Data scandals involving global data collectors can negatively impact people’s willingness to share personal data with research agencies. Can the Japanese culture of customer service give clues to how research can deal with this challenging reality?
In a world where huge corporations gather vast amounts of personal data and experiment with how the value of this data can be maximized, how can the research sector maintain or even increase trust with consumers. The answer may be found by looking at how many brands in Japan maintain & increase trust with their customers even in the face of great challenges, through a unique culture of omotenashi or customer-first mindset.
Low trust
To play their part in building a trusting relationship between the general public & market research, GRBN recently conducted The Global Trust Survey 2020. Globally, approximately 10,000 people participated and in Japan, 1,000 participants came from Rakuten Insight’s proprietary panel. The study measured opinions of ‘brands who collect and use personal data’, including research providers as well as, any form of personal data collection. The key insights included how Japanese & Korean consumers have a high concern of misuse and low trust in companies which collect personal data.
In A Cultural Analysis of Trust in Data Collection the concept of trust itself was explored from a cultural standpoint. In Japanese, personal trust (shinrai 信頼) is akin to the concept of Brand Love in the West. Business trust (shinyou 信用) is functional, relating to business or tasks being undertaken to expected levels, and therefore relevant for products, services & data. Potential strategies to gain more personal trust include scaling, diversifying or specializing to target a well-defined consumer segment.
Another insight from the survey was that consumers in Japan & Korea tend to have high expectations from companies and bank on them both intuitively understanding their concern and managing their personal data with care. This expectation is that companies will demonstrate a mindset of omotenashi.
Omotenashi loosely translated as ‘the art of selfless hospitality’, has been central to Rakuten Insight for over 20 years, and contains a broad range of different values due to the cultural context of ‘customer satisfaction / service’ itself. In the West, salesmen have followed the mantra ‘customer is king’. In post war Japan, folk singer Haruo Minami coined the phrase ‘okyakusama wa kamisama desu’ or ‘Customers are Gods’. The original intended meaning was that if you imagine your audience are Gods, you will perform better and gain more personal satisfaction. However, this was misinterpreted and used by marketers, evolving to mean that one should worship one’s customers. Values included in omotenashi are a sense of selflessness, wholehearted, sincerity, customer centric, anticipation of needs, focus, caring touch, dedication, seriousness & attention to detail. Omotenashi would be the expectation towards the collection & usage of their personal data.
Compensation
Omotenashi is important when faced with situations which may damage trust. One example in daily life of omotenashi is in restaurants or shops, when there is anticipated to be a great inconvenience placed on customers such as an extremely long wait. The restaurant may provide chairs, blankets, warm drinks or snacks to their customers whilst waiting which although not expected is neither surprising. Once the meal is finished the establishment may offer children a gift of toys or sweets. The company is expected to demonstrate Omotenashi and compensate their inconvenience in some way. Or perhaps, families are forced to wait in a mobile phone shop. The customer may expect a play area for young children to entertain themselves whilst they wait along with refreshments of course.
Another example is of the appliance maker who unfortunately had to recall thousands of damaged products which had potential to seriously injure their clients. The manufacturer placed a pause on all internal projects and assigned all staff to personally visit each customer and apologise for the inconvenience. Along with the apology would come a gift or discount voucher for the next purchase. Traditionally department stores who sold unsatisfactory goods may have paid a visit to the customer and similarly apologised on their doorstep.
In the West, the counterintuitive likeability benefits drawn from a highly competent individual making a mistake was described by the pratfall effect. Whilst the ‘Law of Candour’ from the book ‘The 22 Fundamental Laws of Marketing’ says that “when you admit a negative, the prospect will give you a positive”. In short, people of all cultures respect the courage and honesty it takes to admit that not everything is perfect. However, there is much more to Omotenashi than candour & sincerity.
So can data collectors who make a mistake go further in winning back customers or indeed can data collectors do more to increase win back customers in the face of data scandals beyond their control? Most likely the answer is yes. Just consider your customers as Gods at the heart of your brand and the ideas to compensate and win back hearts & minds would come. Imagine if after the next scandal, Facebook sent personal apologies with a voucher for free WhatsApp calls or Google sent a choice of highly personalized gifts. Consumers may have an entirely different reaction & trust may be maintained. Sorry may be the hardest word – but everyone loves a freebie!
When sorry isn’t enough, data collectors can surely creatively compensate more, show a wider variety of acts of genuine gratitude, kindness and…well the universal language of money, vouchers, discounts & points.
