Happy Customers: Matter of Honor among Japanese
In an age when personal service as a significant aspect of merchandising is dying out in the Untied States, Japan clings tenaciously to it. Service is viewed by people in Japan not as a luxury, but as an essential ingredient for the success of individual companies and the Japanese economy as a whole.
Americans who move to Japan never get used to the range of services and courtesies taken for granted here.
(1) Supermarket check-out counters have two or three people ringing up and bagging groceries. Some stores deliver, with each bag arriving neatly stapled closed.
(2) Television shops normally send a technician to install and fine-tune a newly purchased set.
(3) Car salespeople are known to bring new models around to customers’ homes for test drives and loaners are available for people whose cars are in for repairs.
There are no limits to what is home-delivered — video movies, dry cleaning, health foods, rented tailcoats (this last one requires tow visits from the sales staff, first for a fitting, second for delivery of the altered and freshly pressed garment).
(4) Japanese barbers often give back massages as part of an ordinary haircut.
(5) Department stores seem to have twice, if not three times the floor staff of American ones.
(6) Upscale customers don’t have to come in at all — the goods are taken to their homes for display and selection.
Perhaps the darkest spot on personal service in Japan is how remarkably impersonal it can be. Everyone is treated exactly alike.
(7) After a month’s stay in a hotel, guests may find the staff still has no idea who they are.
Still, the Japanese view service as the glue that holds commercial relationships together. If the correct personal contact and follow-up come with the first sale, a second is sure to come. Market share and loyal customers are the first goal, not short-term profit.
(8) A. The technician will rush back if anything goes wrong.
B. If they remove a customer’s eyeglasses, they may polish the lenses before returning them.
C. Employee’s cheery greetings and directions, in fact, are often memorized from a company manual.
D. Many stores wrap everything they sell.
E. Service may cost but it helps ensure these more important objectives.
F. Dry ice is inserted alongside the frozen foods to ensure that they don’t spoil on the way.
G. Office deliveries are common, too, especially of lunch.
H. To those old enough to remember how things used to be at home, life can bring on twinges of nostalgia.