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I found the following sentence in a document relating to this webpage:

「お客さまの声室」受付時間を2012年11月3日(土)より以下の通りに変更いたします。

My initial guess is that 「お客さまの声室」 is some kind of feedback room where costumer concerns are voiced out and catered for, but I'm not sure because I can't find an analogous meaning of 「声室」anywhere.

Is "Customer Feedback Room" accurate? Or if I'm wrong, what is the room for?

2 Answers 2

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You are dividing the phrase at the wrong place.

It is 「お[客様]{きゃくさま}の[声]{こえ}」 + 「[室]{しつ}」, not 「お客様の」 + 「声室」

「室」 is often used by Japanese companies and it refers to a "section" of a company offering a particular kind of service. There may or may not be an actual and physical "room" for the service. Unless it is a large-scale company, 「お客さまの声室」 is usually not staffed by a full-time team of employees. Instead, it is run by a few people who spend more time doing other things in the company and when the phone rings at the designated 「お客さまの声室」 number, they answer by saying 「Company name + お客さまの声室でございます。」

For translation, I might just use "Customer Service" without "room".

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    「お客様相談室」のほうがよく見るよね。
    – user1016
    Mar 12, 2014 at 5:04
  • Chocolate has a point. If the set phrase for "Customer Service" is 「お客様相談室」 how is it different from 「お客さまの声室」?
    – Helix Quar
    Mar 12, 2014 at 12:30
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    どう違うか分からないけど、「相談室」と言うと「苦情・困ったことを相談する場所」、「お客様の声室」と言うと「意見・感想・要望を聞いてくれる場所かな?」という、少し気軽な雰囲気があるよね。
    – user1016
    Mar 16, 2014 at 16:19
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As Tokyo Nagoya pointed out, the phrase was parsed incorrectly. The correct division is:

「お[客様]{きゃくさま}の[声]{こえ}」 + 「[室]{しつ}」

However, regarding translation, it seems that "Customer Service" is a little off since 「お客様相談室」 is a more appropriate term for it, as Chocolate mentioned. Recently, I realized that the phrase may actually be a very literal translation of 「お客様の声」 from the business concept Voice of the Customer.

From Wiki

"...a market research technique that produces a detailed set of customer wants and needs..."

Using this, I found a localized site from the same company that was used in the context of the question. The term Customer Voice was used.

So, to summarize, 「お客様の声室」 or Customer Voice is a service that serves as an outlet so that feedback— the customer's thoughts and opinions— may be heard.

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