The Sales Japan Series

I am a great fan of Victor Antonio, who writes books, gives lectures and training on sales.  I listen to his Sales Influence Podcast and he has a lot of solid, credible advice. In a recent episode he spoke about not using “weasel words” in sales and being more directive and certain with the buyer.  Weasel words are defined as “words or statements that are intentionally ambiguous or misleading” and in sales would include words such as  “perhaps”, “maybe”, “could”, etc.  I was thinking about how this would apply in Japan.

The culture here of modesty, humility, not standing out, not being openingly directive is the exact opposite of the culture in the USA, where you have to be more aggressive.  As a consequence, if I started being more assertive with my buyers, I believe they would dismiss what I was saying as American style push selling and reject both me and my solutions.

I have lived here for 40 years in total now, so over those three sojourns, I have adapted my Aussie self to fit in with the way things work here.  In sales, when I first started trying to convince buyers to buy, I was using consultative selling methodologies.  That meant asking questions to understand the buyer needs.  However, I am sure when I got to the solution explanation part, I was being very strong and forthright in my recommendation that they buy what I was offering.

Having sold here for many years now, I have changed that method to be less strident in my recommendations and I do use a lot of what Victor calls weasel words in the sale.  I have found that being too pushy with the buyer doesn’t go down well.  Being too assertive isn’t viewed positively and the buyer feels they are being pressured to purchase.  Deals don’t get done as a consequence.

If it was black and white, that would make things easier, but where is the line between strongly believing in your solution and being too pushy.  I know I really believe in what we sell.  We see the results from our training and how it changes people’s lives, so we are all true believers. The problem is the buyers have to buy it, before the results are delivered and they have to take our word for it that what we are saying is true.  We know for certain but they are not sure.

We also know that confidence in the solution does sell.  If we are too hesitant, too unsure, too circuitous in our explanation, then the buyer may not receive enough confidence from us, that what we are proposing will do the trick.  How much is too much confidence and how much is too little?  As I say – where is the line?

I have found that the key is to be humble about what we say will happen after the sale, in terms of what they will receive in terms of results, and then pile on the evidence.  We can be very sure, passionate and enthusiastic about what we have seen work for someone else.  We can speak with total belief about what we have observed.  We can speak with authority of one who has witnessed the changes and the improvements.  In our explanation of the results from our training, the total certainty is there because we have seen it with our own eyes. When we speak about whether this will automatically transfer across to this particular buyer’s situation, we have to be more conservative.  Having perfect knowledge of the buyer’s situation internally and externally, is unlikely for us. We cannot say, “well this worked for XYZ company, so it will definitely work the same for you and you will get equal or better results”.

This is where the weasel words are needed.  If we are too strong in our recommendation we will be doubted.  Every buyer is concerned that what they buy won’t work as advised, and that internally they will be blamed and scolded for their selection of supplier.  They like the passion we show for our belief in the solution, because this gives them more confidence in the possibility it will work.  By not trying to push the sale through, we also show our respect for their position.  We need to say something like, “this worked well for XYZ company, so given your situations are very similar, there is a strong probability it will  work the same for you too”. 

When we say it with these caveats, we sound more reliable to the buyer, because we are not giving any 100% guarantees, which may or may not be worth anything. We sound more honest too, because we are introducing the possibility it won’t work for them, but that we will make a 100% effort to see that it does work.  That small sense of doubt gives the buyer confidence that what we are saying isn’t salesperson blarney and that we are honest and can be trusted as a partner. 

We are telling the buyer that we are not here for a sale. We are here for the repeat order and we will do everything we can do to make sure it works so that more orders flow and we build a solid trusted advisor partnership. What we say and how we say it matters in sales and semantics are crucial in getting the deal across the line.

The denizens of the upper floor, quiet, luxurious C-suites with expensive wall hangings and deep pile carpets, determine the changes the organisation needs to make to survive or to do even better. They expect everyone below to get behind their dispositions.  Deep down in the engine room of the sales team, these changes are communicated by their boss.  Usually, sales leaders become the boss because they lasted through two consecutive recessions and were the last one left standing or they were the star producer and were kicked up to management, many years ago. 

Invariably, they received no leadership training on the way through, so they are constantly making it up, using trial and error as they go along.  They may just bluntly tell everyone how it is and expect the salespeople will snap into line and obey the new direction. 

Sales is an emotional rollercoaster of constant rejection, with hard sales targets and permanent instability.  Somewhere in that firefight, the salespeople have carved out their own little world and cobbled together a construct, held together with string and adhesive tape, which allows them to survive or possibly thrive.  Then the big bosses turn up and tear a hole in that neat little safe and sound world.  Suddenly, the salespeople have to make changes to what has always worked and their sales leader is no help.  What happens to their motivation?

Salespeople are already world class, gold medal winning whiners.  It is always someone else’s fault as to why they can’t make their targets.  The system requiring them to make this latest change has just handed out the ultimate all-weather, all season excuse for missing the numbers.  Finding the path of least resistance is how most people operate and salespeople in particular, because they are permanently time poor.  They cut corners and shave off service quality to ensure maximum speed.

