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of Nissan or NTT DOCOMO (Japan’s largest mobile service provider, which is regularly number one in both employee and customer satisfaction rankings) reinforces the evidence that customer satisfaction initiatives only work when they are managed for the long term with the uncompromising support of top management.
3. Select the Right People
The Japanese companies interviewed seem to put
a great deal of effort into recruiting people with the right customer approach. Just like the success of quality management, the successful implementation of customer satisfaction movements can be achieved only through motivating people. Not only do leading companies recruit from the best universities, they also thoroughly examine attitudes through personal interviews. Since the competition to enter the best universities is rigorous, companies rely mainly on university entrance examinations as the primary indicator of an employee’s potential. Through extensive recruiting interviews, the best companies make sure that their new employees emphasize courtesy and humility in their contact with customers. This is particularly true for students who major in social sciences, humanities, or law and who are heading for careers in sales, personnel, planning, and administration, for example. Aspiring candidates are expected to apply directly to the employers for jobs. They are then asked to appear for a series of interviews with company employees, managers, and executives. As observed, the basic criteria for hiring are a balanced personality and moderate views. As
a general rule, Japanese employers continue to pay more attention to the personality and behavior of their future employees than to their academic background. In other words, it does not really matter whether a candidate is a graduate in philosophy, economics, or geography provided that he or she ts the mold of the company. Because Japanese companies also rely heavily on formal and informal networks within the best universities, the best companies are more likely to get the most competent, reliable, and responsive employees.
4. Train and Retrain
As with “kaizen” (continuous improvement), customer satisfaction in Japan is a spiral process that starts with education. Good training = positive service attitude = motivated employees = decreased staff turnover = improved service quality = satis ed customers.
Toyota salespeople learn how to welcome customers through a 150-page manual – at what angle to bow,
how and when to engage in conversation, how to sit properly with a customer, when and how to serve
tea, when and how to say goodbye. Every possible interaction with the customer has been anticipated
and thought through. For example, the manual even stipulates that “one should only engage in conversation with customers ve minutes after they have entered the exhibition hall or three minutes after they sit in the car...”and provides interesting tips on how to rekindle agging enthusiasm. Such attention to detail may sound excessive or even ridiculous. However, it seems to pay off for Toyota. Employee turnover is one of the lowest in the industry and customer loyalty is one of the highest, not only in Japan but also worldwide.
UNIQLO, which specializes in young and trendy clothing, gathers its employees together each morning to recite
a series of customer service mantras that includes introducing themselves, asking how customers are
and thanking them for waiting. UNIQLO also views training as a priority, sometimes spending a full year training staff to get them to the desired levels.5 Even the Japanese post of ce occasionally uses the services of leading Japanese department stores – legendary for providing outstanding customer care – to retrain their employees in customer service.
5. Measure and Communicate Quality Standards
In many businesses, the real action often takes place in the rst 60 seconds of interaction between the employee and the customer. Is the employee making the right impression? Is the company perceived as being considerate and helpful? It is important for employees to know what role they are expected to play and to be aware of what customers expect. Customers are also more likely to form an image of
a company through personal interactions with the company employees rather than through an expensive corporate advertising campaign. Since actions speak louder than words, measuring customers’ perceptions, expectations, and reactions to a product or a service is an essential ingredient of any customer satisfaction program. As customers’ expectations keep changing over time, customer satisfaction and retention must be measured and assessed regularly. Corporate cultures must also facilitate the acceptance and the diffusion of the customers’ opinions. However, in Japan too some companies conduct market research without communicating their ndings properly. As a Japanese executive confessed, “Results of our last market research seem to have remained locked in a drawer somewhere, probably because of internal politics.”
Every corporate executive interviewed recognizes that communicating the results and the actions
5 http://www.smartcompany.com.au/marketing/41574-four-lessons-from-japanese-fashion-icon-uniqlo-s-australian-launch.html.
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