[Customers at Heart] LG US Captures the Hearts of Refund-Seeking Customers
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By News Reporter
In the third episode of the ‘Customers at Heart’ series, we take a look at how LG India created a customized care solution to innovate the customer experience.
LG India, a subsidiary of LG, is unique among its global counterparts as it independently manages sales, installation, repair and maintenance. Leveraging this autonomy, LG India has enhanced customer satisfaction and boosted sales through LG BEST Care, a service extending the warranty period of home appliances, including regular maintenance and cleaning.
Prior to LG BEST Care, LG India offered product care services under LG CareShip, which included routine visits and complimentary filter changes. However, a challenge was that 99% of customers only signed up for the service when they needed it, rather than at the point of purchase. This realization prompted efforts to improve customer engagement and revenue generation.
LG India aspires to conduct regular product inspections by experts to ensure that purchased products are in optimal condition, especially for customers who want to ensure peak product performance throughout the entire period of use. In order to do this, LG India came up with three key customer experience innovations.
The first looked to expand the range of customer choices, broadening the range of CareShip sales channels and products. The second aimed to improve customer impression services, where detailed plans were developed to differentiate the installation and repair experience. The last considered how to create an easy and convenient CareShip management system with customer convenience in mind.
To implement these new services, LG India analyzed data from its 50 million customers based on product type and usage period. This data-driven approach led to the expansion of sales channels and the creation of new care packages tailored to customer demand.
The company has also enriched the customer experience with discount promotions, a wider selection of choices and the introduction of LG SUPER Service – a unique local package offering superior service quality.
LG BEST Care further reflects customer needs by bringing ease and convenience to CareShip’s management system. Services are now automated with a systemized schedule for regular visits. In addition, LG India has increased the number of dedicated care professionals and uses Net Promoter Score to identify and address negative feedback on CareShip products.
These enhancements have yielded impressive results. The number of care products increased from three to ten types, offering a more diverse range of services. The rate of same-day installations and repairs has improved from 66.5 percent to 70.4 percent with SUPER Service. Consequently, LG BEST Care has experienced rapid growth in both customer base and revenue. LG India aims to continue this momentum into 2024 by setting regional monthly goals.
Stay tuned for the next episode of ‘Customers at Heart,’ where we’ll visit another global LG office to discover more innovative customer experience strategies.
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By News Reporter
Company Reinforces Industry Leadership With
Summit for Technical Consultants From Across Asia
SEOUL, May 30, 2024 — LG Electronics (LG) is currently hosting the inaugural LG HVAC Consultant Leaders’ Summit – LG Alumni Event – in Seoul, South Korea (May 28-31). The summit provides heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) consultants from across Asia with the valuable opportunity to benefit from LG’s extensive industry insight and to learn more about its advanced technologies. The first-of-its-kind event is expected to bolster the company’s leadership in the Asia region, which is now the world’s most rapidly-expanding HVAC market.
Attending the summit were 46 consultants from five Asian countries: Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam. Technical consultants play a vital role in the HVAC business, supporting customers in important areas including system design, installation guidance and maintenance support. By collaborating closely with consultants in each market, LG is able to provide a differentiated customer experience that adds significant value to its industry-leading HVAC solutions.
With its high-growth potential, Asia has emerged as a key market for the expansion of LG’s HVAC business. Driven by an increase in commercial construction and stricter government energy-saving policies, the region is experiencing escalating demand for smart HVAC systems offering integrated IoT control, building automation and real-time performance monitoring. A respected provider of high-efficiency residential and commercial HVAC solutions based on innovative heat pump technology, LG is working with universities and research institutes to develop the next generation of cutting-edge heat pump systems.
In 2023, LG announced its plan to more than double the sales volume of its residential and commercial HVAC business by 2030 – an ambitious goal that will secure the company’s position as a global top-tier HVAC solutions provider.
Through a series of engaging seminars being led by industry experts, the consultants participating in the LG HVAC Consultant Leaders’ Summit – LG Alumni Event will come away with new insight into the trends and technologies shaping the HVAC landscape in Asia and worldwide. Key topics include zero-carbon buildings and HVAC in the era of Artificial Intelligence.
With Asia as the starting point, LG aims to strategically expand its consultant network around the globe, extending its outreach efforts to regions with high-growth potential, such as Central and South America.
“It’s a pleasure to be sharing our cutting-edge technologies and industry insights with professional HVAC consultants from some of Asia’s most dynamic markets,” said James Lee, head of the Air Solution Business Unit at LG Electronics Home Appliance & Air Solution Company. “We will continue to collaborate closely with our consultant network to ensure the best customer outcomes and to grow our influence throughout the Asia region.”
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By News Reporter
In the first episode of the ‘Customers at Heart’ series, we take a closer look at how HiTeleservice – LG’s dedicated customer service subsidiary – is enhancing the customer experience through improved customer service around the world.
In the cutthroat world of business, having a great product isn’t enough. Companies need to excel in distribution, marketing and innovation to stay ahead. But even with all that, poor customer service can destroy a brand’s reputation and the loyalty it took years to build.
