Keigo for Visiting a Client: Reception, Business Cards and Leaving

The visit in four moments

A client visit has four moments where the words are close to fixed: entering a room, introducing yourself, receiving a card and leaving. If those four lines come out smoothly, the rest of the visit, the actual meeting, can be in simpler polite Japanese and nobody will mind.

Shitsurei itashimasu does a lot of work. Literally I commit a rudeness, it is said when you knock and enter, when you sit after being invited, when you interrupt, and when you leave. Its plain polite form, shitsurei shimasu, is what you hear among colleagues.

Arriving in three registers

Compare how you would say the same things arriving at a friend's flat, at a colleague's desk and at a client's reception. The friend version is relaxed, the colleague version is polite but direct, and the client version adds two layers: humble verbs for what you do, and the formal frame that tells the receptionist exactly what to do next.

Many visitors in Japan arrive five to ten minutes early, take off their coat before entering the building, and carry it folded over the arm. Customs vary by company and season, so watch what others do, but arriving at the reception desk exactly on time, rather than very early, is a common habit.

At the reception desk

Large offices have a staffed desk; many smaller ones have a phone or tablet in the lobby on which you call the department. In both cases the content is the same: who you are, whom you are seeing, and when. The receptionist will use humble forms about their own colleague, so listen for Tanaka without sama; that is the uchi-soto rule at work, not rudeness.

Being shown in and taking a seat

When your host comes to fetch you, follow them and wait to be told where to sit. In many Japanese meeting rooms the seat farthest from the door is the guest seat, kamiza, and the host will usually point you to it. Do not sit until they invite you, and say shitsurei itashimasu as you sit. Put your bag on the floor beside your chair rather than on the table.

The business card exchange, line by line

Business cards, meishi, are usually exchanged standing up, at the start, before anyone sits. The visitor normally offers first. Hold your card with both hands, facing the other person so they can read it, and say your full introduction. When you receive their card, take it with both hands, say chōdai itashimasu, and read it for a moment. During the meeting, many people keep the cards on the table in the order people are sitting.

Small talk, then business

Most hosts open with a minute of small talk: the weather, the journey, whether you found the office easily. Answer briefly and positively, then let the host move to business, or move there yourself with sassoku desu ga, if I may get straight to it.

Leaving the room and the building

Thank your host for their time, pack up, and stand. Say shitsurei itashimasu at the meeting-room door. If the host walks you to the lift or the entrance, thank them again there; kochira de kekkō desu politely tells them they need not come further. Many people bow as the lift doors close and keep work talk out of the lift.

Over-humble and misplaced keigo

Two kinds of mistake are common on visits. The first is stacking humble forms on one verb until it sounds servile. The second is using a humble verb for the client's action, which lowers them; the verb mairu, for example, is humble, so it fits your own coming and going but never the client's.

Rehearse the visit from desk to lift

Start with Mocchi: type the details of a visit you have coming up, the client's company, the person and the time, and ask for your reception line, your card-exchange line and two small-talk answers. Mocchi writes them, explains which verbs are humble and which are respectful, and keeps track of the forms you hesitate over.

Then walk through it aloud with Ibuki-sensei in AI Sensei. Ask the Sensei to play the receptionist first and then the client, to bring up the weather or the journey before business, and to correct you whenever you use a humble verb for the client.