Case Study｜The Bank of the Ryukyus

*This case study is also available on video.

Information dispersion was a barrier to improving operational efficiency.

-What is the nature of your company's business?

The Bank of the Ryukyus is a regional bank operating in Okinawa Prefecture. In addition to deposits and loans, the bank offers consulting services such as asset management, inheritance and business succession.

Under the motto of "long-lasting relationships," we place importance on building trusting relationships with our customers and maintaining long-term relationships with them, and many of our customers have been with us for a long time. As is characteristic of Okinawa, many of our clients are involved in businesses related to the tourism industry.

-How does a sales representative work?

We plan the visit in advance and go to the customer's place. After the visit, we log content of the conversation and the progress of the negotiation in CRM and update the case management. The frequency of the visits depends on the status of the negotiation, which may be several times a week if it is active, or once every few months otherwise.

-What were the challenges before the introduction of UPWARD?

Our bank also operates a card merchant business, and we have about 10,000 merchant customers in Okinawa Prefecture. We used to manage information such as the name of the customer's store, address, and when the contract was signed using Excel. This made it difficult to grasp and analyze the status of deals. As the staff at each store made their rounds, even if they found a sales target, they had to go back to the store to check whether another person was already in charge or whether there was a case that was in progress.

The key to efficiency is "map usability" UI and operability are decisive factors for introduction.

-What is the background of your introduction?

We were looking for a map function when we changed our CRM and came across UPWARD. We had been using maps in our previous CRM, but we wanted to visualize information on what kind of customers were where on a map to improve our sales efficiency. We looked at other companies' services, but UPWARD's UI was the easiest to see and understand, so we decided to implement it.

The field seeks efficiency by itself Changes and expectations brought about by data visualization

-How has it changed since you introduced UPWARD?

CRM data is mapped on UPWARD's map to visualize the customers we want to focus our sales efforts on. In sales for our own payment services, we can now see at a glance which stores are being approached and who is approaching whom, etc., enabling us to make more efficient outbound sales trips.

Also, the map used to only show the location of customers, but with the introduction of UPWARD, sales activities can now be visualized as well. This has been very good because salespeople are now asking, "Is it possible to visualize this kind of information on a map?" and are spontaneously starting to think of more efficient sales methods.

-What is the outlook for the future?

We have only been using UPWARD for a short time, but the UI is easy to use and the implementation was relatively smooth.

I have been in business as a business sales representative for a long time and have received quite a few inquiries about financing for apartments. We have information such as occupancy rates of the apartments we are currently dealing with and "how much is the rent and how old is the building" but we are not able to utilize such information, and I believe that by mapping such information on a map, for example, when a client asks for a consultation, if the information on surrounding properties is well visualized on the map, the loan decision will be made faster. We believe that by mapping such information on a map, for example, when a client consults with us, if the surrounding property information is clearly visualized on the map, financing decisions can be made faster.

We believe that there is still a lot of such information that is not being used effectively, and in the future, we would like to provide and utilize map information that is easier to use in the field, while incorporating the requests of our sales staff.

AI efficiently collects data that can only be obtained from the field

We also want to reduce the burden of information entry itself. For some time now, we have been burdened with the registration of negotiation details, and when we visit a number of customers, it is sometimes difficult to keep up with the registration, and the granularity of the details is uneven. Although it is still a trial, the UPWARD AI Speech function will allow us to automatically record and summarize the negotiation itself, which we expect will reduce the burden and improve the quality of the content. Our customers are not all large companies, so there is often no data on the web. This makes it important to actually meet with them and collect data, so we would like to work on improving our sales efficiency in this way.