A Tale Of Japanese Customer Service

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At one point in our recent trip collecting film for TofuguTV, we went up to Yoichi, Hokkaido to visit the Nikka Whiskey Brewery. In our naivety, we bought whiskey thinking we could send it back. We quickly found out that this would be very hard. Various shipping companies as well as the first post office we went to said we couldn’t ship it. I say first post office because we decided to try again at another post office. The first one seemed to have some things that said you could send it and some things that said you couldn’t (they ultimately decided that you couldn’t send it, though).

nikkaThe guy standing in the window assured me that we could send the whiskey in the post

We didn’t want to lug these heavy bottles of liquid around and nor did we want to drink them all. This was some pretty expensive stuff, after all! Going to a second post office in the Kansai area (we figured they’d be the most likely to bend the wishy washy rules) we finally found success. Someone can ship our whiskey to the US! Or… so we thought.

I think you can guess what happens here. It didn’t ship. A couple days later I got a phone call from the post office. It was the same lady who helped us ship things. After apologizing profusely, she said they couldn’t ship it and they were so sorry for the mistake. She then said she’d try to look into other shipping methods for us to see if she could find an alternative and then offered to ship if it she found one, using a rival shipping service (to the Japanese post office). I agreed, of course, and she said she’d call the next day at 9am.

Lo and behold, right at 9am I get a call from the same lady again. She apologizes a lot more and then says she isn’t able to ship it. I suggest she send it to my hotel, though perhaps it would be good to wait until I’m in Tokyo so that way I can just check it in easily onto the plane. I had to figure out where said hotel will be first, though. “Okay! I’ll call back tomorrow at 9am,” she says. “Also, I’m so sorry for all the trouble” ← this times 30.

Next day, I get a call at 9am. This time I have the hotel address and name. I tell it to her, and she asks how I want my refund. Now, color me pink, but I didn’t really expect a refund for some reason. I guess I also didn’t expect to ever hear back from anyone at all if it couldn’t ship. It’s an international telephone number for them, after all. She did have to take out 800 yen (around $8) for shipping it to Tokyo, but that was nothing compared to the $100 or so we paid to get it to America.

So awesome, we get a refund too. Also, she’s still super apologetic.

Then, on the day I arrive to my hotel, she calls again, just to get the room number just in case. Wouldn’t want there to be another problem, right? I let her know my room number and she sends it out in overnight mail. I don’t think we got charged for overnight mail, nor did we need it get it overnight, but it was nice. Maybe that’s where Zappos got the idea from.

But, it doesn’t end there. Inside our box is a handwritten note, once again expressing how sorry she was. On top of that is a tenugui (how did she know that I lovvve tenugui?) as well as some udon and a Kumamon sticker.

presents

Did I mention that I love tenugui more than just about anything? I was pretty blown away with this. Sure, in my opinion doing all this and coordinating with me on the phone was already above the call of duty. But, a handwritten apology note, plus presents (probably came from her own home and moneys), plus a Kumamon sticker… that’s customer service at its finest.

Japanese Customer Service

In general, I do think Japanese customer service is pretty incredible, though. Going beyond the call of duty is something that seems to happen quite often. There have been multiple occasions where a server from a restaurant will chase me down even when I’m a block or two away to give me something I’ve forgotten. Or, if I ask someone at an information booth / shop for directions, I’ll often get walked there. I remember one time when someone probably walked me a good 5-7 minutes, which seems to be overdoing it a bit. There have been so many other similar instances like this as well. The level of customer service in Japan is very high quite consistently.

Then you compare it to America. While there’s great customer service here, it’s hardly standard. In a very similar comparison, I ordered some beer from Rogue Brewery to get it shipped to Japan as a present for someone. The beer never arrives. Then, around a month after I ordered it, I get an email saying that “they can’t send it because the characters for the address are in Japanese.” First of all, I don’t know why I didn’t get this email a couple days after I made my (very expensive) order. Second, I haven’t heard back after responding saying I don’t need it shipped anymore but would like it to be refunded. The difference is night and day.

