But is a strongly worded letter enough?

The problem of customer harassment appears to be on the rise in Japan, with people taking advantage of the country’s famously accommodating customer service as a target of their abuse. It can come in many forms, from repeated phone calls to making clerks shave their heads, but one peculiar form is forcing workers to assume the dogeza position of prostrating themselves in apology.

▼ A few months ago the issue was highlighted by a viral video of a security guard at the World Expo getting into a dogeza position in front of an angry visitor. However, the official response from the Expo is that the guard voluntarily bowed down in this case.

Last April, the nation’s first customer harassment prevention ordinances went into effect in Kuwana City, Mie Prefecture, as well as Tokyo, Hokkaido, and Gunma prefectures. What makes Kuwana’s ordinance unique is that it includes actual punishments for customers who harass staff. First-time offenders will get a warning letter and if their behavior doesn’t improve, their names will be made public as an official harassing customer.

This only leaves the issue of what exactly constitutes customer harassment. According to the ordinance, businesses must submit an incident to the mayor’s office of Kuwana, which will then consult with a customer harassment countermeasure committee to determine if it should be considered such.

Such a matter was decided on 30 June when Kuwana City announced that a case where a customer demanded a courier get down on all fours to apologize constituted customer harassment. As a result, the customer will be sent a warning letter and now faces a public naming and shaming if it happens again.

Online comments about the news largely felt that the punishment was far too light for treating another human being in such a way.

“Just a warning?”
“Does making people bow down make them happy?”
“That person should be arrested.”
“I can’t even imagine if someone told me to get down on all fours.”
“I wish they’d arrest those jerks who yell at convenience store clerks in the morning.”
“A written warning, lol. Is that assuming the first time might have been a mistake?”
“They need to crack down on customer harassment more. Those people are getting too bold.”
“The city should also post their photos and offenses so other businesses can identify them.”
“If I were the courier, I guess I could see that just bowing down and apologizing might be faster than sitting there listening to someone complain on and on.”
“Give the delivery companies their address too so they can blacklist them.”
“That’s already a crime. It’s called coercion.”

Coercion, a crime that might go by names like “extortion” or “duress” in other countries, is the act of making someone do something against their will through the threat of violence or other intimidation. In the previous case of the clerk who was made to shave his head, the customer made several suggestions that he was capable of violence, and thus was arrested for coercion.

But in this case, there appears to have been no threats of violence, which most likely means the courier would have to have felt his job was in jeopardy by not bowing down for it to be coercion. The problem is that would need to be demonstrated in court, which would look really bad for the company as a whole. So, it’s understandable they might pursue this as customer harassment instead.

It’s probably best that a lot of legal tools are available to handle the different nuances of criminal and anti-social behavior so people can get the protection they need.

Source: 47 News, Research Institute for Local Government, Itai News
Featured image: Pakutaso
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