation of private LINE account and business contact. Also, from a management perspective, we could worry less on information leakage because the tool has enabled us to manage those retired employees through LINE WORKS, by automatically excluding them from group chats.

Real-time communication is perfectly available just like LINE. While LINE WORKS further provides an organizational contact feature, which is being used as a nominal list of employees. We can now easily recognize whether who is where, doing what. The visibility of all employees has also increased since the profile pictures and names of LINE WORKS accounts are easily matched to the actual person without confusion.

What would you expect from LINE WORKS in the future?

While Message function is frequently used by our employees, functions like Home are yet to be well-utilized. Due to this, we are looking forward to utilize the Home to make important announcements near in the future. In addition, we do not have the Calendar function in the lite plan which we are currently using. To solve this, we are thinking of trying LINE WORKS basic plan which provide the function with the help of our partner, the Satellite office.

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