20. Omotenashi
Building products with care, the Japanese way.
My wife and I spend a few weeks in Japan recently. That’s when I heard the word Omotenashi for the first time - I immediately asked ChatGPT what it meant. It said “hospitality,” but that felt too narrow. It wasn’t until I experienced it, I realised it was something deeper.
I asked someone on the station how to get to a particular metro line. They didn’t just tell me. They walked with me, changed platforms, and made sure I boarded the right train before going on their way. In the process, they probably missed their train.
At a 7-Eleven in Tokyo, I asked the staff if they had any specific item. The cashier didn’t just point at a shelf. She walked out from behind the counter, scanned a few labels with me, and even pulled out his phone to translate and explain to me the differences. No fuss. No eye-rolls.
The Airbnb host where we stayed would check in every evening—not with an intrusive message, but just a kind, “Is everything okay?” And so many shops, after a brief chat, gave us little stickers. Not as promotions. Just as gestures.
No one was trying to get a review. No one expected anything back. It just felt like they cared.
That’s Omotenashi.
Omotenashi is often translated as “Japanese hospitality,” but that misses the point. It’s not about service with a smile. It’s about anticipating someone’s needs before they ask, and doing it with humility, without expecting recognition.
It shows up in tea ceremonies, where every gesture is designed to make the guest feel at ease. But it’s not limited to tradition. You’ll find it everywhere. In train stations, corner stores, even vending machines.
At its core, Omotenashi is built on three ideas: Anticipation. Humility. Care without expectation. I think there are many lessons here on how to build great businesses, and product experiences - putting the user's need upfront.
Building Great User Experiences
As companies scale, often the customer centricity changes, companies start optimising for revenue and shareholders. That's not a bad thing entirely, but forgetting what the user wants along they way, might be.
1. Anticipating User Needs
The best PMs and designers don’t just react to user feedback. They predict friction before it happens.
Think about Japanese toilet seats. If you haven’t used one, it sounds silly. But once you do, it’s hard to go back. Heated seats, built-in bidets, noise masking, no one asked for these things. But someone anticipated you’d appreciate them. And you do.
That’s the kind of thinking great product teams bring to their work. They imagine the moments of discomfort or clumsiness and remove them before you notice.
2. Delight as a Design Philosophy
Japanese metro stations are a masterclass in clarity. Every exit is numbered. Signs are colour-coded. Every single thing is labelled. It's idiot proof. If you can read, you can navigate Tokyo. It’s like the system was built for future visitors who’d never been there before.
That’s how thoughtful UX should feel. Not flashy, but quietly delightful.
Airbnb vs Booking is a good example. At least in recent times, Airbnb probably focused a bit too much on the flashy stuff forgetting the actual users they are serving. And that shows.
Example:
https://x.com/marias_martin/status/1922739695907168652
and the result:
Good micro-interactions, playful copy, even helpful error messages—they’re the product equivalent of the shopkeeper who slips you a sticker after your purchase. Tiny moments that stick.
3. Proactive Support and Invisible Service
Omotenashi is quiet. The best help often goes unnoticed.
Tokyo’s metro has staff stationed near ticket gates, not to check tickets, but to intervene when something goes wrong. If you’re fumbling with your pass or heading to the wrong line, they step in calmly, before it becomes a problem.
That’s how great product operations work. Smart defaults, helpful nudges, background processes that catch errors before users see them. Invisible, but essential.
Support shouldn’t just be reactive. It should be invisible scaffolding that helps people succeed without realising they were about to fail.
Omotenashi in Business Strategy
1. Brand as Emotional Experience
You don’t remember what a product did. You remember how it made you feel.
When I think of that 7-Eleven moment, how the staff helped me with the translation, how I never felt like a burden, I don’t remember what I bought. I remember how I felt: respected. Cared for.
Brands that create emotional memories become sticky. You don’t just use the product, you tell friends. You go back.
2. Sustainable Differentiation through Care
Features can be copied. But care or customer support is harder. That’s in company’s DNA. Anyone can ship a roadmap. Few can make users feel seen. Two big companies shipping similar products, in a large market can easily differentiate from one another through high quality support.
Omotenashi builds irrational loyalty because of emotional surplus. It lingers.
I came back from Japan already planning my return because I felt something I couldn’t unfeel. That’s the moat.
Great customer support is the easiest way to make your customer feel special - not fancy designs.
3. Internal Omotenashi: Serving Your Teams
What if we applied Omotenashi not just to users, but to our teams? Employees are the biggest asset any company have. Take care of them, and they will take care of your problem.
What if internal tools were built with the same polish as customer-facing ones?
What if onboarding a new hire felt as considered as welcoming a guest?
Great leadership is also about anticipation, humility, and care.
The Trade-offs
Of course, Omotenashi comes with trade-offs.
Can it scale? Not always.
Some teams fall into perfectionism, endlessly gold-plating features no one asked for. Others burn out trying to anticipate every edge case.
It’s a balance. The goal isn’t to guess everything. It’s to care enough to try. To use testing where needed, and intuition where it matters.
Done right, Omotenashi isn’t inefficiency. It’s intention.
In Closing
Building with Omotenashi isn’t about being fancy. It’s about caring so deeply, so quietly, that your product says: You matter.
Try it. Choose one part of your product or business this week. Infuse it with Omotenashi.
Don’t tell anyone you did it. Just let them feel it.