• 344 How Can Chinese Retail Be So Bad In Japan?

  • 2025/03/23
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344 How Can Chinese Retail Be So Bad In Japan?

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  • Bad service is a brand killer. This is a controversial piece today, because I am singling out one race, one group in isolation. It is also a total generalisation and there will be exceptions where what I am saying is absolute rubbish. There will be other races and groups, who are equally guilty as well, who I am not singling out or covering, so I am demonstrating a blatant and singular bias. I know all that, but let the hellfire rain down on my head, I am just sick of some of this lousy service here in Tokyo. It is a mystery to me how the service in some Chinese restaurants here can be so oblivious to Japanese standards of omotenashi. Omotenashi is that sublime combination of anticipating and exceeding client’s expectations, that has made Japanese service so famous. I love Chinese cuisine and I enjoy the high quality standard of Chinese food in Japan. They have the best, most expensive quality, very safe ingredients and really great Chinese chefs here. When I go to places in Tokyo like Akasaka Shisen Hanten in Hirakawacho the service is very, very good. My observation is that is probably the case because the serving staff are Japanese or Chinese who have grown up here. Whenever I go to some “all Chinese” affairs, with only Chinese staff, I find the service is disappointing. I had this experience again recently in the Azabu Juban. It was a first and last time to go to this particular restaurant. The food taste wasn’t the issue, in fact some dishes were delicious. It was the total disinterest on the part of the serving staff and their manager. You don’t feel any particular need to go back there, when there are a hundred other restaurants within a two-minute walk. This makes no sense to me, because when I am Singapore, Hong Kong or Taiwan, the restaurant service is usually very good. Obviously, the more expensive the restaurant, the better the service of course. So, there is nothing inherently missing in the service mentality and capability, that couldn’t be applied in Japan. Why then is it so lacking in omotenashi? I remember reading a purported Chinese saying that, “A man who cannot smile, should not open a shop”. Obviously, some of the Chinese staff working in these establishments I am complaining about, have never heard of that piece of ancient Chinese wisdom. Smiling, making you feel welcome, treating you well are a big fat zero in my experience. The way of serving is very perfunctory, even rough, in some cases. Japanese style restaurant table service is generally very much more refined. What is driving this difference and what does it mean for the rest of us in the service business? Perhaps some of the Chinese staff we are seeing serving in Japan are students. According to the media reports, many are actually working almost full time. They are not professionally trained service staff, in the sense that this is their career. Coming from certain parts of China and from different socio-economic backgrounds, they may have had no exposure to what good levels of service looks like. I went to China for the first time in January 1976 and have been back a number of times over the years. I studied Chinese language, history and politics at Griffith University’s Modern Asian studies faculty. I like many aspects of Chinese culture and studied Tai Qi Quan for about ten years with my excellent teacher, Cordia Chu in Brisbane, before I moved back to Japan. I haven’t been back to China for a while, but I don’t recall the service being particularly bad when I was there last. Perhaps some of these local serving staff living here in Japan only ever eat Chinese food, so they are never exposed to how Japanese restaurants serve their clients. I find that hard to believe though. The thing that puzzles me most is that despite the fact these Chinese staff are working in Japan and are floating in a deep ocean of omotenashi, some don’t seem to picking up any ideas on how to treat their clients. Why would that be? The managers are also Chinese, so they are responsible for leading their staff in the restaurants. Are they oblivious to the service market in Japan and how it functions? Are they just poor managers, who cannot place their operation in a broader context of local service standards. Are they inflexible and incapable of understanding the lifetime value of a repeater client? This is a very competitive restaurant scene here, has more Michelin starred restaurants than Paris, so you would expect that everyone, including some of these Chinese run establishments, would be doing everything they can to build a loyal, repeater client base. This challenges me to consider what we are doing in our own case, with our customer facing service. If I am going to bag some of the Chinese restaurant’s service here in Tokyo, then I had better consider our own standards at the same time. We are a gaishikei or foreign run establishment here. I am ...
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あらすじ・解説

