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The Best in Japanese Service from MORI LIVING Front Desk Staff
January 30, 2015
The staff deliver their sense of hospitality through their deportment learned during training.
Using a video filmed during the training, the trainer explained to the staff what each gesture means and how it can affect the impression given.
The training was easy to understand with demonstrations on exactly how to bow, how to hold one's hands, and the correct angle of the head.
Having lived in Japan for 12 years, I now tend to take for granted the wonderfully polite, discreet and helpful customer service that is the norm throughout the country. Little things like conductors or ticket collectors who bow at the front of each train car they enter and exit used to fascinate me, but now I have started to expect them, and they even seem somewhat commonplace.
When I was invited to sit in on a service training session for MORI LIVING front desk staff members, I didn't really know what to expect. People who work in the service industry here seem to have an inherent knowledge of how to interact with customers in a friendly and respectful manner, so I wasn't sure exactly what the trainers would be teaching. In the end, what I learned is that Japanese customer service is actually far more detailed and nuanced than I had ever realized, and I left with a renewed admiration for the people that work in these kinds of fields.
Rather than simply teaching staff when to bow, for example, the trainers explained to the staff what each gesture means and how it can affect the impression given. They then demonstrated exactly how to bow-where to bend, how to hold one's hands, and the correct angle of the head. Other lessons included such things as how to stand in front of customers, the correct way to hand someone a brochure or pen, and how to use one's hand when gesturing or giving directions. As minor as these things may seem, I realized that, when put together, they are the exact elements that make Japanese customer service some of the best in the world.
In the days following the training, I began to pay closer attention to the service provided by staff in shops, restaurants, hotels and other businesses that I visited. While I noticed many things from the course as being the norm across Japan, I also recognized that the service provided by MORI LIVING goes above and beyond the national standards observed. MORI LIVING residents, I realized, truly do get the very best in Japanese service.
Kelly