Documentary
Overcoming the Corona Disaster
In 2020, how did the spread of the new coronavirus affect service engineers, whose work is based on visiting customers' facilities, and how did they overcome the crisis. We will introduce the front line of service.
Nozomu Namiki
Shizuoka Office
Just by showing their faces, many staff members in hospital laboratories feel at ease. There is a service engineer for medical equipment who enjoys such a high level of trust. Nozomu Namiki is an engineer at the Shizuoka Office. Since he was a young man, he has built a relationship of trust with his customers through two-way communication by making "voluntary rounds" to cover the gaps that occur between maintenance and inspections. However, the Corona disaster that began in 2020 has distanced people everywhere in the world and deprived them of communication. How did Namiki overcome this crisis and what did he gain? We will introduce the trajectory of the project.
In the spring of 2007, a new employee joined Hitachi High-Tech Fielding Corporation. Nozomu Namiki graduated from a university in Tokyo with a bachelor's degree in science and engineering. During his university days, Namiki was interested in medical equipment and worked on a cardiac catheter that utilized magnetism. In December of that year, he took his first steps as a service engineer at the Chubu branch in Nagoya.
Namiki studied at the university in the Department of Science and Engineering, which specializes in precision machinery. Many of his classmates wanted to work in the design and development departments of manufacturers, but Namiki chose to become a service engineer, a job related to medical equipment in which he would be responsible for on-site maintenance, rather than design. There is a reason why he chose to become a service engineer. Rather than staying inside the company, he wanted to work outside the company, meet the people who actually use the equipment, and help the medical community while communicating with those who use it. But that was not the only reason.
“I'm very shy. I wanted to change my personality. I wanted to be able to talk with people rather than just talk to them.”
My work at the Chubu Branch began with learning the business by following my seniors. At first, he was occupied with his own role. Moreover, he was shy and was not very good at conversing with people he had never met before. When I went to a customer for maintenance and inspection with my seniors, I had no time at all to talk with them beyond telling them what was necessary.
It was in his second year with the company that an event occurred that would have a major impact on Namiki's later life as a service engineer. It all started when a senior service engineer received a call from a hospital that had just completed a maintenance inspection the day before. The hospital had just completed a maintenance check the day before. "There was a problem with the automatic analyzer you looked at yesterday, so I'd like you to come." It was a matter that needed to be handled quickly, but the service engineer who had been in charge of the inspection the day before was unable to respond, so Namiki was sent alone to fix the problem instead.
When I arrived at the hospital laboratory to begin the recovery process, I heard a hospital staff member who was watching me blurted out to a colleague who was standing nearby.
"This equipment was inspected yesterday, right?"
The moment Namiki heard this, he was shocked beyond description. The hospital staff's words may have been meant as an accusation: "We just inspected it yesterday, and now it's already in trouble?" However, what shocked Namiki even more was the fact that the maintenance and inspection that he had spent several hours on only one day before might have turned out to be something that the customer "would not remember whether or not he had done." Namiki says that even now, more than 10 years later, he still remembers this moment and sometimes has flashbacks to it.
From that day on, Namiki began to seriously consider what he could do to ensure that he would never again be told at a customer's site, "You did the inspection, didn't you?" Even though his knowledge and skills were still in their infancy, there must be something he could do. After pondering this thought, Namiki arrived at the answer: "Cleaning".
He said, "Medical devices often become contaminated with blood, so if they are clean after an inspection, you can tell the difference just by looking at them, right? So anyway, if you make the equipment sparkling clean, at least they won't say, 'You inspected it, didn't you?'"
He laughs now, but Namiki put his idea into action. From that time on, it became a routine for Namiki to polish the outside of the equipment to a "sparkling clean" finish after inspections or repairs. Even if the outside of the equipment is a little dirty, it does not affect the accuracy or results of inspections. Even so, Namiki insisted on keeping the equipment "shiny and clean. Gradually, Namiki's efforts caught the attention of the client's technicians. They began to say things like, "I can't believe you cleaned up so well," and "I'm sorry, but it's our job to clean up, thank you.
About a year passed, and Namiki was transferred from Nagoya to the then Kanazawa office. Just before his transfer, his boss surprised him with a small gift. It was a handy tool for cleaning the area around the equipment. Somehow, his boss had heard that Namiki had been cleaning the area he visited. Using a kitchen scrubber with a detergent tank attached, Namiki continues to polish the equipment to a "sparkling clean" every time he visits a customer's site.
At the Kanazawa office, Mr. Namiki has started a new job that is now positioned as the core of his work. This is "voluntary patrols." In general, most engineers whose main job is maintenance and inspection visit customers and perform necessary work in accordance with regular inspections and maintenance plans. Namiki's voluntary patrols are not part of a set inspection schedule or response to repair requests, but rather a visit to a client on an "ordinary day," so to speak, to check the operation of the equipment and, if there are no abnormalities, often end with a chat with the laboratory staff.
