Japanese Inspired Customer Service.
Louise Lonabocker · College and university · 2004
Ah, the annual vacation. Time to get away from it all, forget the work-a-day world and the daily office routine. This year I was looking forward to visiting Japan, a new culture. With excitement I anticipated soaks in hot springs, monumental shrines, breathtaking gardens, delicious sashimi and soba, and the speedy bullet trains-all so different from my life in Boston. I was not disappointed but I was surprised, pleasantly, by constant reminders of my job in student services thanks to the extraordinary customer service I experienced each day in often unexpected ways. This article will describe characteristic encounters, offer some lessons learned, and recommend some practical applications. Service Encounters It began with the dreaded and all-too-familiar lost luggage scenario. While lost luggage is hardly the norm, it does happen to me on average of once every two years. Most often it happens after I return from the Christmas holidays when flight connections are tight and the amount of luggage handled is overwhelming. My luggage has never been irretrievably lost, but with each occurrence, I complete the required forms and unless I follow-up, that's the last I hear about it until the bags are delivered. So I landed in Tokyo and my luggage didn't. I filled out the usual forms and a very gracious and competent woman checked the computer, determined the bag was still in New York and assured me it would be on the flight to Tokyo the following day. She said it would be delivered to my hotel at approximately 10:00 p.m. She sounded confident, but given my experience I didn't set my heart on receiving the luggage as described. Later that evening I received a call from another person with the airline again indicating that the luggage was in New York and would be on its way the following day. The next day I was up at the crack of dawn and ready for bed by late afternoon so I was in my room when the luggage was delivered around 6:00 p.m. Remarkable, I thought, because the flight from New York lands around 4:00 p.m., and it takes at least an hour to get from Narita Airport to Tokyo. Around 6:30 p.m., I received a call from the airline saying the luggage was on its way. I thanked the caller and said it had arrived. Later that evening I received another call from the airline indicating that the luggage had been damaged (a wheel had been removed) and explaining how I could file a claim for the repair. Once the luggage issue was settled, we prepared to set off for Nikko. My travel companion called to make a reservation at a small Japanese hotel. The reservation clerk said we were welcome but wanted us to know there would be a group of Japanese school children staying there as well. We assumed Japanese school children wouldn't be overly disruptive and indeed we barely heard any noise from them at all. When we arrived at the hotel, we were again reminded about the children and given a sheet of paper indicating the time the children would be using the public bath. The following evening when we returned to our hotel, we were given another sheet of paper with the time the children would be using the public bath. When we left the hotel, the two staff members at the desk came outside to bid us farewell and thank us for our stay. Later in Nikko, we went to the train station to reserve seats for Matsumoto, our next stop. The middle-aged man who assisted us understood English, entered our destination into the computer and produced the tickets for the trip. He explained the itinerary, which terminated in Takayama, another popular destination for travelers. When we reminded him we wanted to go to Matsumoto, he reared his head back and had a good laugh. He then proceeded to issue tickets for the Matsumoto trip. The bullet trains were great; we rode them almost every day and as a result spent a lot of time in train stations. Eventually we found ourselves in Osaka on our way to Hiroshima. On the train platform, I bought an ice cream sandwich and a bottle of water at a kiosk. …