Exploring the Boundary Between AI and Human Touch in Business Matching

The business matching service "Ready Crew" has been making significant strides since its inception 16 years ago, surpassing an annual budget handling of 110 billion yen. This success can be attributed to a blend of data analysis through AI technology and meticulous support from specialized concierges, creating a high-quality matching mechanism. This journey is one of building trust through meaningful encounters with customers.

In this second installment of the series "Understanding Ready Crew", we focus on Serika Tachikawa, who leads the Matching Management Group (MMG). Although she has a background as a stage actress, her current stage is in the business realm, where she continues to support clients as a concierge while now overseeing the entire Ready Crew operations. Despite the shift in roles, Tachikawa's passion for Ready Crew has only deepened over time.

So far, Ready Crew has facilitated matchmaking for over 240,000 companies. What enables Ready Crew to continually connect such a diverse array of businesses? As AI rapidly evolves, how does Ready Crew maintain a sense of "human touch" in its services? This article seeks to explore these questions through Tachikawa's insights, highlighting the warmth imbued in the matching system where AI and humans coexist.

1. Behind the Scenes of the System Supporting 2,500 Companies

Tachikawa first addressed the in-house proprietary system "CREWS", which supports the business matching operations involving a vast number of companies. It is unfeasible for sales representatives to remember the past performances or project trends of each client. Hence, AI plays a crucial role by organizing this immense amount of information and deriving optimal candidate matches.

Each company is assigned approximately 500 industry labels, along with 15 role labels according to departments like Human Resources and Public Relations, in addition to around 250 need labels, creating a detailed data structure of "industry x role x needs". Such multifaceted labeling allows for precise matching without relying solely on individual experiences or memories. On the client side, over 2,500 outsourcing companies are meticulously categorized by major categories of 20 and minor items of 250 labels, enhancing the data's usability for optimized proposals through AI analysis and historical matching success.

Tachikawa emphasizes, "Our internal system is a continuously evolving entity. While leveraging past data, we constantly reassess what data is crucial for future steps, iterating improvements along the way."

The approach of the engineers developing the CREWS system is also noteworthy. They work in an open environment, engaging casually with concierges and Account Relations (AR) teams, fostering a culture where ideas for improvements emerge naturally from the field and can be quickly reflected in the system. This process of field-derived enhancements acts as a driving force for the accuracy of CREWS, reinforcing a culture where employees perceive that utilizing data and AI benefits their clients.

This culture lays the foundation for a natural integration of AI logic and human sensibility, creating an information cycle that maximizes both strengths. The data foster new insights, which in turn lead to improvements in practice, feeding back into the data system—thus Ready Crew evolves into a next-generation platform where AI and humans collaborate as partners in co-creation.

2. Structure That Produces High-Accuracy Business Matching

Ready Crew's sustained high-accuracy business matching is made possible by several unique mechanisms. At the core is the hearing sheet utilized by concierges to extract needs from client companies. Around 200 optimized patterns of hearing sheets are available, depending on industry and project type. Concierges select the most suitable sheet for each project, ensuring that all necessary details are thoroughly gathered, thus ensuring the accuracy of the information passed to outsourcing companies which consequently enhances matching precision.

This hearing sheet isn't static; it undergoes continuous refinement based on specific feedback from outsourcing firms and insights gained from detailed analyses after negotiations. This "practical and analytical feedback cycle" serves as a wellspring for concierges to engage in deeper, more empathetic understanding of customers' needs.

The Role of MMG as Neutral Mediators

Another essential element is the existence of the Matching Management Group (MMG), led by Tachikawa. The MMG acts as a neutral facilitator between companies seeking to outsource projects and those wishing to take them on. Each party has its own hopes and circumstances, and focusing on one side too heavily can hinder optimal matching.

