LG

■  LG Chairman and CEO Kwang Mo Koo shared his annual New Year's message in an address just before the end of the year, breaking with tradition slightly to give LG employees around the world a moment to reflect on the past year and prepare for the year ahead in a calm and focused manner.
 
■  He emphasized how the company has dedicated itself over the past three years to putting the customer first and to innovate with sincerity, praising the insights and dedication of employees who helped to transform LG for the better. The message video also featured employee testimonials that highlighted best practices in customer experience improvement.
 
■  For 2022, LG will continue to focus on its three-year Customer Value Action initiative and intensify efforts to create valuable customer experiences that leave a lasting impression aimed at fostering customer preference and retention. 
 
In his first New Year's speech in 2019, LG Group Chairman and CEO Kwang Mo Koo boldly declared that for LG, customers would always come first, initiating a journey towards customer-centricity. This commitment evolved over the following years. In 2020, the focus was sharpened to identify and resolve customer pain points. In 2021, it was all about cultivating deeper empathy and understanding through micro-segmentation strategies.
 
■ For this year, Mr. Koo outlined three key initiatives to continuously create experiences that leave a lasting impression on customers and revolutionize the way the company operates:
 □ Create experiences that inspire customers at every stage of their interaction with LG's products and services.
 □ Cultivate deeper understandings of customers and foster stronger relationships.
 □ Continuously improve products and services to deliver innovative and fresh experiences.
 
■ Speaking directly to staff, Chairman Kwang Mo Koo talked about the importance of their work in raising customer value. "Your dedication in customer experience innovation is what drives LG forward," he said, adding that "everyone's passion and hard work will shine through and make LG the company it is destined to be."
 
 
The video message was titled "Hello, I'm Kwang Mo Koo,” and sent via email to LG employees around the world on the 20th as part of CEO Koo's first New Year's speech. The address marked a break from tradition as it was delivered earlier than usual, coming at the end of the year rather than at the beginning of the next, with the aim of giving employees a moment to reflect on the past year and prepare for the year ahead in a calm and focused manner.
 
Since 2019, New Year's messages have been delivered digitally to ensure they are accessible to employees around the world via PCs or mobile devices, with English and Chinese subtitles.
 
In his first New Year's speech after taking office, Mr. Koo defined "LG's unique customer value" in three ways: Something that touches customers and can change their lives, something that is ahead of others and something that is created continuously, not just once or twice. Since then, the company has refined its customer value management message every year. In 2020, Mr. Koo directed the company to focus on identifying and solving customer pain points, and in 2021, on cultivating deeper empathy and understanding through micro-segmentation strategies.
 
For 2022, he called on the company’s staff to take an additional step: "Valuable customer experiences are where we need to go further," he said, while calling for more innovation in the way the company’s staff works. "For the past three years, we have been striving to put customers first by putting ourselves in their shoes and reflecting on how they feel. We all agree this is both essential and challenging,” said Koo, who began his New Year's address by thanking customers offering their feedback. 
 
"LG has always emphasized the need to create quality products but we know that today’s consumers expect an even higher standard," he said. "It’s not just the product or service itself that they are impressed with anymore. Increasingly, they are looking more to the moments of value they have experienced, and that value is created with their experience differences before and after they use one of our products. This is the valuable customer experience we need to deliver to our customers, and that’s why it is essential that we continue to innovate how we think and work to create those experiences for them. 
 
The starting point should be to see consumers as users rather than simply as people purchasing good. This will help the company to discover better ways to design experiences that touch consumers at every stage of their journey using LG's products and services. It will also help us deepen our relationship with consumers, enhance our understanding even further and continue to upgrade all the company’s products and services at every step to deliver new experiences.
 
Speaking directly to staff, Mr. Koo extolled the value of their hard work: "You are the ones who are most fully immersed in consumer experience innovation, and it will be you who drives our company forward. You passion will always shine through and be celebrated by LG," he said, concluding his New Year's greetings by adding: "Let's work together to create more valuable experiences for our customers, ourselves, and everyone." 
 
The development of this New Year’s video was aided by reflecting the opinions of a group of millennials and gen Z asked to watch and comment on previous New Year's videos. Thanks to their input, several innovations were made, such as featuring LG employees themselves in the video and introducing several cases of outstanding customer experience innovation. Examples of those included: LG Electronics StandbyMe, a customer experience developed to make it convenient for customers to watch videos at home; LG Uplus ‘Salon de Moms’, a community aimed at connecting more closely with customers using LG Uplus' ‘The Kids World’ service; and, home appliances that let customers update their software so they feel like they are always up-to-date and new. 
 
"The 2022 New Year's message was designed to resonate and connect with everyone, even down to the way it was delivered," said an LG representative. "This makes sense when you consider the core message of the New Year's address itself, which was to create experiences full of value not only for customers but also for employees."