November, 2011
As a human health care company, Eisai must address the explicit needs of our customers (patients, the general public, healthcare professionals), while at the same time guaranteeing essential quality standards and satisfying their unspoken desires. Our customers will experience joy only when we have satisfied needs that even they themselves are not aware that they have. In order to generate Customer Joy, Eisai established the “Customer Joy Department” in April 2009.
“We strive not only to understand the latent needs of our customers through the Socialization process*, but also to generate Customer Joy by providing products, information, services and networks as a package that meets these needs.”
- *At Eisai, employees spend time with patients by participating in onsite nursing care training programs, either at medical facilities or in a home setting, in order to better understand the realities and potential needs of our customers.
This is the “Declaration of Customer Joy” set forth when Eisai established the Customer Joy Department.
The pillars of the Customer Joy Department comprise the 365-day toll-free Customer Hotline, which has been in operation for more than 20 years, and the Drug Development Technology Center, which is responsible for both quality and product improvement. The heads of each section in the Customer Joy Department gather every week to analyze the various feedback received from our customers and come up with prompt and appropriate responses. For example, the Department is currently working on enhancing the recognition of Eisai products by modifying packages and labels and enlarging the size of characters printed on tablets in order to prevent medication errors. We also develop educational materials on topics such as how to store medicines in the home in hope that patients will refer to them when using our products.
In this way, the Customer Joy Department implements various measures to ensure that we promptly respond to feedback and requests from our customers.
In order to understand the potential or latent needs of our customers, Customer Joy Department personnel promote employee-patient Socialization at nursing homes and medical facilities such as hospitals, clinics and insurance pharmacies. All the findings and new knowledge gained through such activities is entered into and stored in a specially-designed database known as “Yoki-koto Box.” The Customer Joy Department is committed to identifying the latent needs and wishes of our customers by utilizing the database as well as customer feedback, and has already started to develop new products and packaging under concepts such as “easy-to-swallow” or “easy-to-handle.”
By accelerating the implementation of Socialization activities and the development of products and packaging with clear concepts, Eisai aims to provide comprehensive solutions that truly bring our customers joy.