MMG carefully organizes the desires of the client company and the strengths or situations of outsourcing companies, adjusting expectations effectively to significantly enhance matching accuracy. "By clearly articulating what clients require and correctly relaying that to our sales staff, we can meet customer expectations effectively," Tachikawa explains.

Tachikawa's experience on both the client and outsourcing sides greatly empowers MMG's mediating skills, allowing them to break down information and create a balanced project formulation based on thorough understanding.

3. Building High-Energy Relationships with Clients

Ready Crew’s value extends beyond mere project connections. After securing a match, they focus on gathering feedback, confirming proposal details, and providing post-delivery follow-ups. This continuous communication fosters deep relationships with clients, establishing themselves as long-term partners. The core of this strength lies in the proactive approach each Ready Crew member adopts towards their clients, fostering trust through mutual problem-solving.

A striking instance highlights this approach: a light inquiry from a client project evolved into thorough discussions led by a concierge, leading to the presentation of multiple potential partners. The client's reaction was one of awe, stating, "You truly understand our needs," leading to the formation of a new business partnership. Such “high-satisfaction encounters” occur on a daily basis at Ready Crew.

Sustaining a Supporting Relationship

Relationships with Ready Crew do not end once a match is established; instead, it marks a new beginning. Afterward, thorough discussions are held to align the necessary support with the customer’s evolving stage. With a broad network of partner companies, Ready Crew can provide optimal proposals tailored to business phases, contributing to the establishment of long-term trust.

This approach is ingrained in Ready Crew’s culture, consisting predominantly of members who relish connecting with people. The direct engagement they have with clients offers substantial fulfillment, sustaining a high level of team enthusiasm.

Visualizing Trust for Improvement

Ready Crew also implements a rigorous system to quantify and improve client relationship dynamics. The Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey occurs periodically every six months to a year, measuring satisfaction rates and collecting candid feedback based on the question, "Would you recommend Ready Crew to others in your industry?"

All feedback, whether affirmations of satisfaction or calls for improvements, is shared within the company and leads to enhancements in their services. This dual integration of quantified insights and individual perceptions from the field accelerates organizational learning and cements the foundation for Ready Crew’s growth.

High energy fosters trust, and trust nurtures results. Thus, Ready Crew transcends traditional matching paradigms, creating valuable relationships for both customers and employees as they sustain high-energy engagement, letting trust become the source that elevates the quality of business matching.

4. Balancing Scale Expansion and Quality Maintenance

Currently, Ready Crew engages over 100 sales staff, evolving into a large-scale service. However, during Tachikawa's early days, the team comprised around 20-30 people, and matching relied heavily on individual intuition and memory.

As business expanded and the number of projects and associated companies grew, such a personalized methodology became untenable. Ready Crew capitalized on AI advancements, enhancing precision and efficiency in matching processes using historical project data. This evolution allowed them to achieve swift matching without compromising quality even as the organization scaled.

The Integral Role of Human Insight

Even with increasing AI efficiency, human perception and insight remain invaluable. Team members continue to thoughtfully discern aspects not captured by data—like the underlying circumstances of projects, the true needs that clients may struggle to articulate, and the organizational atmosphere.

Maintaining a balance between the efficiency derived from AI utilization and the human touch characterized by empathy is the essential theme that sustains the matching quality at Ready Crew and serves as a key to shaping its future.

Looking Ahead: Becoming a Partner to Enterprises

Tachikawa envisions the future of Ready Crew: "When a new internal project is initiated, I want Ready Crew to be invited at the first meeting. We aspire to move beyond being a matching service and become an infrastructure that supports business challenges, standing beside any company on any project."

Indeed, as reliance on AI and data increases, the distinct strength of Ready Crew—the human touch—will be more prominently highlighted. Dense communication founded on trust is what ultimately supports success in enterprises and projects, and what generates the optimal matching unique to Ready Crew.

The intersection of data and human insight will birth a new future of communication, vividly shaping the landscape where Tachikawa envisions Ready Crew as the unwavering companion alongside enterprises.