Customer Relations
Policy and Approach
In alignment with our corporate motto, “Always strive to help people everywhere achieve better health and enhance their quality-of-life,” and the first of our Fundamental Management Principles, “Be passionately consumer-focused,” we strive to place the consumer at the heart of everything we do so they continue to choose our brands to help them lead healthier, longer lives. To do so, we commit to:
1. Listen carefully to what each and every customer has to say and provide them with useful information in a polite, appropriate and prompt manner in the hope of improving customer satisfaction; and 2. Share feedback from customers within the Group to help improve products and services.
Major Initiatives
Customer Feedback (Japan)
In FY2023, the Customer Help Desk received around 19,500 instances of feedback. The breakdown by product category was 73% oral care, 9% hair care, 7% food products, 4% household, 3% skin care, and 4% other. Looking at the inquiries by age group, over 70% of inquiries were from those over 60, indicating that people are becoming more aware of their oral and general health as we approach the era of 100-year lifespans. Sunstar practices “quality management” and strives to provide safe and high-quality products that customers can use with full confidence.
Results of Customer Satisfaction Survey (Japan)
Looking to improve our our customer service in Japan, the Customer Help Desk regularly conducts customer satisfaction surveys. We aim to achieve a satisfaction level of 85% or above. After analyzing previous results and taking measures to improve our score, the satisfaction level in FY2023 was 93% (satisfied and mostly satisfied). In addition, we received 92% satisfaction (good and somewhat good) in terms of response and language usage, and received positive comments and feedback from users. We will continue to be a Customer Help Desk that listens carefully to every single customer’s feedback in an effort to further meet their expectations.
Making customer feedback a reality (Japan)
In response to increasing environmentally conscious demands from our customers, we have replaced the packaging of our interdental brushes, which we previously sold in plastic cases, with paper mounts and clear covers. This has achieved an 80% reduction ofplastic usage in packaging By using recycled plastic in the clear cover and FSC® certified paper and incorporating bio-mass plastic derived from plant sources in the handle of our interdental brushes, we have reduced the environmental impact of our product.
Updated video instruction based on customer feedback (Japan)
Sunstar updated the video entitled “The Right Way to Use an Interdental Brush” to help customers better understand how to best use our product. Using the brush the wrong way or past the point when it should be replaced can lead to issues such as the wires breaking. We thus added an image indicating when roughly brushes should be replaced and examples of incorrect ways of using the product to the video so that customers could more safely and effectively make use of the brushes. Sunstar will continue to strive to reflect customer feedback in its product development and refinement processes, as it seeks to create products and services that achieve high customer satisfaction.