|
IN Japan, where I spent my recent 15-day business and
pleasure trip this April, I ran into the problem again of comparing
with what we’re enduring in the Philippines and what the Japanese
enjoy in their homeland. I don’t mean politics and economy, but as
the title of this article suggests—you’ll readily know that
I’m talking about customer service.
Time and again, I found out that
by asking complete strangers for some directions (most of the time,
while faking ignorance), I was automatically placing an awful burden
to any random friendly-looking Japanese, preferably young and body
beautiful, who despite her limited English capability and my broken
Japanese would connect to something close to what people would
recklessly define as a “May-December romanticism.”
As soon as I catch people staring
at us, not in a hostile way, but apparently curious, because May was
revoltingly different to December, I would signal compete and sudden
understanding of my “target location” and disembark from her
strangulation with a clearly pronounced domo sumimasen,
wakarimashita! (Thank you. I understand it now!)
Let’s go fast forward now with
a recent experience. Traveling with a group of three decent
Filipinas on April 11, and while pressed for time as we try to catch
our dinner appointment with our host, we agreed that the best way to
override the lunatic street system of Tokyo and locate Franziskaner,
a German Restaurant inside Ginza district was to secure the help of
an information staff at Takashimaya, an upscale department store,
which I should say was 1,361 points ahead of Rustan’s 143 points
in many areas, including the ambience of its comfort rooms.
As we could imagine, the
receptionist who barely speak English summoned his manager for help.
His manager stepped in, checked their computer, logged in at a
satellite map and carefully spelled out in Romaji the words “Franziskaner.”
It took them 4 minutes and 33 seconds to locate our target.
The manager called his assistant
manager who could also barely understand English to assist us.
Franziskaner was about 500 meters from Takashimaya and is not part
of its concessionaire shops, but this guy was helpful to us to bring
us personally to the doorsteps of that German Restaurant.
Not only that. Since it was
raining, the poor guy, in his honest but patent performance of
Takashimaya’s brand of customer service, lent us beautiful
umbrellas to reach our destination and bowed his way out with a
gentle smile.
In Japan, you may be tempted to
give up asking for directions, because more often than not, the
Japanese would not be able to understand your English, unless
you’re holding a business card of your target place scribbled with
lots of hiragana, katakana, and kanji that only a sixty-something
taxi driver would love to read.
We dared not to take any taxi
ride as it was simply a trip in disorientation very much like the
adventure of Indiana Jones in the Temple of the Crystal Skull at
Tokyo Disney Sea. God alone knows how the drivers knew where they
are going, but at least they don’t cheat.
Anyway, this is not to criticize
the taxi drivers who are courteous and highly professional, because
many of them wear decent uniforms, most of the time with white
gloves, but that’s another story.
The point is that—in Japan,
customer is still king, no matter what you say when you appeared to
be tipsy in a karaoke bar. For a while, let’s drink Kirin beer and
watch other our friends perform to the tune of Paul McCartney’s
“My Love does it Good.”
Rey Elbo is a business
consultant specializing in human resources and total quality
management as a fused specialty. Readers’ feedback may be sent to kairoshq@info.com.ph.
|
