Those of you that have been to Japan know that they take customer service to a whole new level. When you go to a gas station your personal attendant washes your windows and mirrors, vacuums your ashtray, even cleans your floor mats while you fill up. Make a purchase at a bookstore and you’ll leave with a book gift wrapped so perfectly (without you asking) you don’t want to disturb the gift paper to read it.

The customer is doted on, even in dollar stores like Daiso (they opened their first U.S. store in Richmond…a good review here). The Japanese approach is revealed in the word they use for customer. The Japanese word for customer, okyaku, is typically ended with -sama (so it looks like okyakusama) instead of -san because the "-sama" ending is the highest, most respectful way to say "Mr. or Ms./Mrs.," usually reserved for teachers, doctors, priests, different Shinto gods and Buddhist bodhidharma’s. (One of my marketing MBA students, who lives in Japan, recently pointed this out to me – thanks Martin).

When is the last time you felt like an honored customer in a 7-11?

For all of you interested in improving your presentations, you need to watch this new video created by Duarte Design. It is a really excellent summary and some of the best advice I have heard.

Almost as impressive, they built the entire presentation in Powerpoint. Good design can be implemented in any tool. They took advantage of some new features coming in the next version of Powerpoint, but much of what they did can be done now.

I wanted to thank everyone once more for taking the course. You were an enthusiastic and engaged group, which makes my job a lot easier. I wanted to post the final presentation, video, and student videos from the course for your records.

You can find the video commercials each team produced for your final projects on Youtube, there is a special playlist setup for you to visit here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FD74FFA4573CDC80

The final class wrap-up video is included on the playlist as well. 

Slides for the final class presentation are included below. Remember slides for the previous 5 classes are in earlier posts on this blog…just scroll down.

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If you’re wondering about any of the music I played in class, you can find a playlist of the music here:  http://bit.ly/7ucAJ2

Most all of the videos you saw in class are included on my Youtube channel as well, http://www.youtube.com/gizmo787878

Finally, you can always keep up to date with what I am working on at my main web site, www.lawrencelinn.com, and this blog, blog.lawrencelinn.com. Good luck with your remaining courses and graduation!

Larry

Want to search Google for your assignment, but limit your search to quality business sources? Try my customized Google search site, http://search.lawrencelinn.com .  This search engine restricts itself to popular business magazines, newspapers and journals such as:

• BusinessWeek, Forbes, Fortune, Fast Company, The Economist, Wired
• Harvard Business Review, McKinsey Quarterly, MIT / Sloan Review, Insead
• The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The New York Times, Barron’s, SF Chronicle        

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With the 2010 Superbowl fast approaching, I thought we could look back to some of the best liked commercials of 2009, as compiled by Nielsen. Here are the top 5:

You can now access a custom channel on Youtube with all the videos I show in marketing classes – many you have seen, some new to you. Go to http://www.youtube.com/gizmo787878 

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