Terrible customer service, pretty decent arm strength.
In recent years, Japan has become world-famous, and rightfully so, for its amazing customer service. You’d expect customers to be treated with even more respect in Kyoto, the traditional heart of Japanese culture and hospitality, but as a recent video shows, there are exceptions to be found in every society.
On January 5, a video was uploaded to Twitter showing a deliveryman fulfilling orders for Amazon, and not in a way that would give online shoppers a smile like the ones on the company’s boxes. The original Tweet has since been deleted, but the video was captured and reposted by Japanese Twitter user @lTfC8qI4PATLiaC.
Taken from a car’s dashboard camera, the video shows a compact delivery van parked along the left shoulder of the road. The deliveryman, wearing a blue jacket and a pair of khakis, pulls a box from the vehicle, quickly makes sure he has a firm grip, and then flings it all the way across the road and into what appears to be the parking area in front of or next to a dental clinic, providing service not with a smile, but a thud.
A later examination of the video by Kyoto Shimbun deduced that the video was taken on the streets near Fujinomori Station in Kyoto’s Fushimi Ward.
While violent treatment of packages is accepted as a trade-off for the convenience of online shopping in many parts of the world, the video startled many Japanese viewers, who were surprised to see such disrespectful treatment of others’ property. Amazon, though, may not be entirely to blame, since delivery of items purchased from the e-commerce giant is often outsourced to outside shipping companies in Japan. Less than 20 minutes after the original video was posted, the official Twitter account for Amazon Japan’s customer service department tweeted an apology, and the company has also said that “such behavior is unacceptable” under the strict standards it has for its delivery partners, and that “We will be taking appropriate measures to deal with the responsible delivery driver.”
In the meantime, this seems like a good time to remind everyone that along with all their tasty snacks and drinks, another thing that makes Japanese convenience stores awesome is that many of them double as pick-up points for Amazon orders, and the face-to-face hand-off from delivery person to convenience store clerk is likely to look a lot less like the distance-throwing exhibition seen in the video.
Source: Twitter/@lTfC8qI4PATLiaC via Jin, Kyoto Shimbun
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!