"The Customer is God"

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WOW!!

Two blog entries in one day! We just LOVE using this travelblog! Hope you've all bookmarked this page by now....

Anyway, had an interesting, "only in Japan" experience today and wanted to share.....

We went into Machida to run some errands. First stop was the ATM to get money (15th of each month is pay day for NOVA teachers). Then we went into the SMBC bank to apply for international ATM cards for when we leave Japan.

There were heaps of people there as this whole week is "OBON", a national holiday period in Japan - so everyone decides to get there banking done at once. Anyway, we were first greeted by a lovely lady who claimed to speak no English (as they all do), but then ended up speaking it near perfectly (as they all do!) She gave us the forms to fill out and we waited for about 10 minutes before being served.

The young woman who was serving us actually couldn't speak English that well so we ended up having not one, not two but three people helping us with our application. We felt like royalty!

They were extremely helpful and accomodating......we were actually seated for over half and hour and then had to wait afterwards for our request to be processed. All in all we were at the bank for over an hour. The staff were so apologetic for making us wait and even presented us with gifts to apologise. Now, THAT would NEVER happen in Australia.

There's a saying in Japan when translated it's basically "The Customer is God". The customer service in this country is just incredible and yet another thing we will miss when we leave.

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