Ep 48: The Humbling Business Lesson I Learned in Japan

Ever wondered why a simple policy change can send your customers into a spiral of confusion or frustration? In this episode, I share a story from my anniversary trip to Japan that completely reframed how I think about client communication and feedback loops. Spoiler alert: it involves my favorite suitcase, some bumpy train station floors, and a dose of humility. Tune in to hear how misunderstanding turned into insight—and how you can apply this lesson to build deeper trust, stronger loyalty, and create raving fans in your business.

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Transcript

1:18

Welcome to the She Busy Podcast, where I teach female entrepreneurs how to embrace their CEO mindset, streamline their operations, and reclaim their time and freedom. Hey there. My name is Sia Mahmud. I'm an entrepreneur, children's book author, business consultant, mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend, and boss. And I'm on a mission to help you grow a wildly successful business and still have plenty of time to enjoy the life you want. If you're feeling trapped in your success, overwhelmed by the demands of your business and struggling to find balance, you are in the right place. I've been there, and I'm here to help you break free from the hamster wheel, but becoming the CEO, your business and your life deserved. Doesn't happen by accident. It takes intention and purpose, and that's exactly what I want to teach you in this podcast. So let's dive right in. Hello and welcome back to She Busy. Today we're gonna be talking about something that I've, I've actually used this example talking to other entrepreneurs. I've used this example talking to my team, um, and, and other people that I wanna train. I. But I haven't spoken about it on the podcast yet, so I figured what better time than today? So last year, around September, my husband and I took a trip to Japan. It was our 10 year anniversary trip. We went without the kids. It was incredible. Just. On a separate note, an amazing trip. If Japan is not on your bucket list or your to-do list, please, please add it. We went to Tokyo and Kyoto and I'm gonna live there one day. So that's just how I feel about Japan. But when we were in Japan, we got to Japan and. We were lugging around. So I had, I'd ordered this, uh, carry-on, um, that has like super nice gliding wheels. I hadn't gotten new suitcases in a while. I kind of, I'm pretty sure I just inherited whatever my mom had given me when I got married. And she packed up, helped me packed up my pack up my stuff. But I. I had bought this new carry-on and it glides so well. It's a beautiful gliding, it it like I could just roll it all the way down, um, from one end of the room to the other. But I'm taking this carry-on and we're taking our suitcases and. We're walking through, it was the train station at the time, and, and I'm pushing and, and by the escalators and kind of on the perimeters and kind of all throughout they had these huge, like almost speed bump style. Like they, they were, they were all little bumps, but huge sections that were like speed bump style for your suitcase. I didn't understand what was happening. They were everywhere they were and, and the more time I spent in Japan, they were at the airports, they were at the train stations and it was just. So frustrating, especially'cause I had this new, really easily gliding suitcase that I loved and was new, like I said, and, and I was getting mad. Like I loved every single thing about Japan. Absolutely adored being there, but those bumps made me irate. I couldn't understand what was happening. I had rage every time I had to drag my suitcase over it. And, and we had multiple suitcases, right?'cause we were traveling for a while internationally. And so I couldn't always just pick them up and, and, and there was so many of them. So it, it was just kind of about. With force kind of gliding it over so they didn't get stuck, um, or pushing it over. So they didn't get stuck. But I had no idea what they were for. I didn't know why. It didn't make any sense to me why, and I didn't understand why no one else was getting upset, or maybe they were, and I just didn't know it. But it was, it was really driving me nuts. My husband didn't like them, but of course he's not as dramatic as I am, so I just felt like. These stupid things were there to punish me in my new suitcase that I loved. And so every bump I just got, I just got even, even more angry. And I just, and, and one of the worst parts about it was I just didn't know what they were for. Like why are they here? Why do I keep having to deal with this in every public space, especially in spaces like the train station and the airport where I'm going to have my suitcases? So. That experience stuck with me, and the more I started thinking about it, the more I started realizing that that is probably exactly how clients feel sometimes in any situation, in any sort of business. Because when we create policies or we have policies and procedures, or we make changes in our business, even changes or policies that are for a good reason, if we don't explain them, we risk. Leaving our clients confused. We risk leaving them frustrated or feeling unseen because they're not really understanding why we have those certain things in place. And as a business owner, you're making decisions like. Hundreds of decisions every single day. And some of them are behind the scenes. They're operational decisions. Some of them are directly impacting your customers and their experience. But, but the thing is, your customers won't always know or understand the reasoning behind those things unless you tell them. And when there's no con communication, the confusion grows. And when the confusion grows, the frustration grows. And when the frustration grows, the trust starts to break down. And here's the. Funny, shameful part of this story. So, okay. I know it's even hard for me to say it, but funny enough, after being upset about this for a while, my husband, um, but I can't remember if it was he saw it on Instagram or somewhere he saw it on social media and Oh my God. So he sent me the video of what these things are for, and I finally found out why they're