Meeting the Customer Needs - Dissertation Example

Meeting the Customer Needs Abstract: The market is incomplete if the customers are missing. The customers are the revenue generators for the business houses. For any business empire whether it is small or big, the primary focus is how to retain their existing customers and how to acquire new customers. To retain the existing customers the in-depth understanding of the customer needs is very important. In the recent time there are many companies selling services to satisfy the existing and new customer to retain and acquire new customers respectively. However, in this particular paper the focus will be given over the service quality towards customer satisfaction and customer needs. It is vital to understand the impact of the customer satisfactions. Customer needs are the base of any business. However, the most important question is how to know the specific needs of the customers related to some specific products? The marketing research plays the vital role in this case. The survey design and the questionnaire design play the major role to identify the customer needs. Through the proper data collection and analyzing the data are the most appropriate way to find out the customer needs and to satisfy the needs accordingly. In this particular case the target organization is the McDonald’s. Introduction: Maintaining a great service quality and the product quality are all about understanding the requirements of the customers and delivering the tailor-made services to satisfy them. Understanding the customer behavior is another very important factor to be focused on. However, these are the basic rules to delivering satisfying services. The measurement of the steps taken towards the customer satisfaction is also very important. The primary and secondary data are important to support the outcome of the services related to the customer satisfaction. In regards to this research, the secondary data used are gathered from the Internet, journals and other publications in order to get basic information about the nature of the influences of the customer satisfaction. And the primary data are collected from the survey made from the sample size of 50 people selected randomly. McDonald’s has been taken as the target brand in this case. The whole paper is stratified into five chapters and each chapter has its own relevance to prove the importance of the customer satisfaction to win the customers. Chapter 1: The brief about the selected organization (McDonald’s): McDonald’s is been considered as the world’s largest and the top fast food company. McDonald’s has created a history in the field of restaurant business. There are few factors which are very much important to help the brand to be evaluated as the greatest brand ever; McDonald’s. The outstanding services, high quality food, great maintenance of hygiene within the restaurants and obviously the remarkable customer services and great pricing strategy have made them the best. However, there are some positive point and some negative points about the McDonald’s this paper will evaluate the McDonald’s according to those facts. The pricing is very much important. McDonald’s has always adopted the penetration pricing strategy. And that is the reason it is the largest seller of the fast foods in the world. The combo happy meal price is only $ 3.59 to $ 4.5, which is very much competitive and the individual price for the baked patties burger would be only $ 1.09-2, the mash potatoes at $ 1.50-2 and the smoothies at $ 2.29-3. The interesting part is the combo gives a saving of $1.29 with respect to the individual items if they are bought all by any customer. This pricing strategy would definitely help the new product to penetrate the market easily. Price discrimination is a great factor for the McDonald’s. From the personal experiences it has been seen that there are many customers who are teenagers, McDonald’s must think about these loyal customers as they could be the future customers for the developed market. The disposable incomes of these young souls are not too high and that is the reason the individual pricing of the single products are required. Happy meal is for the families but not for the teenagers who prefer to have the Mac-Chicken Burger instead of the happy meal for the short budget. Previously McDonald’s brand identities were the red and white brick wall and the two golden arches but later it changed. Somehow the red and white theme remained the same but the two arches got the new look with more shiny arch which looks like a huge golden arch. And later the iconic Ronald came into action. Ronald can be treated as the brand’s mascot. The evaluation of the brand image of the McDonald’s does highly depend on the Ronald McDonald’s personality. For a personal experience is can be said that the Ronald is one of the most favorite superficial cartoon character among the kids and many new kids want to go to the McDonald’s to see Mr. Ronald. The promotion is the energy of the McDonald’s which kept on giving them the fuel to run for the achievements. Most of the time, McDonald’s does in-store promotions. There are many cartoon characters that are there in the store to entertain the kids. The playing and eating facility give the extra attraction to the kids. Advertising was always an option for McDonald’s but eventually it was a big hit even before it appeared in the National Television advertisement. Most of the advertisements of McDonald’s have been concentrated on the personality called Ronald McDonald. However, in the recent time they had to change their advertising tactics in some of the countries where food is most important than that of the celebrated character. But still in each and every country Ronald is been a huge hit and brand recall factor. In most of the cases McDonald’s is very much selective in case of choosing the channel and the timing of the ad to be showed. The customer support has been a great achievement for the McDonald’s. From the earlier time while it was concentrating it drive through restaurants it inculcated the art of serving customers in a short time with great quality. However, in a restaurant sometime it takes time to deliver and that is the reason the McDonald’s has put up many