[Sponsored Report] LG U+ fosters creativity through competition

LG U+, Korea’s third-largest mobile carrier, continuously seeks to satisfy its consumers by hosting various innovative activities. The company actively communicates with not just its employees but also with its clients.

To foster a more creative environment, the company hosts an annual competition for new business ideas.

Last year, 324 ideas from various fields such as cloud computing and position-based technology were registered to compete in the event.

Those who got through the preliminary round were introduced before the executives and employees, including the company CEO Lee Sang-chul. Nine out of 10 finalist ideas were sent to the company’s related departments to be commercialized.

The company ensured that no idea would go wasted. Another project carried out last year was to collect ideas to reduce expenses. Any LG U+ worker could register their saving task and be rewarded with points that could be used within the company according to their performance. More than 900 tasks were registered and 435 actually worked and saved 92.4 billion won ($84 million) in total.

One example was improving its packaging policy, which previously instructed to pack 10 products in a box regardless of their sizes. The policy was reformatted to pack more products in the same box if there was any more room available. The efficient packing saved 3 million won in annual distribution costs.

The employees who participated in the innovation were rewarded a total of 162 million won.

To innovate customer service, LG U+ asks for customers’ opinions.

Before it releases a new service, the company runs a test on an experiment group, which includes the company’s employees and consumers. The company also collects the opinions of visitors to its service centers with a voice recorder. The consumers comment on its new products and the company applies them to the product.

The company also runs a forum for service-related departments to discuss complaints from its users and formulate solutions.

“It is our goal to provide the best service,” said an LG U+ official.