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3
April , 2001
SERVICE
WITH A SMILE,
JAPANESE STYLE
"Irashaimasse!" That's the hearty greeting you hear when you enter many sushi restaurants in America, and every sushi restaurant in Japan. The word means "welcome, come in, step in, can I help you sir or ma'am…" and it is a touchstone in day-to-day interaction between Japanese businesses and their customers.
| We handed him a $20 bill and told him it was for him, not for the waiter, and to go back and tell the waiter we didn't think he deserved a tip. |
In the US there are greeters only at Wal-Mart stores, and the greeters are often older men and women who are hired because they have nothing better to do. In Japan, the job is given considerably more importance than that - often the greeters are perky young women in uniforms, bowing as customers enter the store and chirping the inevitable "irashaimasse!"
I saw this over and over when I have been in Japan, not just at large classy department stores but even at small shops such as bookstores. Here in the US, customers are often ignored when they enter a store, and left alone unless they need help. Even then, I have had to go up to indifferent clerks who act as if they're doing me a favor, and ask them for help.
There are examples of poor service everywhere these days.
Erin and I encounter so much poor service at restaurants that getting great service can be a profound shock. Restaurants offer the added thrill of service other than your interaction with the waitstaff. We've watched as servers have wiped down dirty tables with a cloth, then grabbed our plates with their thumb touching our food as they bring it to us. Yuck.
One night I dined at an Indian restaurant in New York City with friends. The service was so terrible - the waiter ignored us, was rude and brusque and didn't maintain rudimentary service such as filling water glasses - that we agreed as a group not to leave a tip. The waiter had the gall to send a busboy out to chase us down the sidewalk. "Excuse me, did you forget something?" he asked embarrassedly. We looked around at our coats and bags and said, "no, we don't think so."
The poor boy, who couldn't have been more than 16 or 17 and was in fact the only employee at the restaurant who worked hard, mumbled something about a tip. We handed him a $20 bill and told him it was for him, not for the waiter, and to go back and tell the waiter we didn't think he deserved a tip.
Even at a bookstore, where you would think a shared love of books and knowledge would create a common bond for staff and customer alike, we've had horrible service. How many times have you stood at a customer service line to ask a simple question, only to have the person there ignore you while he or she finishes a phone call, or fills out a form? When I worked at a camera store way back when I was in high school, I was always trained to acknowledge the waiting customer, apologize for the delay and explain that I'd be with them as soon as I finish with the current customer. Such a simple courtesy is very rare these days.
The supermarket, one of the most stressful places to shop, can be a nightmare for customer service. Once I find cashiers who work hard and are friendly to every customer, I try to always use their checkout lanes, even if it means waiting. One night not too long ago, I broke this personal rule because the store was crowded and one cashier had a much shorter line than anyone else. Little did I know, others must have avoided her because they know her. As I stood there holding a basket of just a few items, she rang up the groceries of the person ahead of me as if every box of cereal, every bag of chips was some strange new invention that she'd never seen. Worse, she chatted away with the customer - usually a good sign of friendliness, an old-fashioned trait that's now too rare, but not when it's crunchtime at the supermarket - as if she had all the time in the world for small talk.
Some people might think that poor service is a sign of the times in big cities, but it can also happen in a small town. Erin and I visited Salida, a tiny mountain town in southwest Colorado that's well-known for its historic downtown, a haven for art galleries. We stopped by a handful of galleries, and found that shops across the street from each other can have vastly different ways of making their guests feel welcome, or not welcome. One artist engaged us in a wonderful conversation for half an hour; at a nearby shop, the woman behind the counter acted as if we were bothering her when we entered.
Poor attitudes are not only an American phenomenon. There are Japanese businesses with rude employees, I'm sure even in Japan.
In fact, I have vowed never to go to one well-known and busy Denver-area Japanese restaurant because of incredibly poor service I received several years ago. A friend who had moved from Denver to Chicago was flying in for a brief visit and wanted very much to eat at the restaurant, one of her favorite places. So I made a reservation for a late lunch, after finding out they closed in the afternoon until dinner. We got there on time, but we could sense the staff resented our arrival so close to their afternoon closing. Before we were finished with our meal, the waitress bluntly told us they were about to close, and that we would have to finish quickly. She even pointed to the back door, and told us we would have to leave that way when we were done.
I realized afterwards that this restaurant, which serves a large menu of Japanese food and features a popular sushi bar, never welcomes its guests with "Irashaimasse!"
I should have taken that as a warning.