The Daiwa Securities Group will create a strong, lasting relationship of trust with its customers by offering high value-added services.

  As the shift from saving to investing accelerates, customer needs are also diversifying. Our vision for the Daiwa Securities Group is to create a team of professionals who grasp customers' needs appropriately and offer new services. Above all, we wish to respond to the trust our customers place in us by fielding staff who are sincere about putting customers first and who have acquired the specialized knowledge enabling them to do so. In this way, we aim to make customers feel truly welcome and pleased that they chose Daiwa Securities.

  After-sales follow up is important for building trust among customers. At Daiwa Securities we stress the importance of this point during sales staff and branch staff training. We follow up with customers through monthly investment seminars and other activities at our branches. Additionally, in response to numerous customer inquiries, we have been holding seminars focusing on emerging markets since February 2008. To improve customer convenience, we also revised our website in April and September 2007.

  As part of our activities to enhance employee education, we created a new Education and Training Department by amalgamating the Personnel Department's Training Section and the Branch Education Support Department's Education Promotion Section. This enables us to oversee employee training in a consistent manner. We have also actively adopted training involving role-playing, to add an element of more practical training to our usual training program for young sales staff. We now provide more opportunities for new employees to acquire specialized product knowledge during the three month-long group training stage for new employees, by assigning specialist instructors and also trainers from the departments in charge of our various products.

Our Call Center is one of the main channels supporting our business model which centers on the Daiwa Consulting and Daiwa Direct transaction channels. Staffed by 450 telephone service representatives (TSR*), it is the largest in the domestic industry. TSR at the Call Center take orders, describe products and handle queries about clerical procedures or requests for sales literature, playing an important role as a transaction channel in customer support and for marketing as they provide customer feedback to help improve our operations. TSR training and regular checks of customer service skills help ensure consistently high levels of service to our customers. When problems occur, we make sure to analyze data for the cause in each case and communicate the results and provide feedback to the related departments and sales branches, in order to further improve our service and customer handling.

* TSR (telephone service representatives): telephone operators with specialized knowledge.

■How Customer Feedback Is Utilized

  We carry out a customer satisfaction survey every year to track how our customers rate us. In fiscal 2007, responses indicated increased satisfaction with hospitality and our website, indicating that our hospitality training and revision of our website have been effective. Notwithstanding more positive responses on some items compared to fiscal 2006, post-sales follow up continues to be an issue that we must focus on.

■Customer Satisfaction Survey (Excerpts)*

* Rated on a five-point scale

■Results from the Customer Satisfaction Survey (Fiscal 2007)