Improving Customer Satisfaction

  At Yamaha, we do our utmost to develop, manufacture, and sell the type of leading products that delight and satisfy our customers.

  The Yamaha Group has created a Quality Assurance Officers Committee that consists of staff responsible for quality management in our operating and sales departments. We have set up the CS Subcommittee which forms a part of several subordinate Quality Enhancement Subcommittees. Staff members from CS-related departments within our various departments come together at this CS Subcommittee, researching ways to improve customer satisfaction and sharing related information.

  In addition to the two committee meetings we held during fiscal 2010, we also continued to research new systems to effectively analyze and use the feedback we receive from our customers. We also research universal design, continuously promoting the incorporation of findings into internal guidelines.

  We take the information from customers who register their Yamaha products via post card or online to create satisfaction surveys that we send immediately after product purchase, and again after the customer has used our product for a certain length of time.

  We also conduct satisfaction surveys for the customers of our business partners. We send the results of these surveys to related departments within our group, which leads to further customer satisfaction improvements.

  To develop the kind of products and services that exceed customer expectations, the AV Products Division actively gathers and collates customer feedback. The division collects as much feedback as possible, constantly looking for ways to satisfy each and every customer in every business setting.

  Here, we will highlight several ways that the AV Products Division seeks to achieve its goals. In the product planning stages, the division creates a planning sheet in which they input such details as projected customer profile, the value provided to the customer, customer feedback/ improvements from existing products, and other factors approached from the customer's point of view. This information is shared with every person who is involved in the creation of the end product. The division sends out customer satisfaction surveys to customers in Japan, the United States, and Europe immediately after purchase. In a CS evaluation meeting, the division looks at the results of these surveys, using the information as feedback for current and future product development. Of particular importance are customer assessments and opinions related to sound quality, looks (design), ease of use, innovation (function), and reliability. These factors relate to major quality policies within the Yamaha Group. From this perspective, the division focuses on the differences between pre-purchase customer expectations and post-purchase satisfaction. They use text mining^*1 techniques on free-form customer feedback to perform trend analysis, combining quantitative and qualitative data to uncover areas of potential improvement that can lead to greater customer satisfaction. The results of these surveys (please refer to figure 1 for certain examples of analysis results) are published to all divisions, and used as guides to help reach goals defined in our quality policies. We believe that the daily inquiries and opinions coming into our customer help desks provide a wealth of clues leading to future improvements. We analyze and utilize this feedback in the same manner as the customer surveys.

• *1 A method for analyzing text data by scanning regular text and extracting useful information.

  In other ways, too, the division continues activities that tie to product creation and manufacturing from the customer's point of view. The division publishes a monthly CS News newsletter (see Figure 2) delivered to departments, relevant sales companies, and factories. This newsletter is filled with information about customer preferences and trends. The division also creates a daily “Customer Feedback of the Day” (see Figure 3), which is sent to all business locations. The update communicates product-related opinions and impressions from customers in the division's main markets.

  Through usability assessments, the division is able to improve product ease of use and product manual readability.

  By utilizing customer feedback stemming from various business scenarios, the division moves closer to offering products and services that exceed the expectations of our customers.

  The Yamaha Group always focuses on product development from the customer's point of view. Among other ways to improve how our customers use our products and services, we conduct usability tests^*2 to assess the operability, reflecting the results in our product specifications.

• *2 Usability test: Having likely customers actually use a product to determine the product's ease of use (usability). Yamaha uses employees as volunteer testers.

Yamaha Corporation Digital Musical Instruments Division

  The Digital Musical Instruments Division conceptualizes and designs digital pianos, other keyboard instruments, digital drums and other instruments as well as related services. Products that incorporate digital controllers feature a variety of functions not available in traditional acoustic instruments, and it is important that the customer can easily operate these functions.

  Given this point of view, the Digital Musical Instruments Division conducts product development usability tests. Yamaha began adopting these usability tests in 2004 to help improve the usability of our products and services. The development and other departments involved in products and services coordinate usability tests, sharing information about potential issues at early stages in the cycle. This lets the Digital Musical Instruments Division quickly take the steps necessary for improving the usability of existing products and uncover operability issues with products in development.

[Example]

• Usability assessment for the CVP multi-function digital piano
• Usability assessment for the IDC function (connects the instrument directly to the Internet to stream a song or display musical notes simultaneously) of the CVP digital piano
• Workability assessment for digital drum assembly
• Visual discrimination assessment for LED and operating display colors

  The Digital Musical Instruments Division sells the Tyros4 multifunction keyboard in overseas markets. During the development of this product, the division incorporated ways for people with poor color vision to see colored displays more easily. The division made changes to the display colors on the screen and colors selected for LED lights. As with the keyboard, developers of the MOTIF XF synthesizer designed screen display colors considering user color vision, going so far as to include a function that allows users to adjust screen colors on their own, using the accompanying editing program for the PC. By exercising this amount of care,-regardless of individual differences in color vision-can adjust screen colors for easier viewing.

  The division is also incorporating color universal design in its product manuals, improving readability for customers who have poor color vision. The digital manual for the CP5/CP50 stage piano has been certified by the non-profit Color Universal Design Organization, which educates designers and others on color universal design.

• *3 non-profit organization that engages in educational activities aimed at raising awareness toward color universal design