Communication with Our Customers in the Housing Business

Basic Policy

Sumitomo Forestry makes proposals for ideal home building through continuous communication.

Digital communication has become the primary means of disseminating information. Accordingly, we distribute information on social media and operate the “MYHOME PARK” website, where users can access information anytime and anywhere on PRIME WOOD (a signature feature of Sumitomo Forestry homes), our technology for Net Zero Energy Houses (ZEH), and our design capabilities.

In addition, we offer tour of showrooms, model homes, completed homes, and structural sites where visitors can have a hands-on experience of high-quality home equipment and woody materials.

In Japan, the government’s housing policy now focuses on promoting excellent long-term housing and the spread of Net Zero Energy Houses (ZEH) for each house to be cared for, valued and lived in for a long time. Sumitomo Forestry provides thorough after-sales service to ensure that every owner can live comfortably at their houses for long years. We are creating opportunities for consultation and inquiries through ongoing communication at the owners’ events held in each location throughout Japan, in addition to helping them live comfortably at their houses and sustain the asset value of the houses.

Team Dedicated to the Realization of an Ideal Home

Sumitomo Forestry has a dedicated team to realize ideal home building for customers.

The team is made up of personnel in charge of sales, design, interior design, production and housing exteriors, and meets to discuss everything from the exterior appearance and room plan to the interior and housing exteriors with each customer. Staff with expert knowledge listen carefully to each customer concerning their budget, family composition, lifestyle and preferences to help them have an ideal home in all respects.

Houses Customized for Various Needs and Lifestyles

Sumitomo Forestry proposes housing to a broad range of customers, from first-time home buyers to dual-income households or those who plan to live as a couple after their children are grown up.

MyForest is our flagship product. It provides a space with rich wooden texture that is unique to Sumitomo Forestry by utilizing the natural colors of five tree species. We propose a large, pleasant, comfortable living space based on universal design uninfluenced by the times or trends, as well as incorporating our big frame (BF) construction method and advanced thermal insulation performance.
Our GRAND LIFE one-story house product enriches the lives of residents by connecting a garden of green trees with indoor space. We have newly proposed a 1.5-story house, PLUSKY, to utilize the extra space to meet our customers’ needs.

We also offer “Premal” as a standard product, which provides functional spaces and simple yet sophisticated design. We recommend ZEH-oriented specifications for this product and also make special proposals for the exterior design, such as a proposal on greening in harmony with the surrounding environment.
In each of more than 1,500 carefully selected plans in Forest Selection, we incorporate creative ideas for living which only Sumitomo Forestry can offer. Our customers can choose a home from a wide range of options both offline and online that meets their needs and lifestyles.

All of these products are designed to meet ZEH specifications, thereby providing living spaces that are friendly to both residents and the environment.

Model Homes/Showrooms

Sumitomo Forestry has established its model homes at roughly 270 sites and its showrooms at about 80 different locations across Japan. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, we have established a system to recommend visitors to make reservations, which allows us to provide guidance tailored to customer needs. Currently, while continuing to offer this reservation option, we also accept walk-in visits. Additionally, we continue to provide online consultations.

Model Homes

We have a wide variety of one-, two-, and three-story model homes so that customers can have a hands-on experience with a home that meets their needs.

High-quality Luxurious Wooden Spaces
For our model homes, we use an abundance of well-known Japanese and world-renowned precious woods for flooring materials, while designing walls, ceilings, and fittings with high-quality wood materials, allowing visitors to experience an immersive, woody space. The wooden interior materials have been carefully selected and sophisticated by skilled craftsmen. Known as PRIME WOOD, these materials provide a high-quality atmosphere that can only be experienced in the actual space.
Design Proposals for Comfortable Living
While structural strength is an obvious necessity for a house, aspects such as a room plan, household workflow layout, and storage plan provide comfortable lifestyles and are vital to every family. Visitors to our model homes can see innovative room plans and functional layouts for housework with their own eyes. For example, families with children can experience making a housing plan perfectly suited to raising their children, including a ﬂoor plan and a (study) room plan for their children. At our model homes, visitors can also get a feel for high quality workspaces that leverage the properties of wood, which are believed to help improve concentration.
Environmentally Conscious Design and the Latest Equipment
Sumitomo Forestry is revolutionizing design with a design concept called Ryouonbou. Through this approach, we aim to incorporate the soothing qualities of nature and facilitate lifestyles that do not overly rely on air-conditioning and heating systems. We use designs to create airﬂows from the south to the north of the home and block summer sunshine by using deep eaves. Visitors can see these innovative designs firsthand at our model homes. Some of these model homes feature the latest environmental equipment, such as solar power generation systems, high efficiency water heaters, and central air-conditioning systems.

Nisshin Umemori No. 1 model homes opened in May 2025 (Nagoya Chuou Branch/Aichi)

Showrooms

At Sumitomo Forestry’s showrooms, visitors can experience and inspect our original wood materials, PRIME WOOD, as well as various other materials and equipment, including kitchen systems, bathrooms, and bathroom vanities. They also showcase curtains, wallpaper, interior materials, furniture, and exterior components such as exterior walls and entrance doors. Visitors can see, touch, and compare them to get a clear idea of what their home will look like.

