Japanese Customer at work – Would like to be able to speak with them

14 comments

1. お客様（おきゃくさま）is the polite way to refer to a customer. So that’s a good starting point.

   もしもし is the standard telephone greeting that is like “hello”

   Technical terminology is where it gets harder. An expert will need to assist!

2. You’ll likely get a foreigner pass even if your Japanese is a bit off. They might appreciate it, but I’d ask first – 日本語でよろしいですか。(Would Japanese be okay?)

   [This site](https://jobsinjapan.com/living-in-japan-guide/essential-kanji-when-buying-medication-in-japan/) has some good words for explaining medications. [This skit might be helpful](https://youtu.be/aPJrIB1ccTk).

3. Normally you use *really* formal Japanese in a customer service situation. Having been in the reverse of this situation (I moved to rural Japan speaking no Japanese), based on the level of communication difficulties you described, I feel pretty confident in saying that this person would probably be so relieved to get some sort of help in Japanese that they 100% will not mind if you just speak at a regular level of politeness and not customer service speak. If they’re struggling to communicate, they’ll likely appreciate any help you can give.

   Before getting into Japanese though, I want to add that perhaps the most important thing you can do to help them is to simplify your English. Make your sentences shorter and more direct. “Your medicine is ready. Please come here to pick it up.” “Please call your doctor and insurance. You need a new prescription.” Etc.

   This phrasing isn’t “official pharmacy phrases” but they’re simple, are easy for you to use, and communicate the necessary information

   お薬(くすり)の______ ができました – Your medicine, _______, is ready

   _____ がほしいですか – Do you want _____? (Prescription refills aren’t really a thing in Japan so I don’t think there’s a away to translate ‘refill’ well. In Japan you have to go back to the doctor to get a new prescription every time you need a refill. It’s very annoying. So I think just asking ‘do you want (medicine)?’ Would get the intended meaning across)

   お医者(いしゃ)さんや保険会社(ほけんがいしゃ)に連絡(れんらく)してください。新(あたら)しい処方箋(しょほうせん)が必要(ひつよう)です – please call your doctor and insurance. You need a new prescription.

   Useful words:

   お医者(いしゃ)さん – doctor

   保険会社(ほけんがいしゃ) – insurance company

   保険証 (ほけんしょう) – insurance card/proof of insurance

   処方箋(しょほうせん) – prescription

   お薬(くすり) – medicine

   薬局(やっきょく) – pharmacy

4. >Also, I’m not sure how I would end the call, should I say have a nice day? Or is there another customer service phrase Japanese people usually use?

   失礼します（しつれいします）is used to politely end a phone conversation.

   That’s really nice of you! I’m sure they’ll really appreciate it. And don’t worry about using “敬語” too much. Most Japanese appreciate the fact that you understand Japanese, even if you make mistakes or don’t use formal language correctly.

5. as others have said, the customer will be delighted to speak in japanese with you regardless of your level of understanding of super formal speech. just speak normally.

   most japanese people don’t hold foreigners up to the same standard when it comes to formalness because they are aware it’s not really a thing in english and it’s difficult to learn.

   only japanese person ive met that criticized me for using a lower formalness than i should was my japanese professor because she KNEW she had taught me it and that i don’t remember lol.

6. You might get into trouble if misunderstandings arise

7. In a health care setting, you should be really careful about trying to communicate in a foreign language that you don’t speak fluently. There is so much potential for misunderstanding and error. It’s nice of you to want to communicate with him, but imagine if he suffered a medication error because of something you tried to say to him in Japanese that was misunderstood.

   I don’t know how pharmacies work, but hospitals generally have some kind of translation service that you can call. Do you have access to anything like that?

   You clearly mean well, but this isn’t a good situation for you to practice your spoken Japanese.

8. I’m a Japanese nurse and have some interactions and work with pharmacists. I agree with others that any form of Japanese might be helpful to your customer, they’ll be relieved and thankful for you being helpful.
   Normal polite speech is enough but if you need more formal ones, please take a look at these.

   Your medicine is ready to pick up.
   お薬をご用意できましたので、お取りに来ていただきますよう宜しくお願い致します。

   (You’ll find the last half is almost always a set phrase.)

   Refills aren’t really a big thing in Japan and it was referred to as リフィル処方箋 by a Japanese patient asking for it the other day. Timely. lol
   So a different alternative to say this might be
   再度こちらの内容でご用意致しましょうか？

   (Shall I prepare the same contents? こちら　indirectly referring to 処方箋)
   Would you like me to refill this medicine?

   You need to call your doctor/insurance for a new script.
   新しい処方箋が必要になりますので、医師もしくは保険会社にご連絡をしてください。
   or
   新しい処方箋が必要な場合は、

   (This one will change if more context is given, but the first one is the more natural one. Don’t think in English.)

   Do you need this medicine?
   こちらのお薬が必要ですか？

   Good luck! 😊

9. More so, how did you get a job in pharmacy without speaking any Japanese ( I’m assuming you live in Japan?)

10. Use chatGTP to generate some scripts for common interactions. Check them with DeepL for strangeness. Ask your Japanese friends/colleagues to review to check them.

11. Please don’t fuck around and just stick with English while you work. It’s medicine, one small mistake and you’re fired or causing potential health damage.

    Be friendly afterwards if you want

12. I can’t speak for anyone else, but if I were trying to speak Japanese and the person I was speaking to switched to speak broken English out of nowhere with a translator and everything, I would feel very discouraged. Even if their intentions are clearly good, it almost feels like a statement of “I barely know English but it’s better than listening to your attempts at my language.”

    If I was in a Japanese pharmacy and the person helping me is able to speak English relatively well and they switched, that would feel like a relief since it’s an important setting. But if they’re not good at English I would have to worry about potential mistraslations on their part. I think it would be a lot less embarassing if they just tried using simpler Japanese phrases and boiled down the formal customer service speak to essential information.

    So unless you get very good with both input and output– basically, better at customer service pharmacy setting Japanese than he is at pharmacy setting English– I might advise only reserving Japanese for if there’s something he’s *really* not able to understand in English, yknow? That’s just a perspective.

13. Stick with english. If you were fluent in Japanese, then I would say, “why not”. There is a high risk that you will either 1) make a mistake or 2) cause confusion, or 3) make him uncomfortable.

    You shouldn’t use your customers to practice your Japanese. Source, I live in Japan, and it drives me nuts when Japanese think they can use me to practice their broken English.

14. I would think that you might be able to ask your question and have the customer answer it, but you may not understand the response adding to your frustration and theirs. You would also risk running out of your prepared questions and not really be able to ask/answer something relevant that wasn’t planned for. What if they ask “What are the side effects of my medicine?” or “Does this interact with my other medication?”. Likely common questions requiring speaking “on the fly” with the answer using medical terms. If you’re going to do it though, I’d probably use something like iTalki or something similar to practice with a native speaker to gauge your readiness and effectiveness.