Change means slowing everything down and recalibrating what needs to be done.  These changes will often impact their clients and particularly in Japan, salespeople hate having to bring any changes to their buyers, which will affect their operations. How can salespeople adjust to change?

Decision One is whether to continue with this company or not?  In Japan, there is a dearth of salespeople, so job mobility is at world recording breaking highs.  Taking your clients and moving is super easy today, so their response to the changes is “goodbye big bosses, I am leaving with all my business cards, to work for the opposition”.

What about for those who choose to stay?  First order of duty is to not rely on the boss for how to make the adjustment. Expect they won’t be much chop when it comes to this type of thing, as they are totally untrained for it.  Salespeople have to work it out for themselves.  Once that reality is accepted and the change is confronted directly, then some analysis is needed.

In any change, there are pluses and minuses and salespeople must run the ruler over where these are located.   Are there any advantages to the buyers with these changes?  If this is the case, then that is always going to be a great conversation and one the salesperson can look forward to initiating.

More likely, how can the negatives of these changes be minimised for the buyers?  Ultimately, the salespeople have to be agnostic about what they think about the changes and be fully focused on what they mean for their clients.  If the changes are a pain for the client, what can they do the reduce the amount of pain or what can they do to counterbalance the pain?

Maybe they can’t do anything and they consequently lose that client.  Well salespeople lose clients all the time, so there in nothing unique in that.  They also know how to find new clients, so they have to get busy with that activity and find clients for whom the changes are not an impediment to doing deals. 

Salespeople have to be resilient or they cannot survive in the rough and tumble of the sales life, so adjusting to the new is built into their DNA.  They won’t necessarily welcome or like the changes, but they can make them work because they are experts in adaption. 

Salespeople turn up in Japan and expect things to be pretty much the same as where they have come from.  After all, sales is sales right? Wrong.  Japan, as usual, is quite different. If these newly arrived salespeople had received training on how to sell, then they are probably going to try a consultative sales approach.  This is absolutely what they should be doing, except it doesn't work in Japan. The consultative approach at base has a very sensible and basic idea – ask the client what they want and then give it to them. Simple stuff.

The issue in Japan is the client won’t open up and tell you what they need. Buyers have been trained by crap salespeople here to expect a pitch of what you have to offer, so the buyer can lean back and shred it, trying to sort out the risk factor. If you come to the buyer and start asking questions about their firm’s current situation, they don’t see this as a means of better understanding their situation, so that you can provide the most relevant and effective assistance.  They see it as prying, as exposing their dirty little, embarrassing secrets to strangers and therefore to the broader world, broadcasting all of their failure points and weaknesses. 

We may start with our consultative sales approach and hit a wall on our first question: “What is the current situation for your company?”. This sounds innocuous enough, but that is not how the buyer interprets it.  They feel, “I can’t answer this salesperson’s questions, because I don’t know them well enough and the trust is not sufficiently built yet”.  That is a big gap from the get go. 

At this point they usually segue into “Tell me about what you do and about your products”. This is bad.  We are now throwing mud at the wall and praying something will stick, which is not much of a sales strategy. How can you get the pitch right if you have no idea what they need.  Most of us come to client sales meetings with numerous products and solutions, but which one will hit the mark?

In the West we are very logical.  If what the salesperson is genuinely interested in what we need and if what they are saying seems to make sense, then we are prepared to look at buying.  The Western buyer is not terrified of making a mistake.  They are not fearful of sharing information with strangers.  They are not dubious about foreigners selling them stuff. They are looking for ways to help their firm do better in the market, for methods to outfox their competitors and gain an unfair advantage in the hand-to-hand combat of business.

The Japanese buyer is very conscious that if they introduce something new, like a new supplier and anything goes wrong, they will lose face and will suffer in the internal future promotion stakes.  They are not focused on helping the firm to do better, because they are driven by their own personal self-interests.  They have also discovered that the safest path is the one of doing nothing new.

I was talking to the HR Manager of a car dealership about some sales training for their firm.  They have had sales training before, but the results were not impressive.  My angle was “try us as a new approach, bring in something fresh and differentiate your salespeople from all the competitors”.  I thought that was pretty conclusive and convincing. 

Weeks later I was told they went with another firm who specialises in sales training for dealerships.  This is what they had been doing in the past and not getting the change they wanted, but the safest path forward is always to do what you have always done in Japan and take no risks with anything new.  They will get the same results they have always gotten but everyone will feel safe and no one will lose their job.

In Japan, we need to set up the consultative approach with getting permission to ask questions before we launch forth.  In the West we never have to so this step because every gets it.  Not Japan though. 

Here is the simple, quick formula: explain who you are; explain what you do; talk about who else you have done it for and the results; suggest you could possibly get similar results “but to know if that can happen or not, would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”.  In 95% of cases this works and I get permission to dig into their dirty laundry and find out their problems.  There are still those buyers though, who just brush that effort aside and say “give me your pitch”. 

I really want to cut my losses and leave right there, down my cheap, bitter, horrible green tea and depart, because I know that without understanding their needs, I have little chance of talking about the things of most value to them. I don’t do a runner because that would be abrupt and considered rude in Japan. I soldier on, fully understanding every minute with this buyer is keeping me away from a buyer who will buy.

