A Japanese Supermarket Is Using AI to Improve Service — By Monitoring Its Staff’s Facial Expressions

AEON, a Japanese supermarket chain, has introduced an AI system to standardize and improve employee service attitudes, sparking a debate about workplace harassment and customer service expectations.

Key Details: The AI system, called “Mr Smile”, is being used across AEON’s 240 stores in Japan to assess and improve employee service:

• The system analyzes over 450 elements, including facial expressions, voice volume, and tone of greetings, to rate an employee’s service attitude.
• AEON conducted a trial in 8 stores with 3,400 staff members and found that service attitudes improved by up to 1.6 times over three months.
• The company aims to “standardize staff members’ smiles and satisfy customers to the maximum” through this AI implementation.

Concerns and Criticism: The introduction of the AI system has raised concerns about potential workplace harassment and the pressure on employees to meet standardized service expectations:

• Nearly half of the 30,000 service industry staff surveyed by Japan’s biggest union, UA Zensen, reported experiencing customer harassment this year.
• Some respondents feel that forcing service workers to smile according to a “standard” is another form of customer harassment and that smiles should be genuine and heartfelt.
• The strategy has been compared to McDonald’s Japan’s “Smile zero yen” policy, which has been criticized for adding pressure on low-paid employees.

Broader Context: The debate surrounding AEON’s AI system highlights the ongoing challenges in balancing customer service expectations with employee well-being in Japan’s service industry:

• Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare published a manual of instructions against customer harassment in 2022, urging companies to maintain service standards without sacrificing staff well-being.
• A supermarket in Fukuoka prefecture recently implemented an extra-slow checkout counter to accommodate elderly and disabled customers, which was well-received and led to a 10% increase in sales despite fewer customers.

Analyzing Deeper: While AEON’s initiative aims to improve customer satisfaction, it raises important questions about the role of AI in shaping workplace culture and the potential unintended consequences of standardizing human interactions. As Japan’s service industry grapples with the challenges of customer harassment and employee well-being, finding a balance between service excellence and genuine, authentic interactions will be crucial. The success of initiatives like the extra-slow checkout counter suggests that prioritizing empathy and understanding over rigid standardization may be a more effective approach to enhancing both customer satisfaction and employee morale in the long run.