[GoNative]

My main issue with a lot of customer service in Japan was that if you were wanting to do something a little outside of the normal (which foreign property developers often did) it was normal to be told it was impossible to do.
It wasn't that it was impossible at all. It was just that the customer service rep didn't know what to do. Rather than admit they didn't know they'd generally say "it's impossible". Requesting to speak to supervisors or managers normally ended up with the 'impossible' becoming very possible after all.
We also constantly had issues with delivery of service within acceptable time limits. Our Japanese staff would ring and be told that no one could help for x amount of time (some ridiculous amount of time that would end up in significant loss to the company) and of course the staff would just accept it without any fuss. We'd then instruct them to call back and explain that such a timeframe was totally unacceptable and kick up a bit of fuss. The staff generally felt very uncomfortable doing it but it normally ended with much better outcomes for us. It was all just very frustrating...
Getting quality and timely service in a little town in Hokkaido was not that easy. Not sure what it's like elsewhere.