Consultative sales can be done in Japan, but it needs some modifications to allow for the pitchfeast mentality on the part of the buyers. Once we understand where they are coming from we can work our way around the resistance and get to the heart of their issues and hopefully we have a solution that will work.  If we don’t, we shouldn’t waste our time or theirs and we should go find a buyer we can help.

“There are no excuses for failing in sales”, is a common ideological position. However, is this really true? There is no doubt that sales is a very macho environment for men and women.  There are set quotas, targets, numbers to be hit and if they are not hit, then that person is deemed to be failing. There are no hiding places in sales.  You make your target or you don’t.  Now, if we fired every salesperson who failed to hit their target, we wouldn’t have many people in sales.  Japan makes this especially fraught because the declining population translates into a shortage of salespeople. This also means that the quality of salespeople in the market is only going to decline.  Whether we like it or not, we will be looking for anyone with a pulse to hire because we need warm bodies.  Targets smargets in this case.

In sales anywhere, we know a couple of things.  The majority of people in the business are untrained.  Companies want off the shelf top earners who they can cut loose and let them go forth and bring in the dough.  That is an epic delusion in this day and age in Japan.  People who can sell are not moving because the company is doing its best to keep them.  That means the ones who are mediocre, or worse, are mobile.  Even this supply will dry up as companies become more and more desperate for salespeople and will keep their underperformers because they at least know something about the product lineup and have met a few customers.

We also know that at any point in time, a third of people we meet who we hope will become clients will never buy from us.  There may be many reasons for this, to do with budgets, decision-making, ideology around self-sufficiency, stupidity, etc.  Another third will buy, but unfortunately not according to our monthly sales quota driven schedule. 

In Japan, especially, it is exceedingly rare to meet someone and then immediately get a sale.  The dispersed decision-making process in business here ensures that there are many voices to be consulted about a new decision to buy from an unknown supplier.  This internal harmonisation can take a long time to come to fruition.  The best way to think about is like this: “the buyer is never on your schedule”.

The remaining third will buy, and the question becomes why will they buy from you? The “you” is important here because firms don’t buy from other firms.  They buy from the individual they meet, who is sitting across from them in the meeting room. They make their decision on that basis.  Is the chemistry there between buyer and seller emanating from a solid foundation of trust?  Where does this trust come from? 

The biggest part of the trust equation is from the seller’s kokorogamae.  This Japanese word can be variously translated, but in this context, “true intention” is the best version.  True intention means what is really driving the salesperson?  Is it desperation to keep their job by making their monthly sales target?  Is it greed to score a big commission or a promotion?  Is it to do the right thing which is best for the buyer?  If it isn’t the latter, then we have a problem. 

Correct kokorogamae is often defeated by the culture of the firm.  Doing the best thing for the buyer is not a smash and grab activity designed to yield immediate returns.  The focus of correct kokogamae is to get the repeat order, not a single sale.  That mentality is very specific and the time frame is long.  If the sales manager is pushing everyone for immediate sales revenues, then the needs of the buyer get tossed out the window and the salespeople will do and say anything to get the sale.  In fact, everyone is working hard to dismantle the brand and destroy the client trust for short-term gains and this is driven by the leadership.  Is it the fault of the salespeople that they are working for idiots?

Companies have to do much better by their salespeople.  Target expectations need to be realistic and have attached timelines which make sense.  Training is an absolute requirement, in particular, how to ask questions in order to fully understand what the buyer is trying to achieve. Pitching a solution makes no sense if you have no idea what the buyer needs, and this activity has to be replaced by intelligent questioning skills.  The aim has to become the repeat order, because farming is a lot less expensive and more efficient than hunting all the time.

Just hiring people and then firing them is an option that is no longer able to be enjoyed by companies in Japan. Given that the quality of those recruited will just keep going down, these individuals have to be encouraged and developed.  That requires time and treasure, but there is no alternative.

Most of the sales jobs in Japan require the ability to sell in Japanese.  That usually means native speakers of Japanese or foreigners who can operate at a highly sophisticated language level.  There will be exceptions, but they are not that numerous.  Probably the bilingual recruitment industry is one of the main employers of foreigners who can’t speak Japanese and English-language schools.  One could argue that today neither requires any real sales skills.  Recruitment, in particular, is at an inflection point where the demand definitely exceeds the supply, so anyone with a pulse can match a candidate from the database and invoice the firm looking to hire staff.

Be they Japanese candidates for sales jobs or foreigners, what should we be looking for?  Some might look for a track record of sales results.  That is one indicator, but often not all that useful.  Is the methodology in your shop teams doing sales and being rewarded as a team with salary and bonuses? Or are there individual targets and commissions attached to the sales?  This is such a different construct, it depends on how you are configured. 

Japanese salespeople, in my experience, love a salary, bonuses and team accountability.  They are reluctant to take individual responsibility for their sales results.  The money is obviously better when operating as an individual, but most Japanese salespeople feel overly exposed to the harsh realities of the sales life in this situation and prefer the comfy team embrace.  So expecting rocketing individual results from a salesperson who has been operating within a team is overly optimistic.  Despite that, I always favour personal accountability for results and work on gluing the team together, even though they are focused on getting their own numbers.

