Japan Govt to Establish Certification for ‘Mobile Phone Sommelier’
Originally sommelier means “a trained and knowledgeable wine professional, commonly working in fine restaurants, who specializes in all facets of wine service”. The role is more specialized and informed than that of a wine waiter (Taken from Wikipedia). But in this case, it means a professionally trained personnel in retails mobile phone industry.
This is a good idea, and for sure it will be beneficial to the public. Think about it, how often we encounter incompetent staffs from local mobile phone retail shops? It is really every ahmao ahkow can work there and sell. Some even only know “This phone good, can play music, can take photo, can bluetooth”, but when we ask in more details, about the phone or the contract, they could not give proper answer.
Taken from Daily Yomiuri Online:
Govt to establish certification for ‘mobile phone sommelier’
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Sales staff at mobile phone stores will soon be able to study for “mobile phone sommelier” certification under the wing of the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry in the hope that explanations of services will be made easier for consumers to understand, according to sources.
The new certification, modeled on the sommelier qualification for recommending wines to match foods, is aimed at giving a seal of approval to sales staff with a certain level of expertise in matters such as pricing plans and filtering services that prevent connection to adult or other potentially problematic Web sites.
The ministry plans to introduce the certification system by the summer in the hope that qualified staff will give better product and service explanations and help reduce misunderstandings.
It is looking into entrusting groups such as nonprofit organizations with the administration of the certification, and will later this month announce guidelines regarding the examinations and requirements for such groups.
Many people complain that mobile phone pricing plans are complex and difficult to understand, and poor explanations have led to constant problems regarding contracts and other matters.
For example, many customers do not realize that contracts for half-price basic plans cannot be canceled for two years.
With more and more cases of crimes involving minors using internet dating sites coming to light, the ministry has deemed it imperative that phone dealers respond to this in ways such as encouraging parents and guardians to sign up to filtering services for their children’s phones.
Mobile phone companies such as NTT DoCoMo Inc., KDDI Corp. and SoftBank Mobile Corp. have established their own internal certification systems, but it appears the ministry does not believe they alone are sufficient.
