Customers

Case studies

The background, the rollout, and the results — in the words of the people who run these desks every day.

Hokuso Mart Co., Ltd.

Supermarket chain / 92 stores in the Kanto region / approx. 4,800 employees

Spreading sale-day phone surges across chat and AI

−38%

First response time

3.2 wks

Time to launch

Before

On weekend flyer-sale days, store phones rang nonstop from opening time. Sixty percent of the calls were routine — "is today's special still in stock?", "what time does the parking lot close?" — but floor staff were pulled away from the registers and the shelves to answer them, and in-store service suffered.

Rollout

We piloted Talk's web chat in three stores, training the AI only on sale items, parking, and opening hours. After four weeks, 80% of chat inquiries were resolving without staff involvement, so the chain rolled out to all 92 stores at once. Store-specific sale information is entered centrally by headquarters.

The clearest change is how quiet the sales floor is right after opening. The phones still ring, but staff now spend their time on calls that genuinely need a person in the store. Customers tell us they love checking tomorrow's specials at midnight.

Yohei Suzuki Director, Sales Planning, Hokuso Mart Co., Ltd.

Results

  • Weekday call volume to stores down 26%; first response time on sale days down 38%
  • 82% of chat inquiries resolved by AI at first contact
  • Floor-staff overtime down by an average of 4.1 hours per person per month

Products used: Kotoyui Talk / Kotoyui Link

Hosoden Telecommunications Co., Ltd.

Telecom operator (fiber & mobile) / approx. 850,000 subscribers / 120-seat contact center

Five support windows became one customer view

54%

AI first-contact resolution

5→1

Operator consoles

Before

Phone, email, web chat, social DMs, and in-store support each ran on a different system, and history lived in the memory of individual agents. When a customer called about "the email I sent yesterday," the conversation started over from zero. In CSAT surveys, "I had to explain the same thing repeatedly" was a permanent fixture at the top of the complaint list.

Rollout

Talk became the core, with Link connecting the existing email and social channels so every conversation attaches to a single customer ID. Voice was phased in on the phone line, automating billing checks, plan changes, and first-pass fault triage. In parallel, Insight began scoring every interaction so handoff quality could be tracked over time.

Just being able to say "picking up from where we left off" — and see it on screen — changes the tone of the whole call. You can hear the customer relax. And for coaching, Insight's scoring shows exactly what a new hire is struggling with, so feedback has become far more concrete.

Emiko Nakamura Deputy General Manager, Customer Service Division, Hosoden Telecommunications Co., Ltd.

Results

  • AI first-contact resolution reached 54% at 12 months; CSAT up 8 points
  • "Repeated explanations" disappeared from the top complaint categories
  • New-hire ramp time cut from an average of three weeks to two

Products used: Kotoyui Talk / Voice / Link / Insight (full suite)

Kisaragi Bank, Ltd.

Regional bank / 38 branches / deposits approx. ¥1.9 trillion

After-hours calls became a desk that actually answers

70%

After-hours calls auto-answered

−40%

Next-day callback volume

Before

As branches consolidated, inquiries concentrated onto the phone desk. For older customers the phone is the primary channel, yet the desk closed at 5 p.m. on weekdays. Every morning began with callbacks that consumed the first half of the day and squeezed ordinary work.

Rollout

The bank adopted the regional-bank package, starting with after-hours coverage. Balance inquiries play out verbally after identity verification (registered phone number plus date of birth); procedure guidance completes by sending a URL via SMS. All data stays in Japanese data centers, and our team joined the bank's internal security review directly.

The "robotic response" we feared never happened. If anything, an automated voice that patiently repeats itself is kinder to some of our older customers than a rushed human. The thoroughness of Kotoyui's design documents during review was, honestly, part of why we said yes.

Shuichi Mori Manager, Channel Planning Department, Kisaragi Bank, Ltd.

Results

  • 70% of after-hours calls handled automatically; next-day callbacks down roughly 40%
  • Post-call satisfaction with automated handling averages 4.2 out of 5
  • Daytime operators freed up roughly 20% of their time for consultative conversations

Products used: Kotoyui Voice (regional-bank package) / Kotoyui Insight

Clients

Selected clients

北総マート KISARAGI BANK 霞ケ関証券 HOSODEN さつき百貨店 MINATO CABLE

A cumulative total of 420 companies across retail, finance, telecom, and local government use Kotoyui (as of April 2026).

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