Bad service is a brand killer. This is a controversial piece today, because I am singling out one race, one group in isolation. It is also a total generalisation and there will be exceptions where what I am saying is absolute rubbish. There will be other races and groups, who are equally guilty as well, who I am not singling out or covering, so I am demonstrating a blatant and singular bias. I know all that, but let the hellfire rain down on my head, I am just sick of some of this lousy service here in Tokyo. It is a mystery to me how the service in some Chinese restaurants here can be so oblivious to Japanese standards of omotenashi. Omotenashi is that sublime combination of anticipating and exceeding client’s expectations, that has made Japanese service so famous. I love Chinese cuisine and I enjoy the high quality standard of Chinese food in Japan. They have the best, most expensive quality, very safe ingredients and really great Chinese chefs here. When I go to places in Tokyo like Akasaka Shisen Hanten in Hirakawacho the service is very, very good. My observation is that is probably the case because the serving staff are Japanese or Chinese who have grown up here. Whenever I go to some “all Chinese” affairs, with only Chinese staff, I find the service is disappointing. I had this experience again recently in the Azabu Juban. It was a first and last time to go to this particular restaurant. The food taste wasn’t the issue, in fact some dishes were delicious. It was the total disinterest on the part of the serving staff and their manager. You don’t feel any particular need to go back there, when there are a hundred other restaurants within a two-minute walk. This makes no sense to me, because when I am Singapore, Hong Kong or Taiwan, the restaurant service is usually very good. Obviously, the more expensive the restaurant, the better the service of course. So, there is nothing inherently missing in the service mentality and capability, that couldn’t be applied in Japan. Why then is it so lacking in omotenashi? I remember reading a purported Chinese saying that, “A man who cannot smile, should not open a shop”. Obviously, some of the Chinese staff working in these establishments I am complaining about, have never heard of that piece of ancient Chinese wisdom. Smiling, making you feel welcome, treating you well are a big fat zero in my experience. The way of serving is very perfunctory, even rough, in some cases. Japanese style restaurant table service is generally very much more refined. What is driving this difference and what does it mean for the rest of us in the service business? Perhaps some of the Chinese staff we are seeing serving in Japan are students. According to the media reports, many are actually working almost full time. They are not professionally trained service staff, in the sense that this is their career. Coming from certain parts of China and from different socio-economic backgrounds, they may have had no exposure to what good levels of service looks like. I went to China for the first time in January 1976 and have been back a number of times over the years. I studied Chinese language, history and politics at Griffith University’s Modern Asian studies faculty. I like many aspects of Chinese culture and studied Tai Qi Quan for about ten years with my excellent teacher, Cordia Chu in Brisbane, before I moved back to Japan. I haven’t been back to China for a while, but I don’t recall the service being particularly bad when I was there last. Perhaps some of these local serving staff living here in Japan only ever eat Chinese food, so they are never exposed to how Japanese restaurants serve their clients. I find that hard to believe though. The thing that puzzles me most is that despite the fact these Chinese staff are working in Japan and are floating in a deep ocean of omotenashi, some don’t seem to picking up any ideas on how to treat their clients. Why would that be? The managers are also Chinese, so they are responsible for leading their staff in the restaurants. Are they oblivious to the service market in Japan and how it functions? Are they just poor managers, who cannot place their operation in a broader context of local service standards. Are they inflexible and incapable of understanding the lifetime value of a repeater client? This is a very competitive restaurant scene here, has more Michelin starred restaurants than Paris, so you would expect that everyone, including some of these Chinese run establishments, would be doing everything they can to build a loyal, repeater client base. This challenges me to consider what we are doing in our own case, with our customer facing service. If I am going to bag some of the Chinese restaurant’s service here in Tokyo, then I had better consider our own standards at the same time. We are a gaishikei or foreign run establishment here. I am ...

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