Tag: monozukuri

Europe could really use a dose of Japanese-style customer service

I have to admit that I always suffer from reverse culture shock when I return to the UK after business trips to Japan. Arriving at Heathrow Airport I find my shoulders hunching up, ready to face the fact the inevitable headaches and the fact that at best I may get some cheery but incompetent service – and at worst, downright hostility – from the people delivering my “transportation experience”.

I know from the training seminars I do for Japanese expatriates who are working in Europe that they too put “bad customer service” near the top of the list of things they find most challenging about living here. In Japan you become used to a consistently high level of competence in customer service, delivered politely and gently, with immediate and unreserved apology should things go wrong. Most British people, even if they have never visited Japan, will agree that customer service standards are poor in the UK. Other Europeans, on hearing our criticisms, will usually add, “Try my country – it’s even worse!” European service is uneven in quality, often delivered with a bad attitude and when things go wrong, you get excuses rather than a straightforward apology.

The question Japanese expatriates ask – and the question I often ask myself, is – “why?” Why is customer service so bad in Europe, and if most people agree it is not satisfactory, why isn’t anything done about it?

I have been doing some research on the differences in Japanese and British corporate cultures recently, and I’ve realised that the key features I have identified can also be used to explain the different customer service outcomes. For example the corporate mission of British and Japanese companies and their historical roots has led to more “stakeholder” companies in Japan compared to more “shareholder” type of companies in the UK. This in turn has had an impact on the employees’ sense of belonging to a corporate group and collective responsibility.

Some of the more traditional – some might say “outdated” – aspects of Japanese companies also impact customer service. These would include seniority based promotion, with its roots in Confucian acceptance of unequal power in society and the obligations that go with different ranks, alongside respect for elders and higher ranked people. And although status is unequal, Japanese companies do not have a huge differential between the pay of the senior executives compared to the junior ranks, unlike British service companies where the junior person is notoriously badly paid and chief executives earn millions of pounds.

Finally, even in service sector companies in Japan there is the gembashugi factor or a focus on the actual place where the work is done. Senior managers should have worked their way up the organisation and be prepared to go out onto the shopfloor. There is even a kind of monozukuri or craftsmanship – pride in the physical aspects of delivering service well.

Perhaps, if the key elements in Japanese service excellence can be identified and made explicit, customer service can be Japan’s next big export industry?

This article by Pernille Rudlin originally appeared in the Nikkei Weekly.  This and other articles are available as an e-book “Omoiyari: 6 Steps to Getting it Right with Japanese Customers”

 

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Monozukuri still has merit, but smarter marketing a must

I’m a big fan of Japanese monozukuri (“the art of making things ie manufacturing) and said so in a letter published in the Financial Times recently. It attracts criticism for causing Japan’s economy to be too reliant on exports, and there are worries about how an aging population can supply enough workers to man the shopfloor. But I really think Japan should “stick to its guns” in this regard.

Here in the UK we are suffering the effects of having moved too far away from manufacturing. We’ve ended up with a society where everyone thinks they should be highly paid knowledge workers or celebrities. We have failed to give enough status and dignity to making things.

A diverse society like the UK needs a full range of jobs to stay healthy. I am not saying this out of a patronising assumption that manufacturing jobs are necessary for the unskilled and uneducated in society and that such people are somehow not fit for anything else. There seems to be a fundamental human need to see tangible results from our labours.

Besides, a career in manufacturing requires far more than dexterous fingers these days – thanks to Japanese techniques such as just-in-time delivery, visualisation, root cause analysis, multi-skilling and so on, anyone wanting to succeed in manufacturing has to be computer literate, have an understanding of logistics and be capable of rigorous problem solving.

It is noticeable in this recession that many manufacturers have struck deals with their workers on pay cuts or working time reductions. rather than resorting to mass redundancies. There is a high cost to training a fresh set of employees when the economy picks up, so it makes more sense to retain the current workforce.

In fact it is knowledge work that has proved to be more vulnerable than expected. I know of many bankers, accountants and lawyers who have been made redundant, thanks to our British economy based on trading of over-hyped assets such as houses and fancy financial instruments. Ironically, many of them are now turning to “manual” work; cookery, gardening, farming, starting a vineyard and so on.

One problem I have noticed with monozukuri, however, is the assumption that making lovely things is somehow enough. At a seminar I facilitated recently, several senior salespeople, in electronics, sanitary ware and banking, all noted that their Japanese companies did not seem to have any understanding of the basics of marketing, particularly in the current highly competitive climate. “My bank doesn’t even have a pitch book!” the banker told me. I pretended to know what he meant, and later found out that this is a fundamental marketing tool for any Western investment bank – containing all the profiles and experience of the proposed team.