LG knows this well and is stepping up its game in customer service on a global scale. The goal is to create a standout customer experience by applying its proven customer care expertise from home to abroad.
This year marks the start of a new chapter, with HiTeleservice – LG’s customer service arm – setting up a robust support system to help boost the performance of LG’s service centers worldwide. HiTeleservice’s expert Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) will take the lead, sharing their knowledge and skills in customer service practices, talent development and operational strategies internationally.
The plan is to iron out any differences in service quality that come from cultural and operational variances, aiming for consistently high service standards everywhere LG operates. With Customer Care Centers in over 40 countries, supporting more than 50 languages, LG is serious about providing top-notch support, whether online or offline.
HiTeleservice is now ready to roll out significant support after a thorough review of LG’s global customer service operations. The first step is to upgrade the skills of global CSRs with best practices in customer service, focusing on problem-solving from the customer’s viewpoint. They’ll also get access to English training materials from LG’s learning platform.
But it’s not just about a one-off training session. LG is building a system for ongoing CSR talent development and providing advice for running an efficient organization. This long-term strategy is all about keeping service standards high through continuous improvement.
Moreover, HiTeleservice will offer comprehensive training programs to its own CSRs, including language skills for better global communication and specialized training to hone their core competencies. The aim is to develop customer service pros capable of providing expert advice whenever and wherever they’re called for assistance overseas.
In accordance with its recent reinterpretation of AI as Affectionate Intelligence, LG believes that AI can be harnessed to foster more compassionate and understanding customer experiences. Consequently, the company is progressively incorporating AI into its customer service operations.
One such AI innovation is ‘Smile Plus,’ a customer service call system that uses AI to boost the speed and precision of CSR responses. It offers CSRs a comprehensive view of various customer data, including purchase, delivery, installation and service histories from all touchpoints, such as the website, LG ThinQ app and service call records.
Additionally, LG has devised and implemented an AI-driven feature, ‘STT/TA (Speech-to-Text/Text Analysis),’ which transcribes customers’ verbal expressions into text in real-time, eliminating superfluous tasks and averting miscommunication. STT/TA is also capable of understanding the context of the service call and proposing optimal solutions. Furthermore, LG intends to launch its ‘AI Voicebot,’ an autonomous service call solution presently in the development phase, within the year. This service is designed to handle straightforward inquiries during peak service call times or when calls are experiencing delays.
LG’s dedication to customer service goes beyond the Customer Care Center. It includes sales and repairs, spreading its high service standards across the globe. This involves sending experts to train staff on-site in other countries and hosting group training sessions for overseas personnel. Since 2011, LG has been sharing its successful Korean sales strategies with teams in the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia and Southeast Asia.
In essence, LG is not just selling products; it’s delivering an experience. And with this new initiative, it’s committed to offering each customer, regardless of their location, an unparalleled level of service.
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By News Reporter
Milan Design Week, the world’s largest and most well-known design and furniture fair, is a mecca for the aesthetically-inclined. At this year’s event, the biennially-held EuroCucina exhibition put the spotlight on the latest trends in kitchen appliances and furnishings, with many of the industry’s major players taking part. A regular at Milan Design Week, LG delivered a stunning showcase of premium built-in kitchen appliances at a booth designed by GamFratesi, the acclaimed architecture and design studio co-founded by Italian Enrico Fratesi and Denmark’s Stine Gam.
To highlight both the ultra-premium Signature Kitchen Suite and LG’s built-in appliance lineups, the diverse range of built-in products on display clearly reflected the company’s dedication to promoting an inspired culinary lifestyle centered around the joy of sharing and savoring quality food.
“One particularly memorable episode during our collaboration with LG was the differentiation strategy for Signature Kitchen Suite and LG built-in appliances,” said GamFratesi. “This differentiation strategy was well reflected in the booth design.”
The coming together of Signature Kitchen Suite’s True to Food philosophy – founded on the importance of preserving the original flavors of fresh ingredients – and GamFratesi’s design ethos revealed a new vision for kitchen design. LG’s emphasis on quality natural ingredients was echoed by the natural materials and design elements incorporated into the exhibition booth itself, which also reflected the impact of environment and culture on different cuisine traditions. GamFratesi’s subtle use of wood and stone accentuated the beauty of the natural world while simultaneously drawing attention to the connection we form with the planet when cooking and consuming real food.
“The key points to pay attention to are the design of each island and the materials used,” noted GamFratesi. “Each island represents an independent piece of furniture that reflects our design aesthetic.”
Within the booth’s Signature Kitchen Suite zones, GamFratesi complemented the built-in brand’s gorgeous kitchen appliances with natural materials and finishings. Each display kitchen represented a seamless harmony of appliances, cabinetry, counters and décor, highlighting the transformative power of design to create special sanctuaries that celebrate authentic cooking and nature’s beauty.
Evocative, entertaining, yet entirely elegant, the Signature Kitchen Suite wine cellar zone made a lasting impression on visitors to LG’s booth. Here, GamFratesi drew inspiration from the wine-maturation process to craft a calm, almost-meditative space with a ‘cave-like’ sense of depth and a rich, atmospheric mood.