How have they been trained is also a strong indicator?  Very few salespeople anywhere on the planet have been given formal sales training.  In Japan, it is usually on-the-job training or OJT where they go with their boss or more likely, with their senior to client calls. Japanese salespeople turning up on their own is rare in Japan. Usually they travel in pairs, as one is the understudy to the other, until such time that they become the senior in their own pair.  Ideally, we either want properly trained salespeople or we want to be able to train them formally, rather than rely on the Japanese system of intergenerational mediocrity.

In some cases, the salesperson needs a degree of technical background for their work.  Japan though has a weak connection between what they study at University and the jobs they wind up doing, so often there is no direct match.  In many cases, the engineers may have the required technical training, but no formal sales training, so they are reliant on the OJT system for developing their sales abilities, which is at best a hit and miss affair.

In general, broad skills are required and, in particular, communications and human relations skills are needed. Technical people can often be duds at both, so they need to be developed.  In other cases, the person has these key skills but is weak technically.  The Unicorn is always hard to net.  When I first worked at the retail bank in Shinsei, the hiring criteria was maths skills for salespeople selling investment products to wealthy individuals.  A rather dubious idea, I thought, so I changed it to put more emphasis on people and communication skills.  Naturally, the results vastly improved immediately.

The other element we need to think about is our brand.  Does the person we are looking at hiring fit our brand or can we teach them how to fit.  If I see a sales guy with some of the things we are looking for, but has scruffy, poorly shined shoes, I know that I can teach him how to fix that issue.  If his haircut is a disaster, we can fix that too.  The point, though, is the individual has to submit to the brand and fit in with the company’s thinking.  In today’s environment where getting a sales job is super easy, maybe they don’t want to change themselves to match the brand and expect things to flow the other direction.  In my case, I would always think long-term and want to defend the brand, because it is bigger than one salesperson.

There is no doubt that we are all facing a lot of difficulty finding suitable salespeople based on our preferred criteria.  Whether we like it or not, we have to be flexible and the best idea is to train the people we hire to get them to the level we need.  Expecting they will come fully outfitted from the get-go is now a fantasy.  Times have changed and we need to move with the changes.

I have been coaching a founder client here for quite a while now and his emotional reaction to his clients not buying on his schedule always surprises me.  I keep telling him, “it is business; it is not personal”.  We know that there are some customers who will just never buy, some who will buy now and some who will buy in the future.  We just don’t know which is which until we get rejected. 

When I get rejected in a deal, they are not rejecting Greg Story.  They are rejecting my offer, in its current construction, at this point in their cash flow cycle, within the bounds of their strategic direction, in relation to what my competitors are offering and a whole bunch of other stuff I will never even know about.

Does it still hurt?  Yes, of course it does.  I get super annoyed and upset like everyone else.  The difference between me and my client, who I am coaching, is I never pass that emotional reaction on to the client, who said “no” to my stupendous offer.  He does pass it on because he feels so upset and frustrated. I keep telling him to chill.  Write the email if you must, to get your hurt feelings out, just never send it.  My advice isn’t working as yet, but I will continue to counsel him to not take it personally.

I had my own rejection case the other day.  I was doing an RFP for a client and they came back and said they went with a rival firm who specialises in sales in their industry.  What was my initial thought?  “They are idiots” was the first reaction. This was followed by “why are they just doing what all of their competitors are doing? Why not use another more differentiated approach with something more fresh?”. 

What did I reply?  I didn’t mention any of that.  By the time the decision has worked its way through their internal decision-making system, there is no going back. Telling them they are stupid may make me feel good, but it won’t alter their course of action.  I wrote what I always write, “thank you for letting me know” and that is that.  I don’t bother with appeals for consideration in the future. I just accept their idiotic decision and move on to find someone smarter, taller, better looking and who bathes and who can do a deal with us.

Now I also put them on my follow up list, because not every deal works out. Their situation can change and maybe my competitor is useless and what they provide doesn’t work.  So I keep in touch and ask them if they have any needs that we can help them with, and I do this regularly.  The initial interval is around six months.  That is long enough for them to realise they made a huge mistake by using my competitor and that they got nothing from that ridiculous solution they chose instead of mine.  After that, I follow up every three to four months, because business is fluid and what wasn’t on the table is now in play. 

How long should you follow up for?  Ryan Serhant, who I follow and who started his own successful real estate brokerage in the US, says “keep following up until they die”.  I am not that pushy, because I figure there are reputational costs to being too pushy and too insistent in Japan. 

Tokyo is big, but it is also a small village in many ways.  We sell to Japanese domestic firms and foreign multi-national companies.  Our reputation as Dale Carnegie, a business based on being able to get on well with all different types of people, has to be careful how we are perceived in the market.  If we say one thing, but do another, then our brand consistency will suffer and so will our sales.

