When businesses focus more on customer communication

Realizing the market's need for business etiquette early on, Ms. Dang Bao Tram (HCMC) introduced the subject of Business Etiquette (rules of business protocol) to Vietnam 8 years ago, and at the same time established URA Etiquette Academy Joint Stock Company (URA Vietnam).

Sharing about a profession that is still quite unfamiliar to many people, Ms. Tram said that communication situations are varied, but how to overcome communication situations in the most graceful and standard way is something everyone needs to learn:

“For me, the key word in communication is still “graceful”, because sometimes in life it is difficult to understand all the rules, then we have to overcome them skillfully and gracefully. But to be truly graceful, we have to understand the etiquette, so that in situations that can lead to small mistakes, we can still correct them with our grace.”

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Ms. Dang Bao Tram (far left) instructs employees of a Big4 bank in Ho Chi Minh City on handshake etiquette on October 11. Photo: NVCC.

In addition to charm, sincerity is still the most important keyword in communication, but it must be skillfully sincere, not clumsy. Simple and sophisticated, not monotonous and careless. In fact, etiquette or communication protocol is not only necessary for people working in the service industry but also for everyone in social communication, because communication is the way people behave with each other.

During her time studying and working in France, Dang Bao Tram was impressed by the politeness of Westerners, so she studied Business Etiquette. After finishing her studies, she decided to buy the teaching copyright from France, then studied to become an Etiquette Coach.

To harmonize Vietnamese and Western cultures, after returning to Vietnam, she went to Hue to "seek a teacher and learn from him".

“When I came to Hue, I heard about the Vietnamese dining rules, such as where to put chopsticks when eating; you have to put food in the bowl before bringing it to your mouth; when you put rice in your mouth, you can only do it once or twice, and then a third time…”, Ms. Tram said.

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Standing posture training course at a bank branch. Photo: NVCC.

These are the main principles that Vietnamese people pass on orally, the way grandparents and parents teach their children at home. In Europe, the rules are systematized, even based on scientific research, such as when meeting for the first time, you usually only have about 8 seconds to make an impression on the other person; whether a customer decides to choose you or not depends a lot on the first moment.

After a difficult initial period, up to now, over 60% of URA Vietnam's customers are repeat customers and are referred by old customers.

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Handshake posture for service workers. Photo: NVCC.

According to Ms. Tram, the mass course will take place in 1 day, the intensive class will take place in 3 consecutive days.

In addition, she still provides 1-on-1 training for the super-rich at a fee of hundreds of millions of VND/person. Of which, the number of individual customers accounts for about 10%, the remaining 90% are corporate customers.

“I realized that when the economy is in trouble, businesses will focus more on investing in developing their core human resources. That is the advantage of the service industry like Ura Vietnam,” said the founder of URA Vietnam.

"If you can't do anything better, be kind and polite"

According to Ms. Dang Bao Tram, there were some memorable situations during her teaching process. One of those humorous situations was after she shared about table manners for a bank branch.

"I said that even if you eat rice mixed with soy sauce, you must carefully spread out the napkin, sit in an elegant posture, and live a simple life in a sophisticated manner," said Ms. Tram. "Elegance has nothing to do with circumstances, rich or poor, social class, or job position. Who you are is not important to how you behave. At lunchtime, more than 100 people sat down to eat together but no one dared to eat. Most people just sat there looking at each other and tiptoeing, while on normal days they had to eat very quickly and take a nap."

At that time, Ms. Tram had to say that we should eat and drink the same way we usually do. In communication, we just need to be restrained and polite to overcome communication situations gracefully and properly, and not be so constrained.

"To demonstrate, I had to pick up a big piece to make everyone feel comfortable, but after that, they still couldn't feel comfortable. From that day on, I learned my lesson and had to change the curriculum, table manners would be taught in the early afternoon," she recalled.

According to Ms. Tram, etiquette is not something rigid, so when teaching, it is necessary to "break the ice" for everyone.

“My field of communication is called the field of neatness and seriousness. When working with mainly women, my keywords for female clients are graceful and sophisticated, and I have plenty of gracefulness because since I was little, everyone said I was graceful (laughs). I have an advantage to inspire people because I am short. When I meet students who are tall and beautiful but lack confidence, they are inspired when they see that I am just a girl with a modest height compared to them," Ms. Tram shared.

And one last thing she shares about communication and work: "If you can't do anything better, be kind and polite."