Although the synergy between LG’s built-in appliances and GamFratesi’s kitchen designs is undeniable, the process of smoothly integrating the two for the Milan Design Week showcase was not without challenges. However, through the thoughtful and purposeful placement of appliances with distinct functionalities, and via the introduction of LG’s panel-ready concept, the two innovative companies achieved the ultimate union of form and function. The results, as one can see from the images, speak for themselves.
Through the unprecedented fusion of design, technology and space, the compelling collaboration between LG and GamFratesi presented a new kind of value and a refined kitchen lifestyle. As demonstrated at Milan Design Week, and at other major exhibitions around the world, LG is committed to partnering with like-minded innovators who share its passion for pushing boundaries and elevating everyday life.
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By News Reporter
For consumers, it’s the ‘experience’ that counts.
link hidden, please login to view, 73 percent of all customers place experience near the top of their checklist when making purchasing decisions, following only price and product quality in order of importance. LG, a company that strives to ensure that ‘Life’s Good’ for all, has prioritized the art of providing F.U.N. – first, unique and new – core values for customers.
To successfully deliver the types of experiences that customers desire, LG first had to make sure that all parts of the organization were aligned and properly equipped for the task at hand. In 2024, new CX performance management system is applied to the entire executive organization structure – not just Korean executives at the company’s headquarters but global executives and employees in charge of sales, manufacturing and management – with a view to adding CX to other crucial measurements of overall business performance, such as sales and operating profit.
The data from the CX indicator is analyzed to assess the various teams involved and to instill a ‘customer-first’ mindset throughout the entire company. The definition of ‘customer’ in this equation is not limited to end-users, but includes business partners and relevant internal departments as well.
The company made meaningful changes by promoting various customer value innovation activities. However, it was identified that a process was needed to properly evaluate business performance as well as reward the achievement of increased levels of customer satisfaction.
Accordingly, starting from this year, all LG Electronics executives will be evaluated based on the level of customer satisfaction within the organizations under their purview, and also on whether or not they have achieved their allotted tasks. Customer satisfaction is graded based on LG’s in-house-developed measurement tool, which quantifies the satisfaction level of LG customers during each stage of the customer experience journey.
Now, each organization is charged with the mission of determining how it will go about innovating target customers’ experiences. In this way, each unit or team can give in-depth consideration to the important question of “What constitutes a differentiated experience from the customers’ perspective?” and then gauge whether or not a specific CX innovation can be realized.
For teams that don’t work directly with customers, CX tasks can include identifying the relevant customer groups, such as internal departments or suppliers, for a certain aspect or piece of organizational work, and generating appropriate and actionable innovation activities to drive meaningful results. LG strongly believes that customer value innovation is not just the domain of ‘management’ or select customer-facing teams. Rather, it takes a whole company working together to consistently create it, with each person adopting a ‘customer-first’ mindset and seeking to view all pertinent matters from the customer’s perspective.
This belief reflects LG CEO William Cho’s management philosophy, which states that the start and end of all innovation is the customer. Since taking charge of the company at the end of 2021, CEO Cho has continuously emphasized how accelerating customer experience innovation plays a critical role in improving customers’ lives. As a result of his astute direction, and as underscored by LG’s ‘Future Vision 2030’ document and recent brand reinvention, the company is actively expanding its CX innovation initiatives.
To boost the innovation of customer experience, the company has launched a company-wide project calling on all employees to ‘meet’ with customers directly to ‘hear’ their honest feedback and concerns in order to ‘empathize’ with them. As a part of this internal project that focuses on LG’s commitment to advancing CX, executives partook in an ‘on-site’ experience program designed to ensure the implementation of customer-centric management practices and policies. Last year alone, more than 280 LG executives from the Korean headquarters visited key offline sites to see firsthand a broad range of customer contact points and associated activities, including product purchase, phone consultation, rental, delivery and after-service care.
Many of these executives even visited Hi-Tele Service, an LG subsidiary that provides remote customer service. While there, the executives had the valuable opportunity to hear feedback direct from LG customers – giving them insight into how and where the CX might be further improved and refined.
On top of these activities, in order to ‘hear’ from customers, LG hosted seminars where employees could share CX innovation cases as well as programs where they could directly listen to customers’ stories. And, to boost ‘empathy’ for customers, the company is carrying out company-wide activities that enable employees to set their own customer and determine the value they can provide to these customers.
Customer value innovation is not just a task for management or teams that work directly with customers. It is the job of everyone at LG to make meaningful changes by rethinking and differentiating everything the company does from the customer’s perspective.
LG is committed to providing differentiated customer value. The company will continue to pursue a customer-centric way of working – one that is based on a detailed understanding of and empathy for its customers.
Not limited to HQ, our system of actively meeting, hearing and empathizing with customers is being put into place in LG offices around the world. In a dedicated series on , we will introduce how various LG teams and subsidiaries are making changes to reinvent CX, so stay tuned.
By Kang Je-nam, director of Customer Value Innovation Division at LG Electronics
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