Thank you for your question.
I’m Kida, the company’s representative, and I’ll answer it.
As you pointed out, this is a prototype of a non-anonymous question box.
Everyone who has exchanged emails related to Universe Club has received an automatically generated email encouraging them to register for the Universe Support Portal.
You can view all of the content without registering or setting a password:
https://www.universe-group.jp/portal/ja/home
By registering, you will be able to:
・Ask questions
・Post answers
・Create topics
・Earn points based on how often you ask and answer questions, and receive titles and badges such as “Trusted Answerer” and “Best Answer”
・Convert your points into credits usable at Universe Club once they reach the required amount
・Contact us through the inquiry form and manage your inquiry history
That is what we envision.
The site also has a bulletin board/community feature similar to the question box. However, overall, we aim to make it a multichannel support portal covering email, phone, chat, LINE, Twitter, Messenger, and other non-face-to-face channels.
We will accumulate answers to inquiries from members and other interested users in a tab called the Knowledge Base.
This will allow us to standardize club rules that previously received ambiguous answers depending on the staff member, presenting them in the form of “best answers.”
For example:
Question: When should transportation expenses be given during a date?
Answer: We recommend giving them after you’ve been seated, finished your small talk, and placed your order, but before the first dish arrives. However, every date is different, so it ultimately depends on the man’s timing. To prevent people from forgetting to give them or using the transportation money as leverage to prolong the date, though, it’s best to give them as early as possible—
Customers will also be able to search the Knowledge Base for the answers they need before asking a staff member.
If they cannot find an answer there, they can ask through the chat in the lower-right corner or via the inquiry form. That FAQ will then be added to the Knowledge Base, allowing information to accumulate and creating an ecosystem shared by staff and customers.
The Knowledge Base is designed for staff to answer questions in a simple Q&A format, but there may also be cases where someone wants to have a deeper discussion or ask other members for their opinions.
In those cases, they can post a question using the community feature.
We have absolutely no intention of moving the anonymous question box over to this service.
Rather, we want Universe Support to provide things that cannot be covered by the anonymous question box.
We also recognize that the anonymous question box is a place for entertaining discussions led by charismatic answerers, and that many users enjoy the excitement of never knowing what might come up.
That is why we have adopted a no-compensation system, so that answerers’ opinions are not biased. In other words, they can write whatever they like as long as it does not involve attacking people.
Similar examples include Tabelog and Attorney.com.
At Universe Support, we anticipate questions and answers focused on more practical problems, so contributors will receive badges and points as part of our recognition program.
A similar example would be Google Product Experts:
https://productexperts.withgoogle.com/directory