Also, coming back (literally just an hour ago, we’re sitting in LAX waiting for our connecting flight now), the first thing we noticed was how grumpy all the workers were. This is probably just because we’ve been in Japan for over a month, so the difference feels a bit shocking.

But, I wanted to thank the Japanese post. You guys are awesome. Even though they made a mistake they made it more than right, and I wish more people were like them.

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  • TheRitzyMuffin

    I always feel awkward when staff of any kind give me more than necessary. I appreciate it, and I’m thankful, but still. Like at restaurants when they take stuff off the bill when something’s wrong with your food and you send it back. I don’t want a free meal, I just want what I paid for. >>;
    I think this might be proactive or something. In the U.S. if you’re an ass and throw a fit you get what you want and more (which is ridiculous). I could be the nicest person and do everything I can and the customer will still be pissed because I forgot to give them their cup of sauce. It blows my mind.
    All I want is for customers and staff to be reasonable. Is that too much to ask? D:

  • Thai

    In general I agree that Japanese customer service being the best quality I’ve agreed throughout my world travels. Yes, you sense a “but”. The but is, inflexibility and using logic to help please your customers. Restaurants or delis so far have never compromised their menus by making slight modifications to their dishes. On our way to Tokyo Disney, we stopped for breakfast. My friend wanted a salmon and egg sandwich. They had salmon. They had egg… but the egg was only to be served with bacon. Being a kosher Jew, that wasn’t an option. The only solution – buy both an egg and salmon sandwich! They wouldn’t put the bacon on it… great.

    Another was with travel on Emirates airlines from Narita. Things were going okay until I was arguing about being able to carry 0.1 kg more on the flight. That’s right, less that 1/4 lb. A bowl of ramen in the terminal is well over that, but I could carry that on (in my stomach of course). For my bag, not so much. I understand the idea of fair is fair, but if you want slight exceptions, you’re screwed.

  • PearlBlueSoul

    Yes, customer service is a nightmare in some places in the US. Ok, more specifically, it depends on the locale.

    I have to say too that bearing the locale in mind, culture has a tremendous role in how things like this are handled/what level of importance people place on it in their work. It’s sad too, because it has such a ripple effect across the board you’d hope more people would get in on it to perpetuate the effects.

    Some of that too comes from US marketing methods and corporate strategies that prevent US workers from even OFFERING things like this, let alone the legal ramifications if something goes wrong/the situation doesn’t turn around. I’m not sure how the judicial system in Japan works, but if ‘saving face’ is more important than being ‘right’, I could see how that’s a nonissue and allows a great deal of latitude with how far you can/would want to go.

    Sounds like a great place to work if you’re into customer service! I love handing out freebies/going that extra mile. Makes my day to see people light up by being given what they didn’t expect to get.

  • Raleford

    Maybe it’s just because of my region, I live in the upper-midwest, away from the big metropolitan areas, but generally people are quite nice at all the stores and restaurants, and on the rare occasion when I am being helped (I generally don’t like being watched or assisted at the store, I just wanna do my thing, haha) while they are trying to get me to buy, usually people are quite willing to find ways to make things cheaper for me if it’s possible. Actually, I find it interesting how often it is assumed that what I want is to spend the least amount possible, but I generally prefer to just get what I want, even if it is a little more expensive because it doesn’t come pre-bundled or whatever.

  • Kashii-chan

    The last time I went to Japan, the website that I got the plane tickets from messed up big time, and it turned out that the plane me and my friend were suppose to be on was full. But of course we were still in Japan, and so we were apologized to profusely, and taken to the airports “club house” that was for members only. We were told that there was another flight back to the USA in about an hour. Then the women said that because of the issue we would be given 40000 yen (whether this was a sort of refund or if there was a price difference between the flights I don’t remember). What would have been a disaster in a American airport, was a smooth ride for us in Japan x)

