The Customer, Dethroned

A Japanese word for customer, kyakusama, translates as “honored guest.” But these days, bad behavior by these “guests” has gotten so out of hand that Tokyo is putting them on notice, the Japan Times reported.

Earlier this month, the city passed the country’s first ordinance to help protect workers from harassment, a move aimed at addressing the rising incidence of abuse of service industry staff by customers, also seen as gods or kings in the country.

Tokyo officials said the directive will go into effect in April. While it does not carry penalties, the government hopes it will send a message to customers to stop taking their frustrations out on employees, the Guardian reported.

Officials plan to develop more detailed guidelines before April, but Governor Yuriko Koike said the main philosophy of the order is “mutual respect between workers and customers.”

Japanese society is known for its attention to manners, as well as its exceptional customer service. But recently, customer behavior has gotten so extreme that it has threatened the safety of service workers, officials said. There has been an increase by customers in verbal abuse, violence, and doxing on social media of service sector employees.

A June survey by UA Zense, a federation of labor unions in the Japanese retail and service industries, discovered that almost one in two respondents experienced some form of customer harassment in the past two years.

The harassment has also crept into local government offices: One official complained to a local newspaper that some people “feel they can say whatever they want when dealing with public servants because they are paying tax.”

Meanwhile, three other prefectures are considering similar laws. Some municipalities and companies in Japan have also been giving employees the option of displaying only their first names on ID badges to increase employee anonymity.

Hiromi Ikeuchi, a sociology professor at Kansai University, said the rise of kasuhara (customer harassment) is influenced by various factors, including the tendency to treat customers as “gods” in the fight to remain profitable in an increasingly challenging business climate – an approach that has shifted the balance of power from companies to their customers.