there. They are there to guide visually impaired travelers safely through busy train stations and airports. They are there for blind people. I mean, when I found that out, even after I'd been already telling this story for a while and I'm like, okay, like it would just really help to have some communication as to what they're for. But when I found out what they're actually for, I felt terrible. Just. Terrible. I mean, I'm like raging about how inconvenient these bumps are for me in my little new suitcase or a little new carry-on. That's all glide, and I'm not realizing that they're actually literally helping blind, visually impaired individuals navigate safely through the airports and the train stations. Honestly, I was like, well, why don't we do that here? That's why another point for Japan, love that place. But if I had known upfront, if there had been some sort of sign or an explanation, and I'm not trying to sound like some dumb touristy American that went somewhere and doesn't understand, because I think from what I found out, that a lot of different countries have this. Maybe they're in Europe, I can't remember. I just don't remember seeing them anywhere else. But if, as for the purpose of this. Episode and what we're talking about. If there had been some sort of explanation without me having to get on Instagram or TikTok to find it, I probably might've still been a little annoyed because my suitcase is getting all banged up. But I definitely would've had understanding, I would've understood what was happening and why, and understanding changes everything. And in business, it's the same thing. Sometimes we're gonna implement a policy or we're gonna do things a certain way or we're gonna change something. And it's meant for the greater good, whether that's improving your service or enhancing security on the backend, or scaling sustainably, or doing something good for your team. If we don't explain it to our customers, though, our customers will feel blindsided. They're gonna feel frustrated. They might even feel betrayed because they just don't understand what's going on. And so communication is what bridges the gap. Here's the situation as it was with the Japanese airports and train stations, is that you don't always know what needs to be communicated, right? The Japanese train stations probably had no idea that there were tourists like me that would be so confused and frustrated by these bumps. They probably just assume that people know these things. And in your business, it's the same kind of thing. You may not realize when a change you've made is creating confusion or it's creating friction, and that is where gathering feedback comes in. Right? I like to say that you wanna communicate, especially big changes and stuff, but sometimes you have policies that are just there that have been there for a long time, and you do them for a certain reason. Maybe you have a new client that just doesn't understand what's going on, and that is where the gathering feedback comes in. Because you can't fix or communicate or help with what you don't know about. So it's critical. It is absolutely critical to proactively be asking for feedback, whether it's through surveys or emails or check-ins. I do them. I do a survey at least twice a year for all of my clients, and we ask certain number of questions, not making it too long, but getting the big things that we need to know. And then obviously we're sending the messages and emails to remind them to fill out the survey and we get a pretty good response. And, and yes, we, we do get a lot that are just like, thank you so much, this is amazing. And then we get some that bring in actual concerns that they have and some of those concerns, if you look for a pattern in the feedback, like there will be times where I will find a pattern that there's not just one person bringing up a certain concern. And so when I hear that a couple of times when I've seen it a couple times in a few of the surveys, then I realize, wait a minute, this is something that I have to look into. This is some, and, and, and this is not, maybe not, maybe it's a communication thing. Maybe it's an actual policy thing, but I need to know. And when you see those patterns, it's an easy, easy way for to have a cue on what you need to be working on and what you need to either look into why it's working or not working, or what you need to communicate. And you gotta make it easy, right? You gotta make it easy for them to be able to do the feedback. And, and look, there's, yes, there is definite. I guess feedback in the sense of how are you doing, how are things going? And that can be helpful. But I really think having a formal feedback mechanism is so important, especially one where they can remain anonymous or remain behind a screen almost. Because I know that I had a recent experience where I was at a hotel, I hated this hotel, like it was supposed to be a nice. Five star hotel and I just didn't have a good experience. I didn't have a good experience with the team, with the hotel. I just, it was not, and then at one point I went downstairs'cause I had to of course deal with something down there because there's always something to deal with in this two day stay. But I was waiting in line and then the, I get up there and the lady's like, how can I help you? I tell her what my issue is and she's like, great, how are, how's your stay going so far? And I was like, it's good. But it wasn't, I was hating it and it wasn't good. And so it was, and honestly, I mean, that's one of those things where then I got a feedback form in email and I filled it out and I told the truth because I didn't have to actually face to face. First off, it wasn't that poor lady's problem probably, but second off, like I needed to make sure that it got to a place where somebody could do something with it. So that's, that's why it's critically important. And then look, and there are going to be things I cannot tell you when I send out those surveys. It is the best, worst thing to me in the whole world because. It's like literally putting yourself out there naked and being like, Hey guys, can you critique my body? And it's like a really uncomfortable situation. I, yes, I lose sleep over it and I'm going to give you some advice