KaKao

 - Document submission begins today, until Feb 27, and additional submission will be announced through the homepage of the Korea Federation of Micro Enterprises from Feb 13.

- All channels including chatbot, webpages, phone and mail to be made available for easy document submission, and a dedicated customer service center will be operated with 100 additional customer service agents.

- Compensation to be paid within March after submitted documents including a small business confirmation and a proof of sales losses are reviewed.

- Kakao will do its best until the compensation process is completed for coexistence with small business owners and to fulfill its social responsibility.

 

[Jan 30, 2023] Kakao (CEO Hong Euntaek) announced that it will receive documents for the compensation payment of small business damages for four weeks from Jan 30 to February 27, in accordance with the principle of supporting service failure damage caused by the fire in the SK C&C data Center established by the 1015 Damage Support Council.

 

Kakao will first start accepting documents for small business owners reported through its official channel from October 19 to November 6 last year, and receive additional applications for two weeks from February 13 to 27. Existing applicants have already been informed of the document reception process through e-mail and KakaoTalk messages, and additional application period and method will also be announced on the website of the Korea Federation of Micro Enterprise.

 

Kakao focused on making document submission as easy as possible for small business owners who are busy with their livelihood. In addition to developing an official chatbot that can be used from document reception guide to reception, the company plans to open all channels such as customer center web pages, phone calls, and mail to ensure that small business owners will submit documents conveniently. To that end, a dedicated customer service center will be operated with 100 additional customer service agents.

 

Small business owners are required to submit documents such as ▲ a small business confirmation, ▲a proof of sales loss due to communication failure, ▲a proof of Kakao service use, ▲business name or a copy of a bank account under the name of the business owner. Although these documents are required by law and small business owners must go through the document submission process, Kakao has simplified the proof process for KakaoTalk message and KakaoTalk channel failures, which account for the majority of the damage types, so that user can simply capture service screenshots and submit them for verification. To use this service, small business users should search and add the official chatbot “Kakao 1015 Small Business Support Center” in the KakaoTalk Channel, and attach the screen capture images of the documents or images taken by their smartphone camera.

 

According to the principle established by the "1015 Damage Support Council," Kakao has decided to pay ▲30,000 won if the sales loss is less than 300,000 won, ▲50,000 won if the sales loss is between 300,000 won and 500,000 won. In addition, those who reported sales losses exceeding 500,000 won may receive additional compensation after a review. The compensation process is scheduled to be completed within March after all submitted documents are reviewed.

 

In addition, to support small business owners who run their businesses using the Kakao Platform, Kakao will also offer a free cash payment program worth 50,000 won in February, which will allow them to send 2,000 KakaoTalk channel messages. Any small business owner is entitled to the free cash program, and may apply through a separate web page.

 

Ji-Hye Song, head of the KakaoTalk Division and a member of the Support Council, said, "We apologize once again for the inconvenience and damage caused to business activities due to the service failure, and we will do our best to complete the compensation process to fulfill win-win cooperation with small business owners and our social responsibilities."

 

Meanwhile, Kakao announced on December 29, 2023 its damage support plan for service failure damage caused by a fire in the SK C&C data Center, which was established by the 1015 Damage Support Council. The Council decided to pay different types of compensations to general domestic users who use Kakao’s services and business owners who suffered sales losses. Accordingly, the company handed out three emoji packages along with a report describing the cause of the failure and measures to prevent its recurrence to all KakaoTalk users from Jan 5 to 20, 2023. (End)