Oji Nepia Revamps Customer Service with Generative AI for Skincare Market Entry, Turning 2,000+ Product Items into Digital Assets

Karakuri Inc. (Chuo-ku, Tokyo; CEO Shimon Oda) has provided its Generative AI-based customer management system, "KARAKURI CXM," to Oji Nepia Co., Ltd. (Chuo-ku, Tokyo; President Takayuki Moridaira). This initiative aims to design an AI-native customer support structure coinciding with Oji Nepia's entry into the skincare (soap) category. The system is designed to transform expert operator knowledge into organizational assets and automatically extract Voice of Customer (VOC) data for strategic business use.

Background: Moving Beyond Manuals and 2,000+ Data Rows As a long-standing manufacturer of household paper products, Oji Nepia manages complex data for over 2,000 items. Previously, the company relied heavily on the individual experience of veteran operators and handwritten manuals, making knowledge transfer difficult. With the skincare launch, the company decided to implement the KARAKURI series to better serve digital-savvy customers and leverage VOC.

Three-Step Implementation Roadmap

### STEP 1: Digital Channel Construction (March 2025–) The AI chatbot "GeN" was deployed on the skincare website, while "KARAKURI assist" was introduced to support operators. AI now assists in drafting responses for complex inquiries, reducing the time required from 30 minutes to 5–10 minutes and ensuring consistent quality.

### STEP 2: VOC Extraction from Voice Data (October 2025–) The "Voice Search" feature transcribes telephone inquiries in real-time. AI summarizes and categorizes logs to reveal deeper customer insights, such as brand loyalty and distribution requests, which were previously overlooked by standard classification methods. This data is now fed back into product development and distribution strategies.

### STEP 3: AI-Driven Quality Evaluation and Training (Planned for May 2026–) The company plans to use AI for real-time evaluation of operator performance. By generating automated feedback based on veteran benchmarks, Oji Nepia aims to establish a data-driven training cycle to ensure sustainable and high-quality customer service.

Quote from Oji Nepia Hiromi Fujisawa of the Customer Service Office stated: "Our goal is to improve customer experience and build a fan base. By turning expert knowledge into company assets and utilizing AI as a versatile 'new employee,' we aim to fulfill our mission of increasing the number of Nepia fans."