Surprising Chinese Business Tactics

At a ‘shao kao’ restaurant, a group of non-Chinese friends and myself were sitting outside. A truck came reversing from a street and almost knocked into our table. A few of the girls screamed. The boss quickly ran from the inside to the outside the shop, and said to us: “Ah ah! Zhong guo ren mei you shui zhun. Bie gen ta men yi ban jian shi ~ heh heh heh.” ("Chinese people have no manners. Please don't mind them. *feeble laugh) I was amused by that because he would rather offend another Chinese, than let the situation affect his business.

Another time, my friend was making a short film, which required a few shots inside a fruit shop. We asked if we could film at that time, which was 3pm, and the shopkeeper said that we certainly could. But he added this interesting comment: “Please wait until about 4pm, then start the filming. Hao ma?” I was at first confused by that comment, because I thought that the less people inside the fruit store, the better, since we would not have to disturb their business so much. But what I realized later was that he actually wanted a lot of people inside the store during the filming, so that on the short film, it would look like his store was very popular, as opposed to nobody else being in the store. I found that funny.

A girl with a beautiful talking voice rides on the back of a bicycle.

I have heard and experienced a few of these incidents: A group of friends go to a restaurant to eat. They pay the bill and walk outside. They start to walk away from the shop. Wait 10 seconds. A waitress wearing high heels runs out from the restaurant shouting 'wait wait wait!' Group waits. She catches up in about 30 seconds, and says in a huff and puff: "I forgot to give these to you. These are VIP cards. If you come back next time, you will be able to enjoy 20% off the whole menu." Group says thank you and feels good about receiving discounts for the next visit. The first time i heard this happen, i felt quite normal. But the second and third times that i heard or had the actual experience, i considered the possibility that these restaurants forget to give out VIP cards on purpose. Which is not a bad business strategy, since by doing so, customers feel more valued by the restaurant - that a staff would give up herself to shout and chase after customers on high heels, just so that they can get a discount for the next visit. Not a bad business strategy also, considering that most of the waitresses just stand there and fiddle with pots. May as well send a few out to run around.

What amuses me the most for this case, is what the manager says when teaching the waitresses how to be effective in the waiting, shouting and chasing.