In fact, the voluntary patrol was an activity that the supervisor of the Kanazawa sub-branch had continued since his previous assignment. There were only two people at the Kanazawa Sub-branch: the supervisor and Namiki. He thought that because it was a small branch office, it was necessary to take action on its own , and at his suggestion, Namiki decided to start his own patrols as well. During his time at the Chubu branch, he often visited clients together with his seniors and did not have many opportunities to have one-on-one conversations with clients. However, that was not the case in Kanazawa. It was literally time for him to "go it alone."
I started doing voluntary patrols by myself, but when I visited clients, I didn't know what to talk about. For now, I run the equipment and try to find something to talk about, but most of the time I can't find any problems to talk about. "I'm fine, he says. Do you have any problems?" and when they responded, "No," that was sometimes the end of the conversation.
Nevertheless, as he continued, Namiki began to feel a change in himself. As he saw the same customers over and over again, little by little, he began to carry on conversations with them naturally. In April 2013, when he was transferred to the Shizuoka Service Center, where he still works today, Namiki became accustomed to making his own rounds and began to appreciate the importance and pleasure of communicating with customers.
Shizuoka General Hospital, located in Shizuoka City, is a core medical facility in Shizuoka Prefecture with over 30 departments and 718 beds. Shortly before Namiki was assigned to Shizuoka, two Hitachi High-Tech automatic analyzers were installed in the laboratory of this hospital.
"My first impression when Mr. Namiki first arrived was that he was young, since his predecessor was a veteran. He was about the same age as me, and I thought he seemed easy to talk to."
So says Daiki Murakoshi, a clinical technologist in charge of the biochemistry and immunology department in the laboratory. He has been seeing Namiki every month for more than 10 years, and is one of the customers with whom he has a close relationship. At this hospital, maintenance personnel visit the laboratory only when there are maintenance inspections or problems. Most of the conversations are also focused on reporting the results of inspections and repairs. However,, Namiki is different. In addition to the maintenance inspections conducted three times a year, he also made a voluntary round of visits to the laboartory once a month to meet with Mr. Murakoshi and his staff and talk about various topics.
Equipment problems are not limited to those that can be clearly identified as abnormal. Even if there is a slight feeling of discomfort, such as "I think I hear an unusual sound," or "The nozzle may be slightly bent," few customers would immediately call the support center if the equipment is working and there are no deficiencies in the data. Furthermore, such a small discomfort will not be immediately recalled when asked later, "Did you notice anything that bothered you?"
Namiki carefully picked up on such discomfort through casual conversations during his voluntary patrols, and nipped any buds that might lead to major problems in the bud in advance. Not only did Namiki receive information from the client, but he also proactively expressed his concerns. Because of this two-way communication, Murakoshi and his staff came to accept Namiki's work and suggestions with satisfaction, and came to trust and entrust him with their work.
"Even if we felt something was wrong, it was difficult for us to decide whether we should fix it right away or wait until the maintenance inspection. It was very helpful that Mr. Namiki came to visit us on his rounds and we could ask him right away. During inspections, if there is a part that is deteriorating quickly, he will tell us that it will be replaced next time, making it easier to prepare for the next inspection and to predict how much time will be needed. Above all, I have a strong sense that they are taking a good look at my car because they are communicating with me, which gives me peace of mind."
There was another reason Mr. Murakoshi came to trust Namiki. Namiki's "sparkling clean" cleaning, which he has continued to do since his days in Nagoya, is another reason why Mr. Murakoshi has come to place his trust in Namiki. "When I first saw him do this, I was surprised," says Murakoshi, but the way he cleaned up after each visit made me feel that Namiki was "a man who cared about machines."
"I'm sure you've done it before, but it doesn't affect the data. It's probably something that doesn't really need to be done, but they always make it shiny and clean. That kind of thing is important for trust, isn't it?"
In 2020, Namiki, which had developed a trusting relationship with its clients through voluntary patrol communication, faced a challenge. The spread of a new type of coronavirus infection: the first infected person was confirmed in Wuhan, China in December 2019, and the new type of coronavirus began to rage in Japan as the year drew to a close. To stop the rapid spread of infection, a state of emergency was declared in Tokyo and seven other prefectures on April 7, 2020, and nationwide, including Shizuoka Prefecture on April 16, 2020, bringing social life to a halt everywhere. Hitachi High-Tech Fielding Corporation instructed employees visiting customers to take thorough measures to prevent infection, such as having no concentrated contact with infected persons for the past two weeks, having a body temperature of 37.5 degrees Celsius or lower with no physical illness, and wearing masks, gloves, and safety glasses. On April 28, after the state of emergency was declared, the company also asked clients to "temporarily suspend or postpone" meetings and work as much as possible.
At that time, medical institutions were extremely confused in their response to the new corona. But of course, they could not stop their testing equipment. Many hospitals in Shizuoka Prefecture continued to perform routine maintenance inspections and repairs to their equipment while taking infection control measures, but at the same time, they were naturally forbidden from making non-urgent visits. This meant that Namiki would no longer be able to make the voluntary rounds he had continued to make.
