When Japanese ‘omotenashi’ care fails in intercultural situations: an autoethnographic account of dynamics of thorny disharmony

Purpose “Omotenashi” has become a buzzword denoting the Japanese ethic for excellence in customer care. However, while there is an emerging body of research on the spirit of the provider side, nevertheless, the customer care experiences from the beneficiary perspective – especially the dynamics that manifest when such care fails – remain undercommented. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to identify critical dynamics of how unexpected thorny disharmony might manifest in instances of customer care failure, with a focus on customer service and intercultural lived experiences. In doing so it challenges a prevailing and dominant view of flawless Japanese customer care – Omotenashi. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on a multi-disciplinary approach the current research proposes a conceptual model and uses autoethnography to offer insights at the individual level unit of analysis. Findings The findings break ground towards innovative understanding of customer care failure dynamics, by considering intercultural situations. Research limitations/implications By express design and paradigm, the research is limited to subjective interpretivism. The paper offers important implications for understanding customer beneficiary experience, especially to nuance and challenge the current hegemonic view of the positive nature of Japanese “Omotenashi” customer care in extant literature. Practical implications The findings have important practical implications for customer care managers. The paper aims to prompt a pause for thought, a warning of a drift towards organizational self-satisfaction and back slapping in relation to customer care and makes a call for a return to consider the holistic customer experience in the Japanese and inter-cultural contexts. Social implications It can be argued that there appears to be a tendency in some quarters to massage and manipulate broader society by pointing to the positive. However, marketing scholars are aware that raising customer expectations in this way can magnify backlash when disconfirmation occurs. This study lends support to the notion that there may be a need to temper expectations and hype in customer relation contexts. This is predicated on the observation that individual – and, therefore, beneficiary – experience is unique, that uniqueness may be accentuated in intercultural situations. Originality/value The paper nuances the general positively portrayed aspects of Omotenashi by curating insights into when care fails. It addresses the paucity of lived experience accounts of the beneficiary experience of Japanese Omotenashi care in intercultural situations.