When customers sound off about problems, good companies listen, even in Japan
The McDonald's hamburger chain and I are no strangers to one another. In 1960, when living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, my family used to clamber into our blue-and white 1956 Ford Fairlane and hit the local drive-in on our way home from Sunday school. In those days, a 'burger still cost 15 cents -- about the same as a gallon of gas.
But when I arrived in Japan in 1965, the golden arches were nowhere to be seen. And by 1971 -- the year McDonald's outlet No. 1 opened for business at the Ginza 4-chome intersection -- I had pretty much weaned myself of American fast food, by that time having mastered chopsticks and discovered such locally available goodies as natto, oyako domburi and sweet & sour pork.