Phone Inquiries Drop as Online Accounts Grow: How Kirayaka Bank Scaled Digital Banking Without Scaling Support Staff

Kirayaka Bank, Ltd.

Banking·501-1,000 employees·Customer Support

Phone Inquiries Drop as Online Accounts Grow: How Kirayaka Bank Scaled Digital Banking Without Scaling Support Staff

At a glance

• Added 4,000 online accounts and ¥10B in deposits without increasing support capacity
• Lower total phone inquiries in March 2024 vs. March 2023, despite account growth
• 24/7 self-service outside business hours, evenings, and weekends for online customers
• 200-article FAQ continuously refined through monthly data-driven improvement cycles

The Challenge

Kirayaka Bank, a regional bank based in Yamagata Prefecture, planned a full relaunch of its online branch in August 2023 to serve customers nationwide. The bank would be making first contact online with people who had no prior awareness of the institution, promoting fully online account opening, net-exclusive high-interest products, and 24-hour internet banking primarily via web advertising.

The bank's call center and branch offices were handling approximately 2,400 phone inquiries per month from customers. The existing FAQ on the website had no system for tracking usage trends or making continuous improvements. As the industry workforce shrank (roughly 27,000 fewer bank employees nationwide over five years), Kirayaka needed a way to let online customers instantly access the information they needed at any time, without adding staff to handle the expected surge in inquiries from a growing nationwide customer base.

Why Helpfeel

The bank evaluated chatbots and other tools, but chose Helpfeel as their FAQ solution for three key reasons. First, existing article content could be reused immediately to get started without heavy rework. Second, Helpfeel keeps humans responsible for response accuracy, ensuring no AI-generated misinformation reaches customers. Third, the platform delivers monthly improvement proposals based on actual usage trends, making data-driven optimization straightforward.

Helpfeel's intent-prediction search was particularly valuable for banking inquiries, where the same concept is often called by different names (for example, "registered seal," "personal seal," and "hanko"), or where terms are used ambiguously. The search could surface relevant topics even when the input keyword didn't exactly match.

Confidence in the decision was reinforced by hearing directly from Sendai Bank, which belongs to the same group under Jimoto Holdings, that Helpfeel was being used broadly for deposit and loan inquiries and was delivering measurable results.

What They Did

• Launched Helpfeel in August 2023 alongside the nationwide online branch relaunch, starting with approximately 200 FAQ articles
• Spent the first six months intensively addressing no-hit cases, where a user's search keyword returned zero results, refining content quality through ongoing deletions and additions
• Implemented monthly improvements based on Helpfeel's data-driven analysis: total access counts, keywords with increased search volume, and specific recommendations
• Deployed the "Element" pop-up FAQ feature in strategic locations across the bank's website, including the top page, to intercept inquiries before customers reached the phone
• Used search history analysis to prioritize real customer needs, for example reordering one-time password articles to lead with device-change instructions after confirming with the call center that it was a common inquiry
• Built cross-departmental collaboration by sharing Helpfeel insights with other divisions, including requesting new articles from the Administrative Operations Section on high-volume topics like magnetic stripe defects in cash cards
• Coordinated a seasonal content strategy with Helpfeel, adjusting article prominence during high-inquiry periods such as October (when balance certificates for home loan deductions are mailed) and year-end before the new school year

Results

From the start of nationwide online account availability through May 2024, contracts grew by approximately 4,000 accounts and deposits exceeded ¥10 billion. Yet the weekday-only call center did not experience a backlog, and customers were not left waiting. The bank believes the vast majority of questions about online accounts are being resolved through Helpfeel, which is available at any time including evenings and weekends.

Comparing total phone inquiry volumes across all bank locations in March 2023 (before Helpfeel) and March 2024 (after Helpfeel), the 2024 figure was actually lower, despite the net increase in online account contracts.

Data-driven improvements yielded particularly strong results for customers using internet banking. For example, after analyzing search history and confirming with the call center, the team reprioritized one-time password articles to lead with device-change instructions rather than a general overview. When an article on recommended browsers was added and set to display prominently after the online branch relaunch, page views rose significantly, confirming the team was meeting a genuine customer need.

Helpfeel also deepened cross-departmental collaboration. Other departments began requesting that new content be added to the FAQ, and the Digital Sales Division used Helpfeel as a fast stopgap to publish answers for confusing website content before the main site could be updated through the standard approval process.

"Whereas a website update requires going through an approval process that typically takes two or three days, Helpfeel content can be updated almost immediately. The ability to instantly reflect the latest information, improvements, and corrections for customers is something we value very highly."

Tatsuya Kumazawa, General Manager, Digital Sales Division

Looking Ahead

Kirayaka Bank plans to continue enriching internet banking-related content, which represents the highest share of page views in Helpfeel today. The team will add more "Element" pop-up entry points at strategically effective locations on the bank's website to create an even smoother path to self-service resolution.

As the bank invests in infrastructure to strengthen information sharing between branches, the team is exploring the use of Helpfeel as an internal FAQ, drawing on examples from other companies that have deployed it for employee-facing knowledge management. The goal is to build an internal structure capable of providing fast, consistent responses from any touchpoint, using Helpfeel to deliver smooth online information during the transition period as the bank expands its dedicated online channels alongside traditional branch and phone service.

“Whereas a website update requires going through an approval process that typically takes two or three days, Helpfeel content can be updated almost immediately. The ability to instantly reflect the latest information, improvements, and corrections for customers is something we value very highly.”

— Tatsuya Kumazawa, General Manager, Digital Sales Division