  • RareVisitor

    I remember the same thing about Japanese helping people beyond the call of duty. We’ve been in Kyoto and wanted to visit nearby sentou. I knew it was near but no clue where exactly. After half an hour of walking around we decided to ask some local barber if he knows the way. There, old but genki and smiling man walks out of his shop and doesn’t understand a word in English. We on the other hand know only couple of Japanese words heard from anime and the sentou name only. But he tries hard. Couple of minutes of tries goes in vain – we’re no smarter than before. Then he smiles and goes back to the shop – at first I though he just gave up. But no – he took keys, closed the shop, took my hand in “follow me” gesture and walked with us to the very place. My eyes went big-O. Why, we were not even his customers! In any other place on Earth I’d expect a guy to say “Sorry, that’s all I can do.” Time went by, I started to learn the language. Next time when visiting Kyoto (don’t know when exactly, but will happen for sure) I will try to find the guy and thank him in Japanese.

  • Juan Fernando Castellón

    I remember being in a book store in Toyohashi, and the clerk noticed I couldn’t understand him, he waved me over to the other counter to pay for some supplies. Apparently there was one counter for books and one for other merchandise. That helped a lot. I also miss the “Irasshaimase!” even at Seven Eleven, and Sunkus.
    I worked for a car dealership that had one rule: Take care of your customer. I always feel comfortable walking on the lot, since I know the people there aren’t out just to pull in a commission, they’re there to help customers.

  • Juan Fernando Castellón

    I remember the same service with a Smile at Incheon airport when I needed to convert my Yen back to Dollars. O how I miss Asia!

  • Juan Fernando Castellón

    Weaboo is a somewhat derogatory term for Japanophiles who have nothing but positive things to say about Japan, and claim that everything else is inferior. You seem to be a little more balanced in your view. The crowd mentality of Japan has both upsides and downsides. You please everybody around you, but if you want to stand out, you get hammered down. That’s the bullying that’s pervasive in Japan.

    I also suspect that those that are weaboos get their idea of Japanese culture from Anime, rather than from the news and from dramas. You won’t see too many anime showing a girl digging through her coin purse only to find she has just 300 yen for lunch, this is common in workplace drama (Nihonjin Shiranai Nihongo, and Lunch no Jouou come to mind.) The bullying for not doing a job to a “T” can be seen in Densha Otoko.

  • guyhey

    Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying. ;)

    When I am talking to people who are new to anime, and they ask how close it is to real life in Japan I say it’s like a fun house mirror. You will see some truth, but expect there to be distortions.

    When you talk about Densha Otoko are you talking about the book, tv show, or movie? I’ve seen the TV show, and I’m most of the way through the book. It was awhile ago when I watched the show, so I might not remember the exact parts you’re talking about, and so far the book doesn’t seem to reference his direct work experiences.

  • Juan Fernando Castellón

    True. I used to bank at Union Bank of California, they even had a Trilingual ATM (English, Spanish, and Japanese)

  • LikesJapan

    We have a word for it in the US as well. It’s called “Salary”

    That’s not what saabisu zangyo is. What you’re describing is called a “salary.” “Saabisu zangyo” is when you have overtime hours that are unpaid. As in no pay. No salary. Just work.

  • guyhey

    Please know that I’m saying this to update your understanding of what salary means, I’m not trying to start something.

    You’re lucky you don’t know this detail about salaries, but it’s kind of shitty that those of us on salary don’t get paid overtime.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salary

    “Salary is a fixed amount of money or compensation paid to an employee by an employer in return for work performed.”

    Pretty much all American professionals get paid salary. It’s just sort of the accepted norm. There are some exceptions where some positions offer bonuses, like when you’re in sales, but the majority of Americans get paid a fixed amount of money no matter how much extra time they put in.

  • Juan Fernando Castellón

    The Drama, you see he’s constantly getting berated by his boss, and the client of the job placement agency that he works with.

  • James

    Have to say that I agree with you Koichi I love the Japanese Customer service system they are extremely nice, do their job and even when a package I got from a Japanese company from online purchase got lost in the mail once they not only sent me a new copy of my order but had all kinds of extra’s both as gifts for my patronage and apology gifts for the original package getting lost in the mail even though it wasn’t their fault.

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