Where is the line between persistence, which is admirable, and being too pushy, which is frowned upon here?  It is not always clear, but if I feel that there is no interest, then after about four follow-ups with no reaction stretched over a twelve-month period, I will shelve that firm for a while.  The people may change in the future and maybe someone smarter will be the person to talk to or maybe their business has changed and they are now more open to our solutions.

Regardless of what the client does, we can control how we react and we must keep cool, calm and collected in the face of failure and rejection.  Is that easy?  No, but the choices are few.  My client hasn’t quite gotten to the point of handling the rejection in a calm, non-emotive manner yet, but I will keep working on him until he gets there. I am constantly working on myself, too. I have found that no one is a clear genius with this stuff and we are all a work in progress.

This is Part Three and is the conclusion of our series on how to provide superior customer service.

1.    Go the extra mile

Time is always short and we all tend to cut corners and look for anywhere we can save time.  On the receiving end of the service though, we are looking for as much personalised attention as possible, so there is a natural tension between these two aspirations.  Training staff to think beyond the natural limits of time challenged customer service is the start.  We can all do more. If we think of things from the customer’s point of view, we can extrapolate what would delight customers.

I visited the café of a well-known business to enjoy a hot chocolate.  This was a small outlet, which had one table for customers to sit down. There were no other clientele, so I decided to sit there and drink my brew, before heading off.  There were two staff working at that time and when the beverage was ready, the male staff member brought it to the counter. 

He could just as easily have brought it to my seat, which was a metre away from the counter, but he chose not to.  There was no time pressure on him, but his mind was in basic service mode and not in “go the extra distance” thinking.  I am also guessing, given his age, that he was the manager of that small store, so you can see the problem with him in charge supervising others.

2.    Using 3rd parties as proof points

No one in Japan wants to be experimented upon or be the Guinea Pig.  They want proven, established, reliable, repeatable, high quality service.  Years ago, I was with my family in a Korean Barbecue restaurant in the Azabu Juban. I noticed on the wall they had a hand written list ranking the most requested dishes.  I thought that was a smart idea for a Japanese audience, who want safety, rather than novelty or adventure.  The next day, I brought this up at the Shinsei retail bank, where I worked and suggested we do the same and list our most popular financial products.  We did that and it gave that third party seal of approval, making the purchasing decision that much easier.

3.    Master first impressions

We are all quick to judgement and often we base it on what we see, before what we hear.  Just looking at how someone is dressed influences what we think about who they are.  A lot of firms have uniforms for that reason, to standardise the image they want to project and to control the branding. The way we dress matters, so we have  to work on that and make sure it is communicating the image we want. In the customer service sector, it might be voice first or it might be visual first.  Either way, we have to be mindful of how we come across to the customer. The sound of our voice should always be friendly and helpful. 

I had some lower back issues recently and went to a clinic which specialises in that area.  The first doctor I met welcomed me, looked at me, gave me his name and listened to my problems.  I had to go back again after a week and this time, because of the day of the week, I got a different doctor.  Same clinic, but this guy was well overweight, slumped down in his chair, staring at his computer screen. He didn’t offer his name, look at me or seem happy to see me and my money.  We are facing a major population decline here in Japan, so these doctors really need to hang on to their patients and the competition is only going to get more intense. Same firm and two entirely different impressions.  Getting consistency is a matter of awareness and training.

4.    Cross and upsell

Selling should always be with the best interests of the customer.  We need to have that in mind, rather than ramming more sales down the gullets of the buyers or selling them stuff they don’t need.  Cross selling is there to open up options for the customer, to give them more of what they need.  Upselling is to upgrade the quality of what the client has already bought, to give them a better experience.  Both have to be done in the customer’s interests and the customer has to feel that is the case.

I used to go to a dentist in Azabudaidai but I never felt my interests were upper most in his mind.  I always felt he was seeing me sitting here in his dentist chair, visualizing his new Tuscan Villa, paid for by the additional dental work he was always suggesting.  I stopped going to him because I didn’t feel he was trustworthy.  There is a massive over supply of dentists in Tokyo and there are plenty of choices, so his greed was a very shortsighted measure.

5.    Able to deal with different personality types

We have some people who are very detailed oriented called Analyticals, while others are the opposite and massively big picture, “don’t bog me down in the weeds” types known as Expressors.  Others are fast paced and hard driving as they push, push, push called Drivers.  The opposite types are Amiables - quieter, considered and want to have a cup of tea and get to know us before they will do business.  In customer service we have to know who we are dealing with, because that will change the form of communication we choose.

We have our own preferred personal style and that is fine, but that means there are three other styles who are different from us and they demand a different approach in order for us to be successful with them.  Generally, we can tell from the way they speak, which group they fall into.  If they are confident, strong, assertive they are going to be Expressors or Drivers. If they are quieter and more reserved, then they are likely to be Analyticals or Amiables.

Just knowing this enables us to strengthen out voice or soften it, when we deal with them.  That alone means we are doing a good job of matching how they like to communicate and they will feel more comfortable with us.

6.    Skilled in conflict management

The service sector is bound to have conflict issues between what the customer wants and what the firm wants.  In customer service roles, we often get very irate people talking to us and they are difficult to deal with.  The usual breakdown is they want something and we don't have it, or we won’t do it. 

