Episode #133: What Do You Do When You Screw Up The Delivery
THE Sales Japan Series
Sales is the front of house part of business but often the delivery of the product or service is done by someone else. They say that the real measure of the service culture of a company is the decision by the guys on the loading bay not to drop the customer’s package. They are not highly paid, the job is pretty dull, boring and thankless. If you can get the people at the bottom of the hierarchy to buy into the vision, mission and values regarding customer service then you are a rare bird. Most of the time the disconnect between what the suited denizens of the executive floor, with their thick carpet, tasteful, expensive paintings and carefully selected executive assistants are thinking is taking place and what is really going on, are light years apart.
Sales is often a hotbed of exaggeration. Wild and fanciful promises are made to secure the sale at which point the back office gets involved. Production deadlines are totally unrealistic, the pricing is a sad joke that won’t stack up, the quality level promised cannot easily be achieved. Bad things start to happen because now the system is being subject to trauma. The delivery is entrusted to the lowest common denominator for reliability and performance. The “care factor” hovers close to zero. The customer’s promises are vaporised and they are not happy.
In Japan the blame game is well established. Mistakes are not acceptable in Japan, so first order of business when making a mistake is to take zero responsibility for anything. The second order of business is to hide the mistake if possible. Absolutely no early advice to the boss that there is a problem. Keep it under wraps in the hope the boss never finds out at all. If that doesn’t work, then deny everything. Failing that, blame somebody else. The group accountability system here is genius in avoiding individual retribution. We are all responsible, so none of us are responsible. Perfect.
Does the customer just roll over and accept this. Absolutely no way. They go on attack and are relentless on getting justice. Knowing this you have to wonder why the guilty parties don’t fess up and accept the blame? In litigious societies like the USA, no one accepts blame for anything, because they know they are going to court against a fired up lawyer looking for their percentage of the judgment. Well in Japan, they do eventually take responsibility , but only after being given a thorough tongue lashing by the buyer.
Japan is great for turning up bearing gifts, usually some food items like expensive biscuits, cakes or fruit from a major Department Store, like Takashimiya or Mitsukoshi. A lot of deep bowing is also required while repeating set phrases like “I am sorry, I have no words…”. It sounds better when expressed in Japanese, but that is the raw translation. At this point the unhappy party berates the offender for their failures. If it is a serious enough problem, then the top brass get rolled out to atone as well. This is usually a last resort though.
What do we need to do? Creating the right culture in the company is key. Make sure the WHY is understood by everyone. Also, there needs to be the right approach to handling mistakes. If the team know they are not going to be executed for mistakes, then the chances of finding out early go up. Bosses going apoplectic when problems arise and publically balling out the errant, ensures a culture of keeping problems a secret. We don’t want that because if we can get on to the problem early, we can usually limit the damage. The boss has the money and power to fix things, so the sooner they get involved the better.
It also pays to get the boss bowing to the customer from the start, rather than resisting this. By wheeling in the big boss, we can demonstrate our sincerity in how seriously we are taking this issue. There was a problem with some business in Kobe. The amount of money involved wasn’t much. Nevertheless, I got on the Bullet Train went down there, did a lot of bowing and saying sorry and then came back to Tokyo. That blew off my whole day. However, if you want to establish the right culture about customer service, then you must lead from the front. The staff member who created this problem wasn’t publically humiliated or blasted. They were spoken to in private and assured there had better not be a repeat performance. They were allowed to live on and fight another day.
The British Admiralty in the early twentieth century had a simple strategy. Build the biggest ships, get there first, sink everything. Not bad advice for dealing with mistakes. Send in the big boss, act immediately and keep apologising until they have no more to say.