Exhibition of a Variety of Latest Devices
Visitors to our showrooms can also compare kitchen products from multiple manufacturers, including our original kitchen product that matches a PRIME WOOD rich wooden living-dining-kitchen (LDK) space and the bathroom vanity, Germoglio. Also, visitors can compare different designs for sink tops, the colors and textures of doors provided by different manufacturers, and the storage space and ease of use provided by the fixtures. In addition, a large number of bathrooms and a range of housing equipment are also on display. These allow visitors to check their functions, including how the equipment helps them perform household chores in their daily lives.
Total Coordination of Interior and Exterior Designs
At our showrooms, a wealth of floor materials, doors and windows, furniture, lighting equipment, and more items that meet a variety of needs are on display, together with curtains and wallpaper in a wide variety of colors and patterns, enabling visitors to visualize what a room customized to their individual interior design taste will like. We also have an extensive lineup of exterior materials for entrance doors and external walls to help visitors get a clear idea of the exteriors for total design coordination.
Also, visitors to our showrooms can get a distinct individual feel for woods that vary in color and texture. They can experience the look and actual feel of these materials, which is not possible with catalogs or websites.
Exhibition of the Housing Structure and Latest Environmental Devices
The structure of a house is displayed in an easy-to-understand manner at our showrooms. Our unique BF construction method features a main structural material that is about five times thicker than a typical pillar and is fixed with strong metal, providing a high level of earthquake and wind resistance. In addition, we have the latest environmental devices on display, such as solar power generation equipment.

Tokyo-Nishi Showroom

Valuing Customer Feedback

Customers First Initiatives

Sumitomo Forestry has established the Customer Service Department to provide a Group-wide customer consultation service. The department communicates the opinions and complaints of customers, including neighboring residents to each department and the management team for improvements, thereby promoting customer first initiatives even further as its important mission. The department also holds periodic meetings and establishes working groups with each business division and Group company to share information about case studies and analysis results to implement specific measures to provide high-quality products and services that give inspirations to customers. The measures are promoted across the Group, and the Customer Service Department regularly evaluates the progress and efficacy of the measures, undertakes reviews and takes corrective actions through a PDCA cycle.

In addition, in order to raise employee awareness, Sumitomo Forestry uses its internal website to regularly disseminate to its employees and Group companies information about the insights for work gained in daily life to improve customer satisfaction as well as information about the "Your Kirari" selection of heartwarming cases. Moreover, “Your Kirari” Award is annually given to excellent initiatives to please or inspire customers. Relevant information is disclosed to Group employees so that they can share good examples and keep them as their common asset. Last year, 60 initiatives were nominated from among 275 entries, and the “Your Kirari” Award was granted to 35 people based on the comments submitted by Group employees.

Operation of Sumitomo Forestry Call Center

Sumitomo Forestry established a toll-free call center, which opens 24 hours a day 365 days a year and serves as a contact point for customers to make requests to the company nationwide, including requests for lifeline-related emergency measures. The telephone number is distributed on magnet cards to “Sumitomo Forestry home” owners at delivery and through the special website and magazine for the owners.

Presently the center operates at two locations, one in Kanazawa and the other in Okinawa. These two are mutually connected, to shorten the waiting time of customers who call via the nationwide toll-free number. We are striving to improve customer satisfaction by responding to customer requests and inquiries through the center.

Sumitomo Forestry Call Center Inquiry Breakdown (Trends)

Customer Surveys

In order to provide customers with even greater satisfaction and services, Sumitomo Forestry conducts a questionnaire survey a total of three times, when the customer starts living in the house and in the second and tenth milestone years to receive their opinions and comments.

We ask questions mainly about the specifications, design, building materials, systems and equipment, and the support service provided by our staff. We then statistically process and analyze the survey results to make use of the findings in product development and employee training.

We strive to improve customer satisfaction in reference to customer feedback gained from the comments received in the survey and shared with all of our relevant departments. Each branch tabulates the survey results for the items set by personnel in charge of sales, design, interiors, production, and housing exteriors to rate the level of customer satisfaction. Our headquarters forwards the results of the rating to each branch every three months. Each branch then works to improve overall customer satisfaction while doing everything in their power to improve their measures based on the results.

The satisfaction rate in the fiscal 2025 survey was 96.8% among new owners, and 97.3% among second-year owners. Furthermore, Sumitomo Forestry has adopted the Net Promoter Score (NPS)* ahead of other companies in the housing industry for the purpose of enhancing customer satisfaction. We will continue to provide high-quality products and services that inspire our customers by further leveraging customer feedback through the NPS survey analysis.

※NPS is a new index used to measure customer loyalty (the amount of trust in and affinity for the company and brand)

Communicating Information to Customers

Website Operation and Magazine Publication

Sumitomo Forestry operates “clubforest,” a special website where owners of Sumitomo Forestry homes can communicate and be provided with follow-up services. As of December 2025, about 160,000 owners have become members of the website.

By providing a variety of information on the website, we help members lead even more pleasant and comfortable lives at their homes. In March 2026, to make the website even more attractive to Sumitomo Forestry home owners, we started to offer tickets to select local events under the initiative entitled, “clubforest Ticket Challenge.” Going forward, we will continuously work to provide the owners with more convenience through the website.

We also publish Lovely Family, a home and lifestyle magazine, twice a year. It provides information about Group company activities such as home renovations and the use of land. We published about 330,000 copies for each issue in fiscal 2025. Starting in fiscal 2026, we will publish the magazine only once a year as a fall/winter issue and distribute 340,000 copies.