Do you like Chinese food? Please raise your hand. The answer is "yes" of course. Most of us are fed by Chinese food since we are in childhood. Chinese food must be one of the greatest food in the planet.
Now a question for you, does everyone like Chinese food? Before answering the question, let me bring three real stories based on my observations.
Story 1
One boss from U.S. always eat American style hamburger in Nanjing. Why, because during a visited Nanjing office, we invited him to a restaurant in Deji plaza which served traditional Nanjing local food. We ask "How is the food, do you like it" for almost every dishes served. He always responded "Good or Nice". However, he did not appear in office after the dinner. We saw in outlook that he wrote an email "I had to stay at hotel because I guess something is wrong with the food I had yesterday, sorry guys". After that, he only chose hamburger every time when he visited Nanjing.
Story 2
Since some white people can not adopt Chinese food, how about other nations?Two Indian colleagues visited Nanjing last year, it is very strange that we could not find them in the canteen downstairs. Why? The fact was that they tried the food in canteen which seems can not fit in their tastes. Especially the rice, the rice we Chinese eat is sticky while the Indian rice tastes quite differently. So they preferred to cook themselves instead of eating out. They thought all Chinese foods are the same style as served in Canteen.
Do you know how we solved the problem, firstly, we told them we have a huge various of Chinese food, the food in 晴美 is a just terrible type. Secondly, we brought them to northwest noodle which seems similar to Indian food - 西贝莜面村, according to their feedback, they extremely preferred the food there which seems a happy ending for this story.
Actually we found most foreigner like "西贝莜面村", please consider it as 1st choice when treating people never come to China.
Story 3
Finally, what about Chinese people, do they all love eat Chinese food. One of my friends who is working in US, during a causal talk, I asked "what do you often eat in lunch, Chinese food?". He responded that he always tried to avoid eating Chinese food at lunch time. Why? Because the smell of Chinese food, he recalled once his mother cooked a box of vegetable (韭菜盒子) after heating in microwave oven, the Microwave oven became quite smelly. His colleague asked him "Man, what food you just put in inside" which makes him quite embarrassing. He also mentioned many Chinese foods are really delicious when tasting in your mouth but it will leave heavy smell in other’s nose. They may not want to talk to you because of the smell.
Now the fact is that, we definitely love Chinese food, but not everyone does.
But let us take it easy, the problem of Chinese food is just like you sell a good product to global.
Firstly, quality is the key, once bitten twice shy.
Secondly, customization is also critial, let them feel good by serving right features.
Last but not least, think as your customer. Find problems and opportunities from outsider's perspective. Many situation we feel perfectly normal in daily life can become nightmares of others.
So let me remind again, quality, customization and think as your customer. Those factors are really the winning moves.
Do you agree on that?
