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5Digitization—the process of visualiz-ing what’s truly neededpositive, with 90% of respondents selecting ‘satisfied’ in a user satisfaction survey conducted in November 2022. The reason for this positive evaluation is that the system lets users search for and obtain the resource materials they want, even if different keywords are used. This is because the engineering team imple-mented AI to tag technical terms to improve searchability. The system has been well received by customers, and immediately answers queries such as ‘What does this mean?’ which occur during the sales of hearing aids.On the other hand, some were con-cerned that people might feel uneasy about manufacturers directly handling their personal information. However, the team has been able to win their understanding by explaining the pur-pose of the Rionet Circle, which is to create a new customer experience for those who need a hearing aid. They also conveyed that building a loyal customer base would make it more likely for cus-tomers to become repeat customers of retailers.“The Rionet Circle is a prime exam-ple of the ultimate inside sales method (an approach to develop loyal customers by providing various services online without face-to-face meetings),” says Okuda. “Rion has been typically pro-viding more supportive and reliable ser-vices compared to other manufacturers, based on our emphasis on field sales. In the future, when the inside sales meth-od meshes with our conventional field sales strategy successfully and the sales department can work as one in promo-tional activities, I believe we will become a stronger organiza tion.”The customer database is the building block of the Rionet Circle. A large database that integrates Rion’s customer information with informa-tion shared by retailers and healthcare professionals will be compiled to form more individualized and detailed data, allowing the Rionet Circle to evolve into a service that can cater to the needs of individual customers. Yoshihiro Okawa of the IT Promotion Section is respon-sible for the design and management of the entire system, including database manage ment.When he first heard about the Rio-net Circle, Okawa was a little apprehen-sive about the future of the project. At the time, terms such as DX (digital transformation) were being paraded about, and the IT Promotion Section was often approached with requests with vague purposes to accumulate data and do something with it. Howev-er, the more he asked about the project, the more he found that the new project, the Rionet Circle, was not one of those.“The most time-consuming part of the project was the requirements defini-tion stage, where we identified the func-tions that needed to be implemented in the system and how they would be used,” notes Okawa on recollecting the time. He continued, “Because the Rio-net Circle was a concept involving the handling of extremely large-scale and voluminous data, I, as the system spe-cialist, had to scrutinize each and every function to see if it was really feasible, efficient, and would produce the desired effect. However, because the project team had already gone through a great deal of discussions on such matters up to this point, some of them must have felt a degree of irritation at having to scrutinize things right from the begin-ning again despite already deciding on them before. However, I wanted to ensure that everyone in the company had a clear and shared understanding of what IT was capable of. That’s how we felt, and that’s what drove our actions.”The work of the IT Promotion Sec-tion involves more than just the ardu-ous task of programming. The work of digitizing the ideas of the project team is basically a process of explicitly identi-fying what data were truly necessary and what services were needed.The construction of the Rionet Cir-cle system was also a major challenge for the IT Promotion Section. It was the first time for them to build a system within a cloud service, and one that required such special security and that would be used by an unspecified num-ber of external users. They were only a four-person team, two of whom were relatively young, and concern was expressed about insufficient resources and skills.“Despite our concerns, we gained the necessary new know-how,” says Okawa. “Fortunately, the two younger members of the team developed their skills at an amazing pace. The construc-tion of the system, including the data-base, is still in its early stage. We intend to respond to users demand in a timely manner.”The process to be formulated by the Rionet CircleThe Rionet Circle visualizes the customer behavior and emotional transformation to be set in motion. User concerns will be addressed by the Rionet Circle in collaboration with retail staff and healthcare professionals. Wherever a customer touchpoint event occurs, the Rionet Circle will be there to support the hearing aid user, the retailer, and the healthcare professional.Commercials and catalogsFirst, let’s test your hearing to see if a hearing aid can help!The portal site is great! I can be confident with my sales!There’s a store near you. Do you want to make an appointment?Yoshihiro OkawaIT Promotion Section, Planning Department, Corporate Planning Division. He joined Rion in 1996 and headed sales of particle count­ers in the Particle Counter Sales Department for six years. He was assigned to the IT Pro­motion Section in 2002, where he has been for past 21 years, and currently serves as its manager responsible for providing IT solu­tions not only for system development but also for in­house infrastructure and mis­sion­critical systems.Hearing loss has nothing to do with me.I thought it had nothing to do with me...What the Rionet Circle can do:Communicating that hearing loss is a common problemAwareness of the issue (awareness of hearing loss)Follow-up through brand sites, membership sites, and contact centerLet people get acquainted with hearing aids.Becoming aware of hearing loss and visiting an otolaryngologist or a retailerDirectly making an appointment with a storeReferrals from otolaryngologists to retailersTransforming prospective customers into actual customersAn approach to persuading them to purchase hearing aidsThe more I find out, the less anxious I become!IndifferencePurchase