A close cooperation system between the salesmen as well as with the constructors assures secure houses and reforms.

Sekisui Famis Tokyo (Sekisui Famis) is bearing a responsibility for the house reforming business in Sekisui Heim real estate group (Sekisui Heim) having footholds in Tokyo and Kanagawa area. Sekisui Famis which had an experience of receiving quite many telephone calls while the salesmen were out of office for arrangements with customers or constructors etc., has introduced the PHS model "AH-J3003S" in cooperation with not only its all employees but also constructors as well. Thanks to that, smooth communication has been realized with a cost reduction by utilizing e-mails actively.

Sekisui Famis has been supporting new houses supplied by Sekisui Heim and Two-U Home for over 60 years in order to improve the quality of communication among customers, employees and constructors. Sekisui Famis has also been actively tried to provide its customers with highly estimated product items including the maintenance service after 3 years of construction, up-to-date equipment which was not formerly available by Sekisui Heim (Example: Zero lighting and fuel expenses plan supported by the solar panel system) etc. Under severe circumstances of the number of households and new constructions decreased as the few children and aging population advances, Sekisui Famis is playing an important role for the future from small troubles of the house to large-scale reform works as a contact window to approximately 400 thousand customers in the Tokyo metropolitan area accumulated by its new house construction division. 75% of the customers have purchased their houses from Sekisui group and the remaining 25% were the general house reforming, enlarging and reconstruction customers.

Recently, Sekisui Famis is trying to increase shares of such new customers and strengthening the relationship with them as well. There are 11 reform stages from customer consultation toward the construction and delivery, so that close and smooth communication among customers, employees and constructors is required.

So far, communication between employees or constructors was being made by personal mobile phones. Sekisui Famis has been subsidizing its employees' telephone charge to some extent, however, such were not necessarily enough for some employees. Then it thought to solve such problems by introducing WILLCOM's PHS to all employees and selecting a flat-rate plan. "It can reduce the communication expense when a call is made to the salesman who is out of office, so we proposed to the constructors to use the same PHS as well" said Mr. Hirotaka Miyake. WILLCOM's PHS contributes to a huge cost reduction by spreading the communication from inside the company to the customers etc. as well.

Employee to Employee & Employee to Constructor Connection

Almost all employees working at Sekisui Famis Tokyo place of business (Nakano-Ku) are salesmen and no design engineers available for an emergency consultation are placed there. The telephone No.s of all employees and the designated constructors have been grouped and registered in the phonebook of WILLCOM's PHSs and those have also been set to forward all received e-mails to each one before distributing those to the employees. "WILLCOM's PHS almost doesn't cost other than a fixed expense and it's very convenient to use like an extension" said Mr. Itaru Takeda. In case of being unable to convey the point over the telephone, to leave a message on answering machine, to make a phone call to the salesman engaged in an arrangement etc., a short mail is to be sent to request a callback.

In addition, an e-mail available for a large number of letters can handle the detailed business matters so that there will be its various usage scenes such as to finish off the work even inside the moving tram etc. "I've been trying to improve a communication with my subordinate by sending a message "Thank you for your troubles" etc. by e-mail" said Mr. Takeda. E-mail seems to have an advantage of showing an appreciation for employees' hard work especially. In addition to the phone conversation, e-mail has also been added as an important office communication tool with an introduction of WILLCOM's PHS. E-mail can be sent to the counterpart smoothly while the telephone line may sometimes be busy.

The time spent in receiving telephone calls has been reduced by half from 2 hours a day

At the same place of business, only one business office staff has been in charge of receiving all incoming calls from not only customers but also constructors to 17 salesmen placed there. As a result of the investigation by questionnaire, it's turned out that the staff spent approximately 2 hours a day in such work. While such work load and time has substantially been reduced as the constructors have become to use WILLCOM's PHS and to make direct phone call to the salesman. Now almost all incoming calls to the office corded telephone are from the customers related to the order and recognized as important calls accordingly. If the salesman who should receive a call from the customer is not available while driving a car etc., light mail is to be utilized instead. If the point of customerfs call and telephone number are e-mailed to such salesman, he can easily make a callback to the customer when he becomes available.

Further, there may be a case that an emergency call from customers or constructors is necessary to be answered even when the person in charge is absent because a holiday shift differs by the office clerks and the salesmen. "An e-mail sent to the person in charge at such time has always been replied quickly as "The contact has duly been made". I'm very much relieved to have a reply mail "Will contact after holiday" to my preliminary mail in case that I intended to ask that then" said Mr. Masumi Suzuki.

To be used by group companies as an emergency communication tool

WILLCOM's PHS is to be used as an emergency communication network tool as well. The system enabling managing staffs to make a contact with and an indication to all employees by e-mail simultaneously has been established inside the group even while information is confused and complicated at the time of disaster such as an earthquake. An indication to all employees to keep safe or standby can be made even from the home using their addresses pre-registered in the phonebook of WILLCOM's PHS.