Restaurants and other businesses are at long last being forced to listen to consumers.

What a novel idea.

Unfortunately in some companies feedback gathering is viewed as an isolated, ever-so occasional activity treated as an end in itself rather than as a means to understand and respond to customer needs. In order for a company to be successful, feedback gathering must be viewed not as an event or activity, but as part of an ongoing process of bullding and maintaining strong, effective relationships with customers.

It is a novel idea in Japan. An old girlfriend asked me why I used ask restaurants where the no-smoking area was when I knew there wasn't one. I told her that restaurants used to say there was no no-smoking area because there was no demand, no one asked. That is why I asked, to let them know there was a demand. Japanese do not do that and rarely complain about food or service regardless of how bad it is.

This can only be a good thing. Japanese restaurants generally care about providing a quality system, but when anything deviates from it, they are horrible at dealing with that. Part of this is because they never get feedback. So when something goes wrong, they do not deal with it well at all.

"It is a novel idea in Japan."

gaijin: My comment was a bit of sarcasm. Yes, reviews and feedback can only be to the advantage of the Japanese consumer.

Japanese do not do that and rarely complain about food or service regardless of how bad it is

Man, I don't know what Japanese people you hang out with but Japanese people are FAMOUS for complaining about bad service in hotels and restaurants. And the complaining usually gets results, too.

I am on the fence about tabelog and the like. There are a lot of people with really unreasonable opinions on food and service, it's difficult to filter out those sorts of unreasonable complaints from legitimate ones. I guess I don't find these sorts of reviews all that useful, I prefer personal recommendations for places.

I thought Japan practiced capitalism? Money talks loudest, and in an industry as competitive as the restaurant business, consumers have always held the greatest sway. I'm not really an ideologue, but it seems obvious to me that free markets should, theoretically, work out quite well for the hospitality industry.