now, but it is probably going to be like, if you care so much about your business, yes, it's business. Yes, it helps you. So just remember that. But I do still sometimes go, wait a minute. Why am I doing it this way? How do we do it? How do we improve it? So I do have to spend a, a certain amount of energy on, on when I'm dealing with the feedback. But it is a gift and I need you to see it that way is taking, getting feedback. You should not be taking it personally and even if you do take it personally,'cause sometimes we do, especially when we're putting our whole heart and soul into what we're doing. But even if you can't fully remove yourself, take it as a gift. Because that's exactly what it is. Feedback is a gift. There's a book out there called Complaint. A complaint is a gift and that that's what it is. And so if you're getting feedback, good feedback is great. And that is a, a huge gift, but it's a bigger gift when someone gives you feedback on things you can change or implement to improve your business. And then once you have that feedback, because that's the other thing, right, is once you get the feedback, it's, it's easy to be like a stewing in it. Like why did they say this? I mean like, this is why we do things. But once you get that feedback, you have to acknowledge it and address it and adapt as necessary. And so for my, like, for my feedback, I offer the people to be anonymous if they want to. So I give them the form to fill out and if they like at the end, I allow them to give me their name if they want me to follow up with them. And I'll tell you, I get several people that will put either concerns or questions or whatever, or suggestions, and then they will put their name and those are my favorite. Those are my absolute favorite because the hardest part is when someone puts it in, Hey, that these are the issues that I was having. Um, and then they don't put their name and you're like, well, I don't know. I don't know how I can help you because I don't know your specific experience, but when someone puts their name, that's an even bigger gift for me. And then I will personally sit down with every single person that asks for a follow up. Like I will sit with them. I've done it where I'll either sit with them in person, or if they can't make that happen, then I will schedule some sort of zoom call or, or phone call so we can talk about. What their feedback was. And that goes a very long way to personalize it and make it so that I myself, am going in and talking to them has been a game changer for me. And then after we've gotten, we've had that conversation, I always do what I do. Like if there's something that I need to change or research or find out what's going on or implement something new, I do that. And then within a few weeks I will do a follow up. I'll follow up usually with an email. I'll offer them another sit down if they'd like. I'll check in with them to see if they've noticed any changes or if they feel like things, you know, or if, how are they feeling about the conversation that we had? And that has, you know, they talk about creating raving fans. That's what that does for me. That's what that does. And, and I think it's, it's so important to be able to open yourself up to that feedback. It goes a really, really long way. I mean, I've, I've gone so far as to improving processes in my company, but also making raving fans of the customers that are willing to gimme the feedback and that I'm willing to sit down with and take that feedback face to face and do something about it. And so just to reflect. If the Japanese train stations had just thrown up a little sign saying that these bumps are here to help visually impaired travelers navigate safely, it would've changed my entire experience. And the Japanese don't owe me that. They don't owe me anything because they gave me a wonderful trip and I'll be back. As a business owner that advice, I hope you he it is that it would have changed my entire experience to have communication as to why things are a certain way, and I would've moved from frustration to probably admiration as to what they're doing for other customers. And I'd be willing to sacrifice a little bit of discomfort or irritation that I had for the greater good as long as I knew why and what was happening. And so that's the opportunity that you have too. Every time that you communicate with your customers and your customers are not mind readers. So when you make a change, when you're implementing something new, when something feels just a little bit different, take the time to explain it. Tell them your why, listen to their feedback and follow up with them. You're not, you're going to not only reduce frustration, you're going to build deeper trust, stronger loyalty. You're gonna build a community that feels seen, they feel heard, they feel valued, and that is where you create these long-term raving fans of your company and your service or your product. So. I'm gonna challenge you at the end of this episode to look at some of your last big decisions that you've made. Ask yourself if you explain the why behind them clearly enough, and not just to your clients, maybe to your team, and then where could you open up a feedback loop to help your customers feel even more heard. And so if you are looking for ideas on how to gather client feedback, how to set this up, reach out, or if you're already doing this and you have a good system set up, please reach out and let me know. I'd love to talk about it and, and, and compare notes because that's the way that we grow and we get better. So, DM me on Instagram, shoot me an email, but let's keep the conversation going on this'cause I think it is so, so important to be talking about this. So reach out. Go get your feedback and until next time. Thank you for tuning in to the She Busy Podcast. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. For more inspiration, strategies and support on your journey to freedom and success, make sure to hit the subscribe button, follow me on social media and visit my website. All the links are in the show notes. And remember, you have the power to create the life and business you've always dreamed of, but it won't happen on accident. Here's to your success and freedom. Until next time.