Something interesting to add to your comments Nick.. When I was shown around the mid-sized Japanese company that I, a foreigner from England, now work at, I was given a little talk about how much the whole customer experience and service is valued here.
What I was told is that Japanese consumers are not more demanding in what they expect from a product but they are far more demanding than westerners in terms of what they expect as service. I was told of an unwritten rule that still persists today: that if you make a mistake you have to repay three times the value of that mistake to make amends. So far I have seen that this basically translates through to 'if there is a big bug in the system we sell then we have to provide new functionality for free to make up for it' :D Man I am glad I am not a sales man here.
Apparently, and im not so sure on this point, this custom comes from the Yakuza and was the way they expected a dis-honour to be redeemed.. scary people.
Marcus
http://cellsuite.blogspot.com
Nick May <nick@kyushu.com> wrote:
One in seven new mobiles 'faulty'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4745205.stm
There is an old joke that went like this (back when it made sense...).
"How do you explain the Japanese economic miracle?" To which those
of us who had seen the often constipated and occasionally downright
barmy insides of small to mid-size Japanese companies would reply
"there is no explanation - it was a genuine miracle...Plaise the
Rord! (And encourage Him to do it again...)"
But the Japanese do the basics - like customer service - and handsets
that work or are fixed pronto - right.
14% is astonishing - even given the "Which" tendency to exaggerate.
Nick
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Received on Fri Aug 5 04:27:13 2005