1.4x Growth in One Year: Building an Internal FAQ to Scale 100+ Stores Without Adding Headquarters Staff

KOMEHYO Co., Ltd.

Retail / E-Commerce·1,001+ employees·Internal Helpdesk

1.4x Growth in One Year: Building an Internal FAQ to Scale 100+ Stores Without Adding Headquarters Staff

At a glance

• ~1,100 employees (including part-time staff) using the internal FAQ
• 25% of all FAQ views come from mobile devices, higher than typical internal FAQ usage
• 1.4x article growth in the first year, with reduced inquiry burden on headquarters

The Challenge

KOMEHYO opened more than 100 new brand resale stores in three years, with another 90 planned over the next three. That pace of growth turned information sharing into a bottleneck. Stores needed answers on everything from campaign transaction processing to paid leave policies, but the existing setup (shared folders organized by whoever happened to create them, with stale permissions and unreliable ownership) made it faster to just call headquarters.

The result: headquarters teams across multiple departments were fielding the same questions repeatedly. Worse, store staff who didn't know which department to call would phone whichever team they knew, requiring the person who answered to identify the right group and transfer the call. It wasted time on both sides of every interaction, and it pulled floor staff away from what mattered most: serving customers.

Why Helpfeel

The team concluded that trying to maintain folder structure rules and communicate which department handles which inquiry would require constant effort for limited payoff. A single unified self-service hub, a place you check first whether the question is about the shop floor or about HR, was seen as simpler and more sustainable.

Helpfeel was selected primarily for the quality of its ongoing support: monthly improvement recommendations based on actual usage data. The simplicity of the interface for both searching and creating content was also noted as a meaningful factor.

What They Did

• Launched the internal FAQ in May 2023, just one month after the adoption decision, seeding it with approximately 100 articles created from informal Q&A notes Tsuruta had been maintaining for EC-related inquiries
• Announced the FAQ to all staff via company-wide chat, making it accessible to approximately 1,100 employees (including part-time staff) via company-issued PCs and smartphones
• Expanded monthly review meetings from April 2024 to include representatives from multiple headquarters departments beyond the core team, working toward a truly company-wide unified hub
• Enabled part-time staff without individual employee accounts to access the FAQ via a shared account, ensuring universal first-stop coverage

Results

Article count grew to 1.4x the initial launch volume within approximately one year, with content expanding to cover a broader range of topics. The system now provides at least one relevant answer for the vast majority of keywords that are actually searched.

Headquarters departments have begun to notice a reduction in the burden of repetitive inquiries, and are proactively requesting that new topics be added. For example, during a recent sale period, the marketing department requested an article on coupon handling procedures, which was added and confirmed to be actively accessed by store staff during the campaign.

25% of all views come from mobile devices, notably higher than the typical rate for internal FAQs. This suggests that store floor staff are actively consulting the FAQ on their phones mid-shift without interrupting their workflow.

"Helpfeel's Customer Success explanations stand out for their clarity and relevance compared to other vendor CS interactions. They align recommendations to KOMEHYO's specific challenges rather than simply reporting usage metrics."

Ryuji Tsuruta, Retail Division, Online Business Department / Sales HQ, Sales Planning Division, Customer Success Department

Looking Ahead

The FAQ is accessible to all employees including part-time staff via a shared account. For topics that should be restricted to full-time employees or management, the approach will be to link to those resources and manage access permissions at the destination, rather than excluding the FAQ entry entirely. This way, the internal FAQ can serve as a universal first stop for every employee across the organization.

Usage is growing steadily, but data indicators suggest significant room for further penetration. Part-time staff in particular, who have higher turnover and frequent onboarding needs, may not yet be fully aware the FAQ exists. The team is exploring incorporating Helpfeel into new employee orientations so that the habit of "checking the FAQ first" is established from day one.

The goal remains giving every store the tools to resolve questions on their own, so that staff can spend more of their time doing what matters most: serving customers on the floor.

“Helpfeel's Customer Success explanations stand out for their clarity and relevance compared to other vendor CS interactions. They align recommendations to KOMEHYO's specific challenges rather than simply reporting usage metrics.”

— Ryuji Tsuruta, Retail Division, Online Business Department / Sales HQ, Sales Planning Division, Customer Success Department