I can't agree with that comment. From a western point-of-view, Korean customer service is quite different. The same can be said for many countries where they have a different culture and a different culture of customer service. Westerners are typically accustomed to having businesses bend over backwards to provide them with excellent customer service. The motto 'the customer is always right' is the standard. Korea and many Asian countries take a much more moderate approach to customer service and the customer isn't necessarily always right. When something goes wrong and it's the fault of the business, you can't expect much more than an apology. If you're a westerner with your first time to have a problem with Asiana or any Korea company you might be shocked at their response. If you were to lose your cool at their reaction though, any Koreans around you would probably think there was something wrong with you for your negative reaction.

As an example, I was recently in a slightly upscale Korean restaurant nearby Seoul, eating dinner with a group of Koreans. The service had to have been the absolute worst I've ever expereinced in any restaurant anywhere in the world. I made nearly a dozen requests for water and was ignored every time. We ordered some meat (to cook at the in-table barbeque) and were ignored. For two hours our requests were continously ignored. I'm almost always a very calm person, but I started to lose it. Finally I got up and walked back to the kitchen and demanded a pitcher of water and for the waitress to deliver our order. A few in the group of Koreans looked on in horror at my actions and one of them asked me to calm down. I don't think I was overreacting by any stretch of the imagination according to western standards, but to Koreans they would rather just sit in this situation and accept the abysmal customer service. I then talked to the manager and told him about how absolutely horrible their service was. The only thing I got was an apology. No discount off our bill or a free dish or drink or any real measure to back up their apology.

Not trying to compare my experience above and say that Asiana's customer service is anywhere near that bad. I'm just trying to point out that Koreans don't expect anything other than an apology when things go wrong.

While I certainly can see some drawing parallels between a bad website and bad customer service, and meeting foreign customers' expectations, I think they are different. I guess the reason is that having spent lots of time in both Asia and in western countries I've come to the conclusion that westerner customer service is overdone. From a customer point-of-view, looking strictly at getting good service, of course it's great. But it comes at a cost. Western companies probably spend an inordinate amount on providing this good customer service and have to raise prices as a result. I would rather get a more normal customer service and pay a more reasonable price. But that's just my personal view and certainly accept that others see it very differently. On the other hand, making a website that's up to western standards, doesn't involve much expense when looking at the big picture. If only they'd hire one non-native Korean who's totally up to speed on western website standards, they could do a bang-up job. Compared to their sales to foreigners the cost of hiring that one person would be miniscule. Providing western style customer service to each and every passenger though would be a huge cost and force them to raise their prices.