I have commented countless times to friends that I thought Japan had the best service culture. For a start, all the bowing, to strangers and friends alike, and even on the telephone when the recipient was nowhere to be seen. Then the care with gift wrapping, down to a fine art, and when done by the shop assistant, he or she would come out from behind the counter to hand it over to the customer with a deep bow, not to be so rude as to require the customer to receive it over an inanimate object. And how enthusiastic shop and restaurant assistants are when they yell out “Irasshaimase!” in unison as you enter the venue, quite unlike most places in Sydney where they avoid your eyes and pretend to be busy.
All that was before we set foot on Japan and a few experiences made me think again, not just about Japan, but what is really meant by service culture.
The Japanese has a lot of social rituals, some worked to perfection, possibly just to cope with living together in their very limited space. Without the rules it could be chaotic and may even lead to a breakdown of the civil behaviour as they now know it.
They are polite in the crowded subways for instance and I assumed that otherwise tirades from accidental bumping into each other would easily have led to frequent conflagration of tempers, interfered with the flow of human traffic or worse hold up trains. Indeed I observed there was seldom a display of annoyance from the crowdedness. In fact I discovered there was hardly any collision; which gave me the first inkling of what made the whole atmosphere so civil. The commuters were not just being polite, they also knew how to walk, where to walk and what speed to walk such that there were no collisions. Then it dawned on me the commuters did not need to be polite: all they had to know was how, where and how fast to walk! Once they followed those rules, written or otherwise, human traffic would flow smoothly.
The efficiency of Japan is oiled by many such well tuned systems, all geared to make things run smoothly. Queues are the order of the day and with everyone queuing, the system runs well. We all know that if everyone pushes to be first, no one gets anywhere fast. The Japanese might just cease to be polite if one pushes ahead of a queue; I never really tested this being too afraid to face the consequence.
We quickly ran into trouble by not following the systems unintentionally. It was entirely through our own fault. For a start we have to blame ourselves for our lack of the Japanese language, a major shortcoming on our part. The Japanese systems would be much easier to cope with if only we knew the language. Since they have a high literacy rate, their system worked well for them and there was no need for them to learn another language. We stuffed things up by not knowing Japanese and kept doing the wrong thing, and should have brushed up on the systems before we left home.
On the first morning of arrival we got into trouble by arriving too early at the hotel. We were supposed to check in after 2 pm but we had arrived at the hotel more than 2 hours early. We had never thought of it because on many occasions in other places there seemed not to be a problem. Many a time the Singapore receptionist would say, “Room is not ready”, but we were invariably allocated one as soon as the cleaners had finished the cleaning. But not in Japan, cleaners only clean between certain hours.
And then there was another rule, even if the room was ready, we were not supposed to move in early. Not unless we were willing to pay an additional charge pro-rata for the additional hours of use. We returned to the hotel around 1pm, and were still not allowed to have our room; but the charge has been halved since we were by then only 1 hour early, and not two. This was a strange rule indeed for since getting the room an hour early should not increase the hotel's running costs proportionally; the love hotels might could understandably require that, but it was not that kind of hotel we were checking into. They showed no sympathy for the fact that the two of us in our sixties had been travelling for more than 10 hours and were tired. Rules are rules, and the system said so, the inflexibility remained. Even though they were polite, in my impression of Japan, the “service” culture had evaporated.
The train systems impressed every visitor, especially those from Australia where there are trains but few “systems” to go with it. By the end of ten days, we had gained a lot of confidence on the large and complex rail transport neworks. I was even confident enough to book our tickets to the Kyoto Kansai Airport on the Haruka Express train by using the automatic ticket machine; after all, it had an English menu option. Just touch the buttons for the destination, time of departure, number of tickets, feed in the notes and out came the tickets complete with car and seat number. The guard who checked our tickets as we entered the station was happy, and the conductor who bowed and punched our tickets in the car equally so. All went well until we arrived at Kansai Airport, when the lady guard at the exit barrier stopped us and demanded more payment, pointing at numbers on her calculator.
Not unreasonably, we wanted to know why, in English of course while the guard replied in Japanese, pointing to her laminated fare sheet. When I asked for my tickets which she had already collected to check the fare I actually paid, she got angry and stabbed hard at her fare sheet. When she got angrier and louder, I gave up and paid her what she demanded, and was relieved that we were finally allowed to go through the barrier. It then occurred to me that she did not give me a receipt. No receipt, finally we encountered for the first time a breakdown in the system! We pondered and googled and could only guess that we had probably omitted buying an additional ticket for each of us. Somehow some trains required two tickets, one for the fare and one for being on an express train!
The inflexibility in Japan could be astounding. At an American style breakfast place, there was the usual loud and friendly greetings as we entered the cafe in the morning. We found that the toasts we were served with was just a single slice cut into two triangular pieces, which was somewhat insufficient and asked if we could have an additional slice of toast, which of course we would pay extra accordingly. This upset the system, and the waitress was initially stunned with the request and had trouble coping with variation as it was not in the menu. We had to suggest that we place an order for an additional meal, and suddenly everyone was happy and the system could then cope.
I realised now that in the past I tend to describe polite and efficient service as good service. The Japanese certainly has efficient and more often than not polite service, especially when the systems are followed. It was when their system was not followed that service breaks down.
Efficiency comes from the system while good service comes from caring of customer’s needs. In Japan, the providers often have good system but not necessarily good service, especially for those who could not speak the language.
