50% Search Adoption and 37% Lower Bounce Rates: How NICE TV Cut Support Load While Scaling Fiber Migration

Shinkawa Information Center Co., Ltd. (NICE TV)

Telecommunications / Cable Television·1-500 employees·Customer Support

50% Search Adoption and 37% Lower Bounce Rates: How NICE TV Cut Support Load While Scaling Fiber Migration

At a glance

• Search utilization rate up from 43% to 50% in four months
• Bounce rate down from 43% to 37% in the same period
• Approximately 300 monthly phone inquiries, each requiring 30-60 minutes, targeted for self-service migration

The Challenge

Shinkawa Information Center (NICE TV) provides cable television and telecommunications services centered on Uozu City in Toyama Prefecture. In early 2022, the team faced a critical resource conflict: their highest operational priority was migrating all contracted customers to fiber optic services, a project demanding significant staff time. But phone support was consuming that time. Roughly 300 inquiries per month were coming in by phone, with each call requiring 30 minutes to an hour to resolve.

Many of these calls came from elderly customers asking about issues like "the TV isn't displaying a picture" or "the internet isn't connecting." In many cases, the fix was simple. For example, after equipment maintenance, modems often just needed to be unplugged and replugged. But customers called rather than troubleshooting themselves. The team estimated that roughly one-third of all inquiries could be handled via an FAQ site instead of tying up the phone lines.

At the time, the working assumption was to strengthen phone support itself by pulling in staff from other departments or hiring part-time help. But those were stopgap measures, and the fiber migration couldn't wait.

Why Helpfeel

When the team first heard about Helpfeel, the reaction was immediate: "There is nothing else out there like this." Two aspects stood out: the technology and the support.

On the technology side, Helpfeel's web directors and technical writers handled the initial construction of the FAQ site, meaning minimal effort required from the client. They also anticipated the kinds of words customers might search for and linked those terms to FAQ content to improve hit rates.

On the support side, having a dedicated customer success specialist and a team of experts provide ongoing guidance was seen as highly valuable. In particular, the monthly access analysis reports and continuous improvement proposals were a major draw.

The company had maintained an FAQ site previously, but it had been left largely untouched after initial creation. Even when looking at analytics data, staff had no idea what it meant or how to act on it. Knowing that an expert would walk them through the data and provide actionable guidance made the decision easy. The team was ready to adopt Helpfeel immediately.

What They Did

• Built FAQ content around photos and diagrams for intuitive understanding. For issues like the internet dropping after maintenance, the team created FAQ pages with actual photos of the equipment. Previously, staff would explain over the phone "find the modem and..." but customers often didn't know which device was the modem, leading to on-site visits. By using photos and diagrams, the team made information easy to understand at a glance.
• Minimized content creation burden through collaboration. When there was something to add, staff simply prepared the body text along with any photos or diagrams. The customer success team provided recommendations based on access analysis data, making the PDCA cycle move much faster than when the team managed everything alone.
• Maintained ongoing communication via Slack. Monthly meetings with Helpfeel's customer success team provided access analysis results and specific improvement proposals. In between meetings, Slack allowed flexible and timely responses to questions or consultations.

Results

The biggest change was gaining visibility into the customer's situation. Beyond operating and improving content based on identified search keywords, the team began tracking satisfaction-related metrics for the FAQ site and started to see results:

• Search utilization rate increased from 43% in April to 50% by August
• Bounce rate decreased from 43% in April to 37% by August

While inquiry volume reduction had not yet reached the target figure given the system had only recently been deployed, the team expressed confidence this would be achievable through continued incremental improvements.

"Understanding what customers are experiencing day-to-day is a major motivator. Being able to take advice, translate it into action, and see concrete outcomes through improvement is genuinely enjoyable."

Miha Fuchigami, Sales Division Chief

One particular insight stood out: the analytics revealed not only which search terms returned zero results, but also what words customers searched for on their second attempt after a failed first search. This uncovered keywords the team had never anticipated customers would use, enabling new content additions to address previously unmet needs.

Looking Ahead

The current goal is to increase the proportion of middle-aged and elderly customers who are able to resolve issues using the FAQ site. Because IT literacy varies significantly among this demographic, simply placing a link to the FAQ on the website will only reach a limited audience. The team is exploring a range of awareness-building tactics, such as including QR codes and URLs on physical mailings, to gradually increase FAQ utilization rates among this user group.

“Understanding what customers are experiencing day-to-day is a major motivator. Being able to take advice, translate it into action, and see concrete outcomes through improvement is genuinely enjoyable.”

— Miha Fuchigami, Sales Division Chief