I wrote this a few weeks ago, but with the events in Japan it just didn’t seem right talking about customer experience there when there are so many, more important, issues facing them. Revisiting it, however, I’m reminded that the quirky nature of business in Japan (to western eyes) is one of the most endearing aspects of the country for me. So we publish this blog with all possible respect to our friends in Japan and our best wishes for their recovery from this tragedy.
Time-warp back to 1990…walk into a bank in Tokyo, hoping to get cash, and your experience is something like this:
- Stand in line.
- Greet the teller.
- Fill in a form.
- Watch (and you can watch, it’s all in plain sight) as no fewer than 5 different employees move your paperwork around the back office.
- Enjoy a steaming bowl of Miso. Ok, so this part isn’t true, but you do have time.
- Your “documents” arrive back at the teller who will hand you your cash.
- Everyone will bow profusely. They will be extremely polite.
They will, on short, demonstrate exemplary customer experience, Japan style, circa 1990. You will be a promoter.
Then something disruptive happens. The ATM arrives.
When you think about it, the ATM has two basic advantages:
- It’s fast.
- It’s available 24-7.
The Japanese might argue that having a digital version of a “cash-okemon” character based on a cute 10,000 yen bill, bowing digitally and singing the company song, might also be a plus. I beg to differ.
So when the ATM was introduced in Japan, in the 1990s, naturally the retail banking industry saw this as a huge opportunity for customer experience innovation. Customer self service! Reduced cost, streamlined process and a sharp increase in customer delight, all based on a simple proven technology and proven business model. They instantly transformed their industry…
Oh no, they didn’t!
They put the ATMs inside the bank, effectively subjecting them to bank opening hours (hint: the Japanese banks did not have a liberated view on banking hours) so effectively neutralized advantage #2
They put bank staff in front of the ATM to help customers, and protect them from a dangerous and difficult encounter with a rabid touch screen, effectively neutralizing advantage #1
Of course this is old news today but illustrates the fact that technology alone can’t convey advantage in customer experience; culture rules supreme. Ask Japanese bank employees why they do it this way (I did at the time); the answer was not what I expected. No stubborn notion of change resistance for the sake of it. No job protection (no need, banks never let anyone go anyway but that’s another story). Nope, these folks didn’t capitalize on the technology because they believed, in their hearts, that good customer service was all about what we, today, would recognize as lousy customer service. And worse, if asked, their customers would agree. Right until someone offered them the alternative.
Is there, you might be thinking, a moral to this tale? Or even, heaven forbid, some lesson about Net Promoter?
- Innovations in technology lose out to culture.
- Stubborn change resistance is easy to overcome compared to moving people’s beliefs, even if they are, as it turns out, misguided.
- New entrants (in Japan it was the US banks) have an advantage over incumbents at trying new approaches for these reasons.
- Customers don’t always tell you they are about to mass migrate because they haven’t yet experienced a radically superior experience. Their expectations are fixed in the short run.
- Innovations in Net Promoter philosophy tend to play out exactly as above in established above.
Ganbatte kudasai!
