The twisted logic of the Japanese Service industry

While buying a new computer is no big deal at all, i found the service discussion that went on yesterday between Biccamera and myself quite interesting.

Time is money as we all know. Every computer in Shibuya’s Biccamera had an advertisement shield on it saying we install stuff for you for 1500 Yen. I asked the lady who was helping me about it and said it would take an hour and dragged me to the cashier. They sent me with my new computer (a pretty, red Toshiba Dynabook with Intel Core i7 by the way) to the service counter where the endless explanations started.

It took me a while to get it what the nice, young but not English speaking guy at the service counter meant. The essence of it was: well, you have to become a member somewhere and the first two months of membership are free, but then you pay 940 yen per month for “service”. (Service in terms of trouble shooting etc.) If I subscribe to this thing for an initial 1500 yen, then they pre-install the thing for me, the Windows 8 and also MS office.

If I don’t become a member of this thing, installing Windows costs 3000 yen and MS Office another 3000 yen. I protested that after e.g. 10 months of membership in this service package I have already paid 9400 yen. Oh, you can cancel your membership a day after you become a member, the guy said, then you only pay 1500 yen and get the stuff installed. If you cancel your membership until the 10th of August you only need to pay those 1500 yen and we install the stuff for you.

Uh?

Interesting. Let’s just try this for the fun’s sake. I filled out a ton of documents (of course, there are always a ton of documents…) and left my computer in their care and had dinner in the meantime in MacD (I shamefully admit) in the same building. When I returned to the service counter an hour later, my new computer was all installed and pretty. You can ask them much more, by the way: to set up mail accounts and anti virus and what not. But that of course takes more time.

But, I had eaten and someone else installed my computer for a mere 1500 yen – I was satisfied, time was saved and I went home.

What I find fascinating is this slightly twisted stuff that you subscribe for something to get its benefits and then you unsubscribe and the guys at Biccamera advertising that openly.

It reminds me of a story I read about those bloody, hotly disputed Senkaku islands. Japan and China both claim they are their nation’s territory. I read an article some time back from a British journalist who visited the islands. You are not allowed to visit them for political reasons or to make an official report about them. But you can get near them on a fishing boat if you claim your official purpose is a fishing trip.

This is what the journalist did. He hired a fishing boat, they went to the island and he took photos and stuff. The Japanese captain of the boat then insisted, however, that they have to fish. Of course he knows as well as anyone else on board that this fishing business is just a cover-up and lame excuse, but he stuck to the rules and made the people on board fish and they towed some catch back home.

The tiny example of the computer service and the bigger example of the Senkaku island visit show so nicely how this society works. There is a lot of regulations and you have to stick to them, but it’s no problem at all to find whatsoever ways to maneuver around them and people are getting very inventive doing that.

My 1500 yen did not pay the salary of the service counter dude, but I guess he is measured upon how many contracts he manages to send to his bosses. So he finds the slightly sleazy way of suggesting to me to subscribe and unsubscribe the day later. It’s beneficial for him and for me, if not for his company maybe, but who cares.

I love this kind of stuff, tiny loopholes for big and small things I shall unsubscribe from the PC trouble shooting service next weekend