In the past, Japanese companies could rely upon relationships and their reputation for quality to sell their products and services. Now they need to think long and hard about differentiation and value added. Why do we make this product and not that one? What makes our product or service better or different? Should we be making this product at all? When they have answered these questions, their sales people can sell more convincingly, and the Japanese economy can pick up again.

This article by Pernille Rudlin originally appeared in the Nikkei Weekly. 

 

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When dealing with customers, a little omoiyari goes a long way

I explained in a previous article on customer service that British service sector staff are often hostile or resentful in their attitude to customers partly because of a lack of pride in their work and their company. This has arisen from their sense that they are being exploited by their employer, that their company only benefits shareholders, not society, and that “serving” people is somehow demeaning.

This could be counteracted to some extent by making sure employees do feel more positive about their employers, as seen with British companies which do have excellent customer service, such as the retailer John Lewis, whose employees are partners and owners of the company. Introducing Japanese concepts such as “gembashugi” (empowerment for the frontline staff) and “monozukuri” (a pride in craftsmanship, not just in manufacturing, but service skills too) could also help.

But as I was travelling and shopping both in Japan and the UK over the Christmas and New Year, I began to wonder whether British service standards could ever reach Japanese levels, because of a fundamental cultural difference that may just be too hard to reconcile. Japanese society is permeated by a strong concern for how what you say or do affects others, to a far greater extent than in the UK.

I realise that for many Japanese it is almost too much pressure, what one British writer on Japan has called “CCTV eyes”, where you can end up becoming paranoid about how other people might see or think about you. The positive side to it is “omoiyari”, what in English we would call “forethought” or “consideration”. It’s an ability to pre-empt what the other person might need, or how the other person might be feeling, and to do something about it, without being asked.

One British manager told me a funny story after I explained to him about omoiyari. He had been asked to pick up a Japanese colleague from Heathrow airport and take him to one of their company factories. The British manager was very busy, so he tried to drive as quickly as he could to the factory. En route, however, he was bemused by the way his Japanese colleague kept asking him about what his favourite soft drink was, and whether he thought Diet Seven Up was better than Diet Sprite. Only after hearing me describe “omoiyari” did the manager realise that his Japanese colleague was hinting that he was thirsty.

“What should I do next time if I want to show omoiyari?” the manager wondered. “Ask him if he would like to stop off to get some drinks?”

The problem with that, I responded, is that if the Japanese colleague is also practising omoiyari, he may notice that you are busy, and deny that he is thirsty, because he does not want to delay you.

The best thing would be to buy some drinks in advance and offer them to him in the car. This kind of behaviour is the ultimate in customer service.

This article by Pernille Rudlin originally appeared in the Nikkei Weekly and in Japanese in the Eikoku News Digest.  This and other articles are available as an e-book “Omoiyari: 6 Steps to Getting it Right with Japanese Customers”

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In defence of Monozukuri – letter in the Financial Times

Letter from Pernille Rudlin published in the Financial Times, May 28th.

Sir, Contrary to your leader writer (“Factory Flaw”, May 26) I believe Japan would be well advised to stick to monozukuri (“making things”). A healthy society needs a variety of jobs for its population to achieve self-fulfilment in work. We cannot all live by knowledge work alone.

It does seem that there is something rather unsatisfying to the human soul about living off the profits made from trading in complex financial instruments or house prices. Witness all those articles in the Financial Times over the past few months describing how now redundant City workers are flocking to cookery courses, sailing, starting their own vineyards and so on.

The leader writer’s view that manufacturing jobs only require “obedient high-school graduates” and that these jobs are not “professional, varied and lucrative” is not supported by the fact that so many manufacturers at the moment, Japanese and otherwise, are trying to negotiate wage cuts or reduce work time, rather than lay off their core staff.

It costs a lot of money to train key factory workers, as they are (thanks to Japanese management influence) required to be multi-skilled, computer literate, excellent problem solvers and understand complex logistical requirements. Manufacturers do not want to have to go through the expense of finding and training a fresh batch of people once the economy picks up.

It is true that these jobs are not as lucrative as those “triple the national average” salaries that politicians, journalists and bankers seem to feel they are entitled to. But given what is happening to the media, banking and politics at the moment, at least people in industry can feel glad that they have a job, and it is a job that society values.

Pernille Rudlin,
European Representative,
Japan Intercultural Consulting,
Surrey, UK

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