How we communicate that is everything.  We just covered different personality styles so that is the first line of response.  We try and understand who we are dealing with.  We may need a very detailed explanation as a result or can just be brief.  Naturally, we have to be super polite all the way through.  Being gruff with a Driver type is incendiary, so I don’t recommend that, but we can be direct and they won’t be offended.

We need to be looking for empathy, win-win solutions, practical alternatives, context and background explanations and of course lots of flexibility.  I remember when I was in trade promotion, we had sold a new buyer on purchasing garden bark from Australia.  It had to be just bark, with no twigs or pebbles or sand.  The day the ship should have departed, the supplier called us to explain they missed the ship but “don’t worry, it will be on the next one”. 

When we relayed that vital piece of information to the Japanese buyer, I could hear the anger coming out of the phone, being held by my staff member seated three metres away. It was so intense, such red-hot rage.  He had promised his customers bark and now he couldn't supply it, so we were burning his business, by not living up to our side of the bargain. 

That was the end of that business on the spot and no more orders.  There was no wiggle room in that case, but wherever we can, we should be looking for solutions to alleviate the problem for the customer.

Over the last three session we have covered off a large number of things to think about in customer service. Information is good, but execution is the key.  Often the issues we face are structural or the consequence of legacy systems.  We need to keep upgrading our internal approaches to become better at servicing customers, so that we can outmaneuver our rivals in the marketplace.

In Part One, we looked at some of the elements we need to be working on in providing excellent customer service, and so now let’s continue.

1. Friendly

This would seem to be a very basic requirement in customer service, but often the wrong people are placed in these roles and many of them don’t like people.  Even those who do like people can suffer brutal invective from irate customers and this can impinge on their joy for the work. 

In Japan, the land of the “customer is God”, we now see legislation against harassment of workers by customers.  Dogeza is where you get down on your knees and bow by putting your head on the floor and is the ultimate sign of apology in Japan.  In Chinese culture, we know it as the ‘kowtow”.  Angry customers have been known to force staff to do the dogeza to apologise for the unsatisfactory service they have provided. It would be very hard to be friendly after being put through that experience.  Japan is catching up in this regard and these types of outbursts will reduce as the system stops tolerating unbridled rage by customers.

2. Develop loyal fans

This is related to being friendly. The idea is to not just provide a great one-off service, but to enroll the customers as repeaters and make them loyal fans.  All sales should have this as the goal.  In Japan, though, we receive aloof, but polite service.  Those serving see their role in the dimension of providing the good or service, and that is it.  There are very few cases where the person serving is trying to establish a connection with the customer and encourage them to come back.  Maybe they think that is the job of the marketing department and nothing to do with them.

There are many instances where I frequent the same establishment, but the service is never personalised.  It is efficient and polite, but impersonal. I am treated just like everyone else, and there is no recognition that you are a regular.  Notable exceptions would be Ali Bab and Lindo near my office in Akasaka, Shinsen Hanten in Nagatocho and Elios Locanda in Hanzomon, but they are rare cases. How hard is it to recognise regulars?  Not very.  All the staff have to do is say “thank you for coming back, what can I do for your today”.  I love Princi from Milano in T-Site in Daikanyama, go there very regularly and five years later, I am still waiting for the day they recognise me as a loyal customer. Obviously, in most cases, there is no training or guidance for this, so it is always by the manual and we the customer are left feeling flat. 

3. Immediately responsive

Customers are all busy all the day long and they hate wasting their valuable time.  Service provision, which is slow or late, is particularly a problem in this high-speed world we inhabit today.  When there are problems, we want them fixed fast because we are losing time by not having the good or service work as we expected.  I ordered some deodorant on Amazon and was contacted by Japan Post to tell me the package was wet, which meant there had been some interior damage.  I went online and registered a problem and I was very happy to immediately hear from the supplier that they would refund my money and they told me to not accept the package.  I was mentally bracing for trouble, prevarication, quibbling, and fudging, but their instant response was better than my low expectation. I was very happy, and that is the same with all of us – we want things fixed and fast. Staff need to be trained to provide it

4. Never combatative

I hate one thing in particular and I have hated it my whole life, and that is being told “no”.  I am sure I am not the only customer who is like that.  One of the great ways of telling a customer “no” is to reference third parties.  When I was at the Shinsei Bank, sometimes the customers would want us to do something which was not possible.  Banking, by the way, is a highly regulated industry with tomes of rules.  If we said “no, we can’t do that”, then to someone like me, that is a red rag to a bull and I will tell you the thousand reasons why it has to be a “yes”. 

Instead, we would firstly agree that we could do it.  Then we would pause, reflect in an obvious way and then ask the customer what do we do about the Financial Services Agency (FSA) rule that prohibits that action.  Now we have said “yes” at first, so they are relieved and their guard is down. Next, we have made it a problem between them and the FSA and not with us.  Third-party direction works well if you can access it.

5. Seeking win-win outcomes

Win-win is an obvious best solution, but many systems are not designed that way.  This forces the staff into confrontation with the customer and it creates unnecessary tensions.  Staff training will not easily overcome a structural problem.  Take a good look at your internal rules and systems and see if they are designed in a way to be a “lose” to the customer and a “win” to the firm. Change them or improve them if possible.

