Avaya Japan and “LINE Customer Connect” to Provide Voice Support for LINE-based Counseling Service

Avaya Holdings Corporation (NYSE: AVYA) announced today in Japan that a LINE-based counseling service, “SNS Counseling – Mental Health Counseling,” has adopted an integrated voice solution that utilizes Avaya’s contact center system and the LINE customer support service for business, “LINE Customer Connect,” to provide more empathic counselling. 

The SNS Counselling service is supported by the Social Media Counseling Association (SMCA), which was established to provide suicide prevention counseling and support for bullying via social networking sites. SMCA is organized by transcosmos inc., LINE Corporation, and other associations. LINE is the most popular messaging app in Japan, and “LINE Customer Connect” is the customer support services for businesses offered by LINE Corporation.

SNS support is necessary in counseling services since younger generations, especially people in their teens and early 20’s, use the LINE app and other SNS as their main way of communication. According to the “FY 2016: Survey on Information Communication Media Trend,” conducted by the Institute for Information and Communications Policy (IICP), teenagers spend an average of 58.9 minutes per day on social media, and just 0.3 minutes per day on landlines. While people in their 20s spend an average of 60.8 minutes on social media, they don’t even spend a minute on landlines. Therefore, creating an environment where people can reach counselors via SNS is extremely beneficial.

However, it is challenging for counselors to show empathy through text-based communication alone, or to receive and deliver clear tones of expression. SNS also doesn’t always deliver rapidity in emergency situations. A seamless linkage between SNS and phone calls was needed so that counselors could talk directly to subjects when needed – especially to people with suicidal thoughts.

The “LINE to Call” function, realized through collaboration between Avaya’s contact center system and “LINE Customer Connect,” has the following features:

End-user Benefits

1. By adding related LINE accounts, users can make a toll-free call to a contact center with a single tap; they don’t need to enter a phone number.
2. When making inquiries, it is possible to seamlessly link chat and phone on the same LINE application, so that the counselor can freely choose the method of support according to the situation, bringing high convenience.

About Avaya

Avaya is a global leader in digital communications software, services and devices for businesses of all sizes. Our open, intelligent and customizable solutions for contact centers and unified communications offer the flexibility of Cloud, on-premises and hybrid deployments. Avaya shapes intelligent connections and creates seamless communication experiences for our customers, and their customers. Our professional planning, support and management services teams help optimize solutions, for highly reliable and efficient deployments. Avaya Holdings Corp. is traded on the NYSE under the ticker AVYA. For more information, please visit www.avaya.com

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