Mitsui Fudosan Retail Management Co., Ltd.
Information System Department DX Promotion
Yuto Sekimori

Please explain your company's service and characteristics.

Our company is a core company of Mitsui Fudosan Retail Group Commercial Facility Business's value chain, and we operate 71 Commercial facilities in Japan like Lalaport and Mitsui Outlet Park. (As of 2020/4/1) We manage Opening preparation plan like Operation plan formulation and Opening promotion plan, to Tenant operation management after opening, General promotion plan, to Facility management work in total.
The Information System department that I belong, we are in charge of systems of the whole company of General Affair, HR, Accounting, and also installation and operation of various systems necessary to operate the Commercial Facilities.

What kind of work are you operating in DX promotion section of Information System Department?

Until 2020/03, Information System Department had only one section, which was Information System Section. The Information System Section has four teams, and those were team to manage infrastructure like network inside the company, team in charge of whole system, team to manage credit card payment terminal, and sales promotion team that I was in. Sales promotion team is in charge to manage system to give out point to company's app and customers, which are systems comparatively close to customers. We hope to increase customer satisfaction or increase efficiency, so we are trying to do new things like installing Chatbot.

Also, we have founded DX promotion section from April with the member of sales promotion team. The work is to promote innovation utilizing digital technology throughout the company adding on to the management operation of app's point system.

How is ChatPlu's Chatbot being used?

　ChatPlus's Chatbot is being used in three scenes, to customers, to staff inside the company, and to tenant. And we have installed 14 Chatbot as of now. For customers, we have installed Chatbot in Web sites of 5 Commercial facilities, and we are utilizing it to efficiently respond to inquiries about point and app, business hours and access to the facility.
For staff inside the company, we installed Chatbot to respond to inquiries from facility's manager to headquarter staff, manage sales, and coupons. Also, from April, we installed Chatbot in facility management department.
For tenant, we have installed Chatbot in the system called SC communication, which is the communication tool of facility's operation center and tenant's manager. There has been many inquiries about application documents, so we respond to that with Chatbot.

what task did you have before installing ChatPlus and the what made you decide to install ChatPlus?

　Our task/problem was too many inquiries. We had a help desk for inquiries about point and app, but most of the inquiries are [frequently asked questions]. The operators were replying to those questions with fixed phrase, so we were thinking that whether there is more efficient way to operate.

Also, our work is not only operating help desk, but also enforcing sales promotion in each operation center, or have a meeting with tenant, so we were hoping to decrease time to respond to inquiries.

In order to solve those problems/tasks, we started considering installing Chatbot in our each facility's Website for customers. We talked to 10 companies' chat tools, and we narrowed it down to 3 companies and did trials for each.

What was the conclusive point for ChatPlus within those 10 companies?

We felt that ChatPlus is easier to manage than other chat tools. The management page is very easy to see and it is very easy to create scenarios. Also, ChatPlus enables us to release it within a month, so it is a conclusive point which you can respond fast to the request from other department.
In fact, when we tell the facility's operation center which requested to install Chatbot the cost, and the speed to release, they would be surprised how simple it is to operate. Also, we think that many functions of ChatPlus are keeping updated is a wonderful point.

Do you have any plans to use ChatPlus after this?

Yes, we have 71 commercial facilities inside Japan, and now we only installed ChatPlus to 5 facilities, we are thinking to expand the usage of ChatPlus. When I think of expanding it to 71 facilities, we think that ChatPlus is the best fit to our needs because we can install it very fast.

For Chatbot used to respond to customers, the operators who are directly connected to customers would judge like "This inquiry is asked multiple times, let's make chatbot based on this." and they would blush up Chatbot. Our goal is replace General Information Center with Chatbot.

We have installed Chatbot not only in the commercial facilities but also in the company system, and the influence is huge. We installed it to the sales management system which is used by employees in our company, so they would ask "What is this?" or "It would be convenient if we had this in our department". For example General Affairs・HR・Accounting, they have numerous inquiries from our employees so they are thinking to install Chatbot also.

What are you aiming for utilizing ChatPlus?

After installing Chatbot to each department in our company, we are thinking to integrate all the Chatbot and make it a general customer support center. We are hoping to create [Chatbot Concierge] which respond to employees request fast and accurate.

We have human resource development policy to train all employees to be a professional of Commercial Facility operation, so we do a Job Rotation frequently. Our facilities have four different business types, and in order to understand the difference, we do the job rotation.
Myself too, I was assign to be in an operation center in the outlet park and then reassigned to Information System Department. Our employees are always challenged to be in a new environment and new occupation. In that case, when an employee is assigned to a new occupation, it would be better to know basic stuff from Chatbot rather than asking your supervisor from the beginning.
We are hoping for employees to actively ask the Chatbot Concierge what they do not know about the operation.

Fortunately, the usage rate of Chatbot inside the company is very high. The employees are beginning to understand the high usability of Chatbot. The people in operation center in each facility would soon realize that they could use this to customers, the speed of installation of ChatPlus to all 71 commercial facilities are not so far away.

At last, please leave a message for people looking at this home page.

We are actively engaged in the innovation measure according to social trend.
We are striving to operate Commercial Facilities in the base that [Age, the better] which attract customer as they age.