The first thing Namiki felt after the voluntary patrols stopped was "anxiety." When the means of conversation changed from face-to-face to telephone or online meetings, he was immediately troubled by the difficulty of communication. It was difficult to read the other party's facial expression because they were wearing a mask, and the atmosphere of the inspection site could not be conveyed over the line. The conversation became more efficient, taking into account the other party's situation, and there were no more "blank spaces" in the conversation. It was because of this blank space that Namiki was able to pick up on small problems during his voluntary patrols. If you decide to "talk about something," the conversation will end with that topic. In casual conversation, "Come to think of it.” there will be no chance to talk about small feelings of discomfort, and we may miss the signs of trouble that we have been able to catch up to this point. I was struck with this kind of anxiety.
The same was true for the hospital, which felt uneasy about the loss of voluntary patrols. Although Namiki would come to the hospital when needed, the absence of a period of time inevitably led to the accumulation of minor problems and questions. Mr. Murakoshi recalls that, although he spoke with Namiki frequently by phone, "there were times when I thought it would be safer if he came." On the other hand, it could be said that their mutual uneasiness was a result of the two-way communication they had built up over the years. Although the inability to go on patrol gave Namiki more physical time to spare, it did not make him feel mentally at ease.
The lack of communication about the Corona disaster and the resulting anxiety made Namiki feel once again the importance of voluntary patrols. Despite his anxiety, however, Namiki was able to sense what was going on in the laboratories by the slightest difference in tone of voice or tone of speech, even over the phone, and the laboratory technologists at the hospital were able to call Namiki directly to discuss any concerns they had. It was also the relationships with customers that he had built through his voluntary patrols that helped him overcome his anxiety.
Furthermore, in order to prevent a decline in customer satisfaction due to a decrease in opportunities for voluntary patrols, Namiki decided to conduct research on improving customer service through the use of service science in an in-house small group activity called "ACT Plus 1." Service science is a method of perceiving and analyzing invisible services using a scientific and logical approach. As the leader of the activity, Namiki broke down and analyzed the services provided by service engineers in detail, found points that customers expected and needed to work on, and modeled the process to realize these expectations. He then modeled the process of realizing them. He then put this into practice in the field to improve customer satisfaction.
Customer questionnaires are used to analyze the current situation. While there are a number of indicators to measure customer satisfaction, such as prior confirmation during work, product comprehension, and due date management, we noted that the medical-related customers under the jurisdiction of the Shizuoka Service Center tended to emphasize the manner of service technicians. By improving communication within the service process model, with an emphasis on politeness, greetings, and language, the company was able to improve its ratings in a customer survey the following year. For Namiki, it was a great achievement to visualize the flow of customer service, which had been worked on empirically, as a model. Furthermore, the results of the project proved that improved communication also improves the customer's evaluation of , and he could feel a positive response to what he had been doing so far.
Now that he has resumed his voluntary patrols, it is more difficult to see facial expressions through his mask than before, but this has made him even more attentive to the words and attitudes of others and even more aware of the atmosphere of the workplace. The ability to read more than words, such as facial expressions and mood, may be said to be a communication skill that has been enhanced by the experience of the Corona disaster.
"We have not made a mistake in our commitment to communication."
After the various experiences of the Corona disaster, Namiki now realizes this once again. That is why he states that his goal going forward is "not to change." He has probably gained confidence that continuing to conduct voluntary patrols with an emphasis on communication will lead to customer trust.
Mr. Murakoshi of the General Hospital also hopes that Namiki will "stay the same." More than 10 years had passed since the automatic analyzers that Namiki had installed shortly before he arrived in Shizuoka, and the time had come for them to be updated. In selecting a successor, Murakoshi and his colleagues had no hesitation in choosing a Hitachi High-Tech device. They chose Hitachi High-Tech not only for the performance of the equipment itself, but also for the generosity of its maintenance services, including Namiki's voluntary patrols.
"The current equipment is about 13 years old, but it still works without any data degradation. I think the reason it has lasted this long is because we have had Mr. Namiki take good care of it. We are confident that the new equipment that Hitachi will be installing in the future will continue to be taken care of in the same way as before. I have high expectations for that."
Namiki has an image of the service engineer he envisions beyond "not changing." A service engineer who is close to the customer, capable of performing maintenance, proposing equipment upgrades, and proposing improvements to customer problems.
"For example, when you have your car inspected at a dealership, it is the sales person who talks to the user of the car, and the person who does the maintenance only does the maintenance. The user and the person who does maintenance rarely talk to each other. I just don't want to be the person who just does maintenance."
In addition to having solid maintenance skills, the company also works to understand the wishes of its customers and respond to them. For Namiki, the means to achieve this were self-guided tours and communication. For Namiki now, the purpose of his voluntary patrols is not to look at equipment. Rather, the essence of the tour lies in conversation and communication.
"I want to have a proper two-way conversation, not one-way communication. That is my ideal. I think I am doing that now. Even if I have to move to another office in the future, I would like to communicate with them again from the beginning, be trusted by them, and deliver services that satisfy customers. That is what I want to do."
Aiming to be a service engineer who is closer to the customer than anyone else. Today, Namiki continues to visit and communicate with customers with a smile.
