The company combines its understanding of customer needs with a flexible technology stack that can adapt to varying requirements, both present and future

Based on its recent analysis of the Japanese contact center market, Frost & Sullivan announced that it has recognized Rakuten Communications with the 2021 Contact Center Customer Value Leadership Award. Rakuten Communications’ versatile ‘Rakuten Connect Storm’ platform enables contact centers to meet the specific demands of customers in the Asia-Pacific region by accomodating different customer preferences and integrations. Rakuten Communications has vast experience in incorporating both emerging and leading technologies in its expansive portfolio, eliminating the complexities inherent in using new technology and delivering value to users.

“Rakuten Communications’s flexible technology stack presents an omnichannel experience to customers. Over the years, the company has become a reliable one-stop service partner, combining its cloud-based contact center systems and communications services,” said Krishna Baidya, Head of Customer Contact Research, ICT Practice Asia-Pacific, Frost & Sullivan. “It plays an active role in clients’ customer service/branding strategy, right from designing the contact framework, implementing intelligent routing, and managing/analyzing incoming calls to conducting customer satisfaction surveys and text mining according to clients’ requests.”

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Under the COVID-19 pandemic, Rakuten Communications developed a unique WFH (work from home) solution package as a telecommunications provider. The package combines pre-set seats of the ‘Rakuten Connect Storm’ contact center platform and ‘Mobile Choice 050,’ a BYOD (bring your own device) solution that allows companies to automatically bill phone charges for work usage separately, with Wi-Fi routers and SIM cards. The company launched this package in spring 2020 as a support service for countering the spread of COVID-19 as WFH solutions for contact centers became an urgent issue in Japan. The short delivery time and pre-set packages tailored to meet customer-needs enabled the prompt introduction of the service. This solution promotes WFH for contact centers for a wide range of industries, including finance, service industries and manufacturing.

“The Storm platform has been deployed with Rakuten Communications’ AI interactive voice response (IVR) system, automating inquiries and utilizing market-leading technology to innovate the platform’s QA and QM to cover a variety of workforce optimization features. Rakuten Communications has also adopted an agile approach to onboarding several of its internal business units into true-cloud, contact center-as-a-service,” noted Baidya. “With its augmented value proposition, partnerships, and deep experience, Rakuten Communications is expected to continue leading the Japanese contact center market in the long term.”

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Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has demonstrated excellence in implementing strategies that proactively create value for its customers, with a focus on improving the return on the investment that customers make in its services or products. The award recognizes the company’s unique focus on augmenting the value that its customers receive, beyond simply good customer service, leading to improved customer retention and customer base expansion.

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analyses, and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry.

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