Every city has its signatures. In Ho Chi Minh City it was someone pointing at my sneakers and offering to clean them. In Da Nang it was, “Taxi, sir?” and in Hội An it’s been, “Want a boat ride?” We have resolutely fought off all efforts to part us from our money. Well, most efforts.
It was our first afternoon in Hội An, a historical port city in central Vietnam, home to a Unesco world-heritage ancient town. We’d gone in search of a particular tailor, recommended to us by our hotel and breathless English tourists on TikTok. At the first street corner, I got out my phone to check directions, and 15 minutes later we were at a completely different tailor, having been expertly waylaid by one of their “scouts”, who’d seen us and asked if she could offer directions …
The next day we did a lantern-making class at our hotel, led by the ever-patient tutor, Moon. Moon asked us what we had planned and made a few recommendations, including one for dinner at the Citadel restaurant at which a friend of hers worked. That evening, we followed her advice and had a frankly delightful evening marked by fantastic food, an absolutely lovely waitress, Anna, and regular check-ins from Gray, the manager (who also happens to be a Kiwi).
As with every restaurant we visited, we had to force ourselves to sit back and enjoy the experience; at no point did we ever feel like we had to rush to finish, pay, and give up our table to the next customer. Not like, ahem, at home in Wellington.
What do these latter examples have in common? Bloody good business sense based on friendliness and strategic use of consumer psychology. Having recently hosted friends visiting Wellington from overseas, my heart was warmed by hearing them say how friendly New Zealanders are, but it’s a step change to Vietnamese hospitality.
For example, first and last impressions count or, in technical terms, primacy and recency. We make impressions incredibly quickly and largely unconsciously, and research shows that, while we care deeply about how good the chef is, we have to be drawn in first to find out. That can hang entirely on the rapport we sense from our first encounter.
When we left the restaurant, Anna farewelled us by our names (which she remembered several days later when we happened to pass by). That’s a personal touch that leaves a positive impression.
Ever started to feel tense because wait staff check in on you a little too frequently? Or neglected because they don’t check in at all? That’s another tricky balance, and one that requires a bit of intuition about the best time to stop by.
Another thing Citadel did well, but almost every other restaurant we ate at didn’t, was a sensibly curated set of options. Ever eaten at the American restaurant chain The Cheesecake Factory? The menu runs to more than 200 items and around 20 pages. It is frankly exhausting. You get to a point where you no longer care what you order, you just want to make it stop.
Psychology researchers Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper are probably best associated with the notion of this “paradox of choice”. In a particularly well-known experiment they showed that people may be more likely to head over to a counter offering 24 types of jam than a counter with only six, but people were 10 times more likely to buy jam when the number of types available was reduced from 24 to six. Why? Because what if you make the wrong choice? The more choices, the harder the decision, and the greater the likelihood of buyer’s remorse.
So in keeping with this research, we broke our holiday rule and went back to the Citadel and its more limited number of choices a second time.
