Getting Another’s Perspective
Ever looked at your work space through the eyes of someone not from here?
If you haven’t, it may be a good idea to get another’s perspective.
Whenever my family from Japan come to visit, I like to bring them into the store and get their honest feedback on the set up, ease of shopping, customer service, etc. I find it so valuable to ask someone who is not in your same work space, day after day, for a fresh perspective. Especially if it’s someone who truly cares about you and so they will give you authentic feedback to help you move forward.
With our chocolate friends from Japan, although I’m aware of the language barrier, the greater hurdle to understand is the cultural difference. This last visit from my Japan family was eye opening as I asked them questions about what their questions were as they shopped. What did they wish we offered? What were they confused about? Why did they take so long to decide? What was challenging for them in terms of service? Why didn’t they buy more? What did they think of the renovated space?
Although they can read English perfectly fine, I discovered their areas of concern and interest weren’t easily visible or obvious. This included shelf life of products, which items needed to be refrigerated and which were okay to leave out, and what kind of omiyage bags we had and how much they were if they wanted to buy additional.
But perhaps the biggest eye opener was seeing their Hawai`i guide books that they just purchased this year and last year. Fortunately, they do recommend our chocolate store, but we saw photos and information about our shop from about 9 years ago in it! This new guide book had very outdated information in it which included that our shop was only open 5 days a week! This was a major discovery and now we can reach out to these guide books to offer updated info and photos, and hopefully next year, we will see more visitors from Japan!
So the takeaway lesson here, is that it’s good to step back from your work, and get another’s perspective every once in a while. You may be missing very basic things that can help break down barriers between cultural differences, and eliminate the frustration or confusion they may feel while shopping, and bring them peace instead. You may also discover that some things need updating!
Finding peace by piece:
Ask a trusted family member or friend who doesn’t work or live where you are, to come in and offer constructive feedback. You may feel it works for everyone, but you may find little things you can easily change to make it more peaceful for them too!