In recent years with a great deal of international travelling I have become increasingly aware of the massive variations in customer service. There are also common themes in these extremes of service and often common sense is not that common.
Let’s start on a positive note! The best customer service I have come across to date has been in the USA and Japan. When I first visited San Francisco in the 1990s, I was amazed at how thoughtful and helpful people were. There was a genuine enthusiasm for helping customers and this trend was even more apparent in New York when I visited a few years later. In Manhattan one of the best stores was B and H Photo which is probably the largest photographic store on planet earth! The amount of stock is quite extraordinary and the product knowledge of staff is even more extraordinary. I have been there many times and every salesperson I have spoken to has a superb awareness of products in the store and are always extremely helpful.
I thought New York’s customer service was as good as it can get, until I visited Japan. The Japanese are in my view the number one country for customer service, quite breathtaking. To date I have visited Japan nine times and travelled to a number of major cities including Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya and Hiroshima. In every instance from the moment I arrive in the airport, there really is not match anywhere else for how helpful people are. I joked on social media during the last visit “How do you know if you are in Japan? You know because broadband is superfast and works immediately, everybody is helpful and polite, there are no charges for trolleys in the airport, and getting through immigration is super-fast, partly because they have a full complement of staff!” One store I always visit in Japan is the wonderfully named “Ukulele Mania” which has an amazing selection of instruments. I talked at some length with the manager there Dean Leoni about customer service. He commented “Regardless of whether anyone buys anything or not in the store, we always want them to go away happy.” Now that’s a great example of excellent customer service and Dean can be assured that he will not only get my custom, but I will always recommend him to others and cite his attitude in business when presenting my work internationally!
As a business I employ many suppliers and again customer service varies massively. The best ones will always be assured of many referrals from me to other parties. Interestingly the most problematic companies who can swing from great to terrible are often IT companies. I have had two in recent years where I referred numerous clients, ultimately to my regret. In both instances the owners of the business became border line delusional often referring to themselves clearly being sole traders in the plural as “we” although any employed staff had long departed. The worst ones aggravated customers to the point of total exasperation by not being open and honest in their dealings. In any business transaction problems can occur, but mostly these can be resolved if the business owner remembers that helping the client is more useful than blaming the client and adopting an attitude of unhelpful superiority.
This lack of interest in honest and open communication is the polar opposite to the best customer service in the USA 
and Japan. In these countries by experience is that the business owners are focused on helping the client and appreciating that reputation is everything. The smartest businesses appreciate the value of customer service. The less than smart ones continue to insist that all problems are solely created by the client and that the client is essentially no more than an irritation! In forthcoming months I’ll be blogging of specific examples of these polar extremes of customer service and giving specific recommendations on businesses I recommend and those best avoided!