Stand up to rude customers

THE guests arrived 30 minutes before check-in time at a traditional hot springs inn a few hours north of Tokyo. When they saw a sign asking customers to wait in their cars, they demanded to know why they couldn’t get their room keys sooner. The exchange, captured on a security camera, quickly exploded into angry shouting.

It ended on the doorstep – with the inn manager on his knees, bowing deeply and apologizing.

The incident was an extreme example of what has become increasingly known in Japan as kasuhara, an Anglicized abbreviation of “customer harassment.”

While no country is immune to such behavior, service expectations – and the potential for dissatisfaction – are particularly high in Japan, where a famous expression glorifies the customer as a god.

The tradition of hospitality is such that clerks in luxury stores bow to customers as they leave, and waiters, baristas, and hotel clerks use honorable Japanese when serving.

It is difficult to assess whether incidents of abuse are actually increasing. But in the wake of the pandemic’s upheavals, corporate officials, unions and even the government are focusing on the perceived scourge of customer harassment.

This pressure is all the more urgent because the labor shortage has given workers more opportunities to walk away if they feel mistreated. “The mentality has changed,” said Mami Tamura, a lawmaker who recently pushed for a law that would hold employers responsible for protecting workers. their employees against abuse by customers.

“Now fewer and fewer entrepreneurs think that the customer is a god.”

Examples that have surfaced in the Japanese media have given rise to a sense that customers have finally gone too far.

A ramen shop restaurant northeast of Tokyo threw 500 toothpicks into its noodles in protest when the owner couldn’t meet the constant demand for fresh toppings.

The customer then flooded another branch of the restaurant with so many frivolous calls that the owner called the police and a court fined the caller.

A viral video showed an irate bus driver causing a 25-minute delay when he berated the driver as an “idiot” for being dissatisfied with seating options.

Another video showed a taxi passenger on dashcam ordering a driver to apologize repeatedly for slightly overshooting a destination, causing her to cry.

Based on surveys by the Ministry of Labor and one of Japan’s largest labor unions, between one in ten and as many as half of workers have experienced some form of harassment from a customer.

Some businesses and service providers have started posting signs warning customers about mistreating employees.

They establish rules to guide staff on what is considered a legitimate complaint and what is simply unacceptable behavior that can be dismissed.

Some employers have removed last names from nameplates to protect employees from doxxing on social media.

SoftBank, a tech giant, is developing an “emotion-suppressing” voice-changing service that call centers can use to soften the rage of incoming complaints.

Customers believe that “they deserve higher quality service,” said Shino Naito, an associate professor of labor law and part of an expert panel advising the Tokyo Metropolitan Government on an ordinance banning customer harassment.

“Their expectation level has to be lowered.”

Defining – let alone banning – customer harassment can be difficult in Japan, where service staff are traditionally expected to tolerate any interaction with customers, even indignant ones.

Employees are quick to apologize for any perceived infraction, such as when conductors beg for forgiveness when a train is late, or even when it leaves a few seconds early. Such service standards can come with a rigidity that frustrates customers.

“The Japanese have an eye for detail, and that is the envy of the tourism and hospitality world,” said Benjamin Altschuler, an associate professor of sports, tourism and hospitality management who teaches at Temple University’s campus in Tokyo.

“But there is also inflexibility.” Customers may harass employees because they themselves have been abused by bosses or customers in the often harsh Japanese work environments.

They have to “take it out on someone,” said Masayuki Kiriu, a sociology professor at Toyo University who has studied customer harassment.

Employees of JR East, which operates the commuter train lines around Tokyo, say they regularly face verbal abuse from late-night drunken passengers confused about where to transfer or angry that their fare cards or cell phone apps don’t work . “I feel like if they don’t bring their complaints to us,” said Takami Matsumoto, who works at a ticket gate, “then they’ll have to carry them home.”

Until recently, managers told employees that complaints were their fault.

JR East said it was offering “support” to employees suffering from mental health issues through “workplace managers and company doctors” and that it was considering guidance on “how to deal with customer harassment in the future”.

Yuji Tanaka, general manager of Yumori Tanakaya, the traditional Japanese inn where early arrivals verbally abused staff, said he wanted to preserve Japan’s “unique” service culture.

But after the recent incident, he captured security camera footage and reported the couple to the police, who told him there was not much they could do.

People “just assume that service members should do what they want,” he said.

But there are limits: “I also want the other person to respect the service employees.” — ©2024 The New York Times Company