6. No excuses

Highly litigious cultures like the US are hard wired to never admit guilt or responsibility, which can drive the customer nuts.  There are also some personalities who cannot admit being wrong and will try some mealy-mouthed lingustic gymnastics to avoid taking accountability.  I hate these types of people in any form.  As the customer we don’t want excuses. We want soutions, compensation or retribution.  We want you to fix the problem and we want it now.  Again, this is about how we train and empower people.  The Ritz-Carlton Hotel chain is famous for giving staff a certain amount of money they can right off to keep the customer happy. It works, as I have experienced firsthand. 

I was staying in their Washington DC property and I went down for breakfast at the 6.30am opening time but the waiter apologised that they were not ready yet.  I said “no problem, I will just sit by the window over there and read my paper”.  He later came and told me they were now ready.  When I went to pay, the waiter said “complements of the Ritz Carlton because we have inconvenienced you by making you wait”.  That was service, I thought, and here I am telling all and sundry about it, for them, years later.

 In Part Three will wrap up this look at Outstanding Customer Service.

Elements Of Outstanding Customer Service In Japan (Part One)

Customer service in Japan is pretty good by comparison with most other countries.  To me, it is polite yet impersonal.  The status gap between those serving and those being served is quite rigid.  In my own country of Australia, those serving are quite happy to have a conversation with the customer. They don’t see themselves as inferior in status and treat customers as equals.  In Japan, there is no such equality.  The language and the culture both reinforce the buyer as God, and those serving are mere mortals there to do God’s bidding.

Let’s look at some elements of excellent customer service over a three-part series. The sad aspect here is that what I am going to describe is totally obvious and will garner a “so what” reaction.  I urge you to go beyond that initial first blush and use this as a measuring rod to calibrate how your organisation deals with customer service problems and check if you are operating at the right level of service or not.   

1.    Totally professional

This is fairly obvious, but that professionalism comes from a combination of attitude, experience and training.  Even if you don’t have much experience, if your attitude is that you want to provide the highest level of service, then good things will flow from that starting point and we gain experience over time.  If properly trained, then the whole process gets sped up.

2.    Knowledge

Surprisingly, a lot of people in the service sector have very little knowledge of the inventory, systems, ethos and values.  When you ask a clarifying question, their face fills with panic and they have to go seek the answer from someone else.  This is a failure of leadership.  If they were properly invested in, then they would know the answer without having to run off and find the answer.

3.    Highly personalised service

 Manualised or formulistic service is the norm in Japan.  Companies try to reduce all complexity down to one way of doing things and for the majority of clients, that will be fine.  To lift above the great unwashed competitors, we need to be able to provide a more personalised service.

I was reminded of this recently when I brought a pocket square online from Massimo Pirrone in Antwerp. The item arrived in a nice box and additionally, he included a short note and a very nice pen as well.  It felt very personalised and I became an instant fan.

4.    Take Ownership

Japan is very good when order and harmony prevail.  Chaos, the unexpected disasters – not so much. The nature of customer service is that there is always going to be a high frequency of the unexpected occurring.  The key is how we react to the changing situation. 

When things go wrong, customers want the issue solved and solved instantly.  They expect the person they are interacting with to make it happen, regardless of the degree of difficulty.  Japan has a nasty edge to it when customers exploit their expectations too far and start bullying staff, because the customer is God.

If the person serving the customer takes ownership of the problem, they will keep pursuing the solution until resolution.  That is the mentality the supervision and training need to reinforce.

5.    Anticipatory

Omotenashi is the high point of Japanese service and a big element is the person serving the customer to anticipate what the customer needs before they voice that request.  On a hot day, being served some iced water as you enter the business is a nice touch, completed without you have to place an order. This is an attitude of service that drives behaviour.  With the right leadership, this can be taught.

6.    Proactive

This is similar to anticipatory, in the sense that we are not adopting a passive stance. We try to arrange things well before the need arises by being well prepared.  We are always looking for faster and better ways of doing things. 

We are making suggestions for the client, for their best interests, rather than expecting them to have complete knowledge of what we can do for them.  They will never know our business to the depths that we do and so we have to be thinking ahead and bringing up possibilities which wouldn’t necessarily occur to them.

We will keep going with our list of things to think about in terms of the service we currently supply and how we supply it in parts Two and Three.

Do you need to sell more?  Is your sales manager stressing you about making your monthly sales quota? Do it yourself trial and error wastes time and resources. There is a perfect solution for you- to LEARN MORE click here (https://bit.ly/43kQpsN )

To get your free guide “How To Stop Wasting Money On Training” click here ( https://bit.ly/4agbvLj )

To get your free “Goal Setting Blueprint 2.0” click here (https://bit.ly/43o5FVK)

If you enjoy our content then head over to www.dale-carnegie.co.jp and check out our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules and our whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story, President Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training

[email protected]

Bestselling author of “Japan Sales Mastery” (the Japanese translation is "The Eigyo" (The営業), “Japan Business Mastery” and "Japan Presentations Mastery".  He has also written "How To Stop Wasting Money On Training" and the translation "Toreningu De Okane Wo Muda Ni Suru No Wa Yamemashoo" (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのは止めましょう) and his brand new book is “Japan Leadership Mastery”.

