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Below is the translated version of the article published on the ovice website in Japanese.
Tools and practices described in the article apply only to Sansou Systems Corp located in
Japan and may be different from those at other branch offices.
Iwama from Sansou Systems Corporation
Sansou Systems Corporation provides companies with full-cycle support in the planning, design, and operation of customer-facing IT systems. The team does a lot of client-related work, including face-to-face meetings, presentations, and workshops. During the pandemic, organizing these meetings remotely was not easy – traditional video conferencing tools limited engagement and reduced convenience. Mr. Iwama, a sales consultant from Sansou Systems, had a chat with the ovice team in Japan about the way his team uses the virtual office space to streamline remote work.
Iwama: My name is Iwama and I am a sales consultant in the Service Integration Department of Sansou Systems Corporation.
Since the company’s establishment, we have been committed to innovating together with our customers, helping them grow and develop. We have two major business domains: systems integration and service integration.
System Integration is a full-cycle service that covers everything from consulting to development and service support.
Service Integration provides cloud-based services for streamlining workflows and processes which would change the way Japanese people work. A brand called SWI is the parent brand of service integration. SWI is short for “Sansou With Innovation” – it’s a brand focused on helping customers build innovation together.
We proudly offer clients various technologies centered around cloud computing. Through the know-how we implement in system development, our team designed an original chatbot called “Sat FAQ”. This service helps business owners automatically answer the most common questions customers have.
All you have to do is save the questions and answers as an Excel file – the robot will do the rest.
From now on, we are planning to actively use communication tools like FAQ chatbot to help our clients optimize and automate their work, develop applications, and discover market needs.
During the COVID pandemic, it became extremely difficult to do business, host seminars, or visit clients. In these conditions, I accidentally discovered ovice at an online event.
I thought it would help revitalize communication by solving the problems I mentioned above both within and outside the team.
Momomura: I am Momomura from the Human Resources and General Affairs Department at Sansou Systems. I am in charge of human resources and recruitment.
When I heard from Iwama he is using ovice for external communication, I thought we could use it for internal communication as well and decided to join.
Momomura: To me, there were two key benefits of using ovice. The first one was the ability to easily hold get-togethers for people involved in a product.
The second one was the ability to hold large-scale events which were no longer possible to do offline because of the pandemic. By hosting virtual events, I could meet with 30-40 people, some of which were the teammates I don’t usually interact with. I am extremely satisfied.
Iwama: As for the external use, I used ovice to create a showroom. Since I wanted to build innovations together with everyone, I built a showroom called “Innobeya”.
Here, guests could come in at their convenience without an appointment and start conversations at the timing they are comfortable with. It helps successfully create a free conversation flow.
When someone comes to our showroom, the first thing we do is to provide a FAQ of the company. We have a variety of practices, such as automated customer service, downloading materials, scheduling appointments with salespeople on the spot, exchanging business cards, and various other types of inter-industry meetings.
Also, it was comfortable to host seminars in ovice. Before, at seminars, you could say things like “Please, answer the questionnaire on the seminar”, “Raise your hand, please”.
Now, online seminars have become one-sided. Once the event is over, you just close the browser. There’s no way to discuss topics with other guests who are facing similar issues, everything just ends abruptly.
When we hosted seminars in ovice, it became possible to say: “Those who are interested in our products, please gather here after the presentation”, “People who want to see a demo, get together over there” or “Please come to this area if you want to have a chat”. The degree of freedom increased exponentially.
Momomura: When it comes to using ovice, I want to hold a large-scale event the entire company can participate in. For year-end parties, we usually hold bingo tournaments and other games. Now I think you can do it remotely as well. In the future, I would like to come up with something like that.
Also, since I think we will continue to use online collaboration tools for digital activities, it would be great to communicate with students with an open heart to each other in ovice.
Iwama: in near future, I would like to expand the showroom and online seminars. Now people who are far from our location, or connected with on social media, or clients from abroad will be able to join various events. We think that the features provided by ovice will be extremely useful.
Our FAQ chatbot worked really well with ovice, providing users with answers to their questions when no staff members were available.
