KANEKO OPTICAL: its work and people

In March 2003, in the midst of the creative period following KANEKO OPTICAL’s launch of its directly-owned store business, a new store with the name “COMPLEX Nagoya” opened in the Sakae district, Nagoya’s largest shopping area. The store had been developed to promote eyewear as a fashion item to younger consumers. KANEKO OPTICAL has since been busily opening new stores in Nagoya, starting in 2005 with the FACIAL INDEX Nagoya Store, five minutes away from of the COMPLEX Nagoya Store, but offering a higher quality of space and service. Then in the 2010s, in step with urban development trends at the time, the company opened several stores in the Nagoya station area and suburban shopping centers, making Nagoya one of KANEKO OPTICAL’s most important locations together with Tokyo and Osaka.
In the spring of 2009 a woman named Eri Sugawara (later in charge of the store which most symbolized this important urban center) moved from Kyoto to Nagoya to become a part-time employee at the FACIAL INDEX Nagoya store. Today she is store manager of the KANEKO OPTICAL Nagoya Store.

Sugawara was born in Asahikawa City, Hokkaido. She’s loved painting since junior high school, and in high school joined the art club, devoting herself to oil painting. After graduation her teacher recommended she apply to colleges where art is taught. “I considered art college in Tokyo or Osaka, but then I thought, 'Do I really love oil painting that much? (laughs). After thinking about it, I decided to stay in Hokkaido and find a college where I could major in art," she explains. Her choice was the fine arts major at the Hokkaido University of Education, Asahikawa School. Sugawara majored in oil painting and graduated in 2004 -- in the worst of the unemployment ice age. Finding a job where she could use the painting skills learned at university was difficult, and she ended up working at a store selling a popular bag brand in Asahikawa, where she’d been on staff part time since her senior year. “This was already a popular brand back then, and the product was selling well. That was when I first experienced the fun of working with customers. But I didn’t intend to stay with this job forever, so I kept going back to the employment office while I was working to see what else there might be.” She found work as a craftsman painting on kimonos in a long-established kimono company in Kyoto, well known for its dyeing and embroidery crafts. Without confidence and courage, Sugawara might have hesitated to enter this world, but at 23, she jumped in feet first. 
“I don't know anything about kimonos -- in fact, I've never even worn one (laughs), but I did study painting, so I thought I could make this work.” This is exactly Sugawara’s strength. Every time she reaches a turning point, before she starts worrying, "Can I do this?” “What if I can't?” “What will happen afterwards?,” etc., her mind and body engage and she takes action. She scoffs at her path so far: "It's always haphazard, like a bunch of moratoriums," but to an outsider, she seems to possess uncommon courage and resolve. In reality the industrial art work at the kimono house she joined was not easy, as might be imagined. Even so, while others who joined at the same time or later kept quitting, Sugawara stayed on the job for about five years. 

Having left Kyoto and moved to Nagoya, Sugawara had an interview at the FACIAL INDEX Nagoya store. Fortunately, she was hired for part time work, and starting from zero, began her career in the unfamiliar world of eyeglass sales. Her then boss, Shuhei Yamada, who interviewed Sugawara and made the decision to hire her, has watched over her growth in the 10 years since. “When I first saw in her c.v. how she had moved from Hokkaido to Kyoto and Kyoto to Nagoya, I got the impression of someone quite light on her feet. When we actually worked together, I found she had a strong core and a good sense of self. She also grasps the work very quickly. In the beginning, however, she struggled with customer interactions. I could see she was very nervous. Still, as far as I know I’ve never seen her bothered to the point she couldn’t handle a situation, or hit a wall.
Serving customers, fitting, processing glasses, and inspection -- these are the four pillars of store operations. As a new employee, her supervisor recognized Sugawara's outstanding ability to absorb information and her technical skills. “Every time I was taught something, I could feel myself learning the ropes and deepening my understanding, so the work became more and more fun.” Yet for a time she was still hesitant to become a regular employee. She felt the time was still too early, while simultaneously she lacked confidence that this was the job she wanted for the long run. Also, she still hadn’t cast off all hopes of returning to the world of making things, where she could use her painting skills. But it seemed that just when she felt most unsettled about the job, she would encounter a kind customer who offered her encouraging words, making her think she might be suited for this job after all, and the wavering in her heart subsided.
In 2010, one year after she joined the company as a part-timer, something happened which would influence Sugawara significantly in the future: a customer interaction role-playing competition put on by store’s host facility. This was a large scale competition, attended by professional sales staff from about 150 top brand stores. With typical courage and defiance, Sugawara surprised everyone around her by winning second place, in a competition most part-timers would have avoided in the first place. Once again, this was in her first year at the company, working part time. 

Sugawara realized something important at the participant training session held prior to the competition. “Until then, I had enjoyed talking with customers and thought of customer service as an extension of that, but I realized there are techniques beyond that for ‘properly communicating.’ Once I learned the skills to communicate the background of a product or the true value of the craftsman's work in a way that customers enjoyed, then the work of serving customers became much more interesting as I practiced more and more. In that sense, I think that competition was a major turning point for me." Looking back, Sugawara’s supervisor Yamada commented: "It was as if a switch had flipped and she had awakened to true customer service. After the competition, she began to change to a completely different person.”
In 2014, he was promoted to a full-time employee in the fifth year of joining the company. Two years later, in March 2016, he was promoted to the manager of the KANEKO GANKYO-TEN Nagoya store at the timing of the relocation and opening of the FACIAL INDEX Nagoya store. "When I first heard that story, I never thought I would be the store manager, so I was like,'Oh, I am?', But I was happy to hear that. However, I felt that I had a purely good chance, so I was grateful to accept it. " Even so, I decided to do it because when I was a newcomer, I was prepared to "go here", which I didn't have when I was hesitant to hire a full-time employee.
“This is already the 20th year since Kaneko opened its first store in Nagoya! The city has changed a lot since then, and the number of Kaneko’s direct owned stores in the Nagoya area has grown a lot. Since this store opened, we’ve had a long relationship with our customers, so people can enjoy selecting glasses in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere, but underlying this there has to be a careful and thorough approach to even to even the obvious tasks. What my predecessors have built step by step in these 20 years is very important. I want to honor that work as we try to build a store that will continue to attract our customers to visit.”


PROFILE

Eri Sugawara

Born in Asahikawa, Hokkaido. After graduating from high school, majored in oil painting in the fine arts department of the Art and Culture faculty at Hokkaido University of Education, Asahikawa campus. Upon graduation joined a craft kimono supplier in Kyoto in 2005. Honed her technical skills as a kimono painter for five years. After leaving that job, moved to Nagoya and joined FACIAL INDEX Nagoya as a part-timer. Transferred to COMPLEX Nagoya (now KANEKO OPTICAL Nagoya) in 2014, where she has been store manager since March 2016.