Dr. Greg Story is an international keynote speaker, an executive coach, and a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. He leads the Dale Carnegie Franchise in Tokyo which traces its roots straight back to the very establishment of Dale Carnegie in Japan in 1963 by Mr. Frank Mochizuki.

He publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter

Has 6 weekly podcasts:

1.     Mondays -  The Leadership Japan Series,

2.    Tuesdays – The Presentations Japan Series

Every second Tuesday - ビジネス達人の教え

3.    Wednesdays - The Sales Japan Series

4.    Thursdays – The Leadership Japan Series

Also every second Thursday - ビジネスプロポッドキャスト

5.    Fridays - The Japan Business Mastery Show

6.    Saturdays – Japan’s Top Business Interviews

Has 3 weekly TV shows on YouTube:

1.     Mondays - The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show

Also every Second Thursday - ビジネスプロTV

2.    Fridays – Japan Business Mastery

3.    Saturdays – Japan Top Business Interviews

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development.

Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making, become a 39 year veteran of Japan and run his own company in Tokyo.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate (糸東流) and is currently a 6th Dan.

Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Watching Joe Biden destroy himself during the debate with Donald Trump was painful.  He was appealing to the American voting public, that is to say, around 68% of voters based on the 2020 numbers, a then record turnout. This type of debate is similar to closing the sale in business.  We have to outline why what we are doing is good for the client and why they should choose us over the alternatives. Polling, surveys, focus groups etc., provide politicians with insight into the needs of the voters and they construct their close on that basis.

We do the same, except that we do research on the firm, the industry sector, the individuals we are meeting to build up a picture of who we are dealing with.  By the way, in today’s world, they are doing the same to us.  Are you satisfied with what they will find out about you?  I digress.  We then ask a series of questions to better illuminate what the buyer needs.  Once we have zoomed in on what they require and have internally confirmed we have what they need, then we explain our proposition and go in for the close to get their agreement to make us their preferred solution provider.

Joe Biden couldn’t close the sale because of the way he communicated his message. His low energy didn’t convey conviction or confidence.  In sales, we have to be careful to not come across as a pushy salesperson, hell bent on getting the required revenues to make our monthly targets. We have to have conviction, energy, confidence without it being pushed too hard.  Japanese buyers do not react well to being pushed.

One reason is that they are rarely the sole decision maker and harassing them to buy is pointless. The decision will go through many people before it is resolved one way or another. What we can do though is to communicate the details of how the solution will work well inside their company and the benefits they will get which they are not enjoying today.  There is a line between enthusiasm and pushy and we have to tread on the correct side of that line.  Sales is the transfer of enthusiasm is an old saw and it is true.  We need to convey the belief that what we are offering will be the best thing for this buyer.

If we can fire up our interlocutor, they will be primed to sell our ideas inside the company and bring on board the other sections who will be impacted by this buying decision.  We will probably never meet these people, so our champion has to be our communication mouthpiece to spread the good word about what we are proposing.

One way to fire up our champion is to provide them with a lot of data, proof, statistics, testimonials, etc.  Japanese buyers are, I would say, the most risk averse group on the planet, so we have to come packing evidence if we expect them to go to bat for us.

I think Biden should have destroyed Trump in that debate, because he is the incumbent and has the numbers to support the policies he has introduced.  When I see video of other politicians like California Governor Gavin Newsom or Senator Bernie Sanders in action, they are machines on the numbers and that is what Biden should have done as well. In our case, when we are talking to buyers, we have to come with numbers too.  “Claims are easy, but where is the proof” is what the buyer is thinking and we have to provide that answer.

Storytelling should be seated on top of the numbers.  Buyers have trouble recalling stats, but we are all pretty good on recalling stories.  Being able to assemble the numbers and then weave them into a convincing story is one the key skills in sales.  That story should feature where the solution has created value for another client, very similar to this one.  Being able to explain how the other client converted the solution we provided into tangible benefits is what the buyer wants to know in Japan, because no one wants to the be the guinea pig. They like to see others take the risk of the new and then they can safely follow in behind and get the value, without the fear of it turning out to be a dud.

Biden blew the close and as salespeople, we have to make sure we are not replicating that meltdown.  We need to understand how to communicate value in a way which is easily accessible to the Japanese buyer. My own failures as a salesperson can usually be traced back to poor ability to muster a compelling and convincing argument as to why they should stop just using their current suppliers and start using me as well, or preferably instead. 

We see a Biden failure replay, but do we reflect well enough on ourselves and our own communication abilities in sales? It is always a good practice to go back to the basics, back to the drawing board and rework what we say and how we say it for the buyers.  Just doing the same old, same old, is what got Biden into trouble.  He needed to rise to the occasion, but he couldn’t.  What about us?  Let’s make sure we are fully prepped and capable of delivering a powerful, convincing message to convert buyers into lifetime clients.