"Service quality is almost always notably higher than in the U.S. "
I disagree. It's true the superficial service in a Japanese store is noticeably superb, but consumers mostly care about service when things are off. Two common scenarios are returning items and asking for advice when you are not sure what to get, or where to get it. In th…
"Service quality is almost always notably higher than in the U.S. "
I disagree. It's true the superficial service in a Japanese store is noticeably superb, but consumers mostly care about service when things are off. Two common scenarios are returning items and asking for advice when you are not sure what to get, or where to get it. In the US, if you mistakenly buy a 40w bulb when you really wanted a 60w one, you can take it home, out of the box, install it in your lamp and turn the lamp on. After seeing you are not getting the light you expected, you can almost certainly get a refund or exchange credit by the hardware store by bringing it back. This is true almost nowhere else in the world. I haven't exchanged that many items in Japan, but the few experiences I have had were nothing close to the experience in the US, where the attitude is generally that I have a right to exchange it and the store needs a really good reason to not take the item back.
In American stores, if I ask for something they don't have, they will often direct me to another place to look. Several times I've even had them call ahead to the other store to check for me. In Japan, this has not happened to me once. Common cases is asking for English books in a book-store and asking for rooms in a hotel if you don't know if it's full. In these cases, I typically get a curt response and no additional help.
Japan also has a culture of not questioning authority in the medical sphere. It's "rude" to get a second opinion from another doctor.
Ironically, one of the things I like about Japanese service is the lack of humans. I would far prefer to order off a computer screen then talk to a waiter. To use automatic check out rather than a clerk. When you have "cheap labor" they put a human to do those things, but in Japan its more automated and I like that.
Besides high labor costs, I also think the huge amount of social ceremony involved in even a simple purchase makes vending machines and other automation even more attractive. You can easy go though three "arigato gozaimasu" rounds to buy a $3 onigiri at Lawsons.
"Service quality is almost always notably higher than in the U.S. "
I disagree. It's true the superficial service in a Japanese store is noticeably superb, but consumers mostly care about service when things are off. Two common scenarios are returning items and asking for advice when you are not sure what to get, or where to get it. In the US, if you mistakenly buy a 40w bulb when you really wanted a 60w one, you can take it home, out of the box, install it in your lamp and turn the lamp on. After seeing you are not getting the light you expected, you can almost certainly get a refund or exchange credit by the hardware store by bringing it back. This is true almost nowhere else in the world. I haven't exchanged that many items in Japan, but the few experiences I have had were nothing close to the experience in the US, where the attitude is generally that I have a right to exchange it and the store needs a really good reason to not take the item back.
In American stores, if I ask for something they don't have, they will often direct me to another place to look. Several times I've even had them call ahead to the other store to check for me. In Japan, this has not happened to me once. Common cases is asking for English books in a book-store and asking for rooms in a hotel if you don't know if it's full. In these cases, I typically get a curt response and no additional help.
Japan also has a culture of not questioning authority in the medical sphere. It's "rude" to get a second opinion from another doctor.
Ironically, one of the things I like about Japanese service is the lack of humans. I would far prefer to order off a computer screen then talk to a waiter. To use automatic check out rather than a clerk. When you have "cheap labor" they put a human to do those things, but in Japan its more automated and I like that.
Besides high labor costs, I also think the huge amount of social ceremony involved in even a simple purchase makes vending machines and other automation even more attractive. You can easy go though three "arigato gozaimasu" rounds to buy a $3 onigiri at Lawsons.