things inside the restaurant to get entertained with. The home delivery is another great customer support activity which they have done wisely. The online portal is also a hit for the people who are too busy to come to the restaurant to have the food. So, they can order online also. There are many other facts are there which are more than enough to prove the excellence of the McDonald’s Customer care. Once a McDonald’s branch made a record of having 349 transactions in an hour (Russell, and Taylor-Iii, 2008). However, the average transaction is one in a minute in most of the branches compare to 3.5 per minute in other fast food joints in Colorado. The pricing strategy is a positive approach for McDonald’s but the combo pricing strategy has taken away many customers from them. Mainly Taco Bill has stolen mane customers from them with low pricing. But still in other hand Happy Meal is one of the greatest products of McDonald’s with great sales figure. Advertising strategies are in the positive side as they have maintained their brand identity for more than 4 decades. The customer support can be taken as the best in the industry with fast delivery process. So, from the personal viewpoint it can be said that McDonald’s is indeed the best fast-food chain in the world as far as the evaluation is concern. The proper combination of the Marketing mix, which is product, price, place and promotion and the determinant attributes can lead to a successful product. As far as the product is concern, it should fit for the upcoming healthy food market. However, in this scenario if the Fast food lovers get an option to have the same tasty food but with lower calories as just 250 units instead of 470 units in Wendy’s single sandwich and 670 units in Burger king’s Whoppers respectively. The vegetarian option is very promising, it has been seen that only three percent of Americans are completely vegetarian. However, almost sixty percent prefer food which is meatless (Campbell, 2008). The McDonald’s is the top fast food company in United States. It is having the highest market share. It is had 7.3 percent market share in the 2002 while the main competitors for the new item were Subway and Taco Bell and they were having 1.9 percent market share each.(Vaidya, 2006). Identifying the problem: Identifying the major problems related to the customer satisfactions is major concern of the organization like McDonald’s. It is basically the franchising business and there are several owners related within the organizations. However, the decentralization is maintained within the organization for taking fast decisions but, the brand identity and the customer relation is maintained by the operation managers under the strict vigilance of the management. One of the main problem related to the customer satisfaction is the building a strong relation between the marketing and the operation team within the branches. Another concern is the retention of the existing customers. Chapter 2: Importance of the customer satisfaction: Customer is the king! This is the mantra of the service industry in the present scenario. If the customer satisfaction and the customer needs are neglected then there is no hope of having a successful business. McDonald’s is a global brand and it is available in most of the prominent countries in the world. However, that has been possible with the great ways of satisfying the customers accordingly towards their needs. For an example beef and Pork are accepted in USA but in a country like India where the religious factors are very important and which dominated by the Hindu religion, the beef is not taken as a good food item to be consumed and same way Pork might be not that famous in an Muslim country like Pakistan. In this case the meat selection plays a vital role. Same way there can be many other factors which can control the emotions of the customers. Moreover, the quality of the food must be maintained properly as food safety is pretty important as far as the customer satisfaction and the reputation of the supplier are concern (Schröder: 2003). Within two decades the business focus has been shifted from production to business relation (Sugandhi: 2003). And that has been maintained properly by the McDonald’s in different countries. According to Jill & Michael, there are several costs which can be saved and profits can be generated and they are 1: Acquisition cost: the cost of acquiring new customer, 2: Base profit: that is the difference between the price the customer pays and the company’s cost. 3: Revenue growth: a long term loyal customer gives long term revenue for the company. 4: Cost saving: A matured customer tends to be less costly to service (Jill & Michael: 2001). The so-called typical customers do no longer exist in this changing business environment, and that is the biggest lesson for all the companies (Dyche: 2002). However, the best customer relation can be maintained with the help of trust and commitment (Schafer: 2007). It has to be remembered that the services are basically delivered by the people so, the people who are providing the services within the shop are the most important factor for the customer satisfaction (Lancaster & Reynolds: 2005). TQM (total quality management): Quality, value and satisfaction are the most important factors for providing good services. For any shop the quality of services is the ultimate degree of realization of the services provided within the shop and that is the reason the TQM must be practices strictly to maintain a high quality parameter in the shop. The TQM has three words and they are Total, Quality and Management, all of these three words have a great significance towards the service of the particular shop. Total means everyone related to the service in the shop. It means everyone in the organization is related to the final products (Rawlins, 2008). Quality must the ultimate word for everyone in the organization. There should never be subjective but always measurable (Rawlins, 2008) The relation between the operation management and customer satisfaction: The relation between the service marketing department and the operations department has a great importance. The in-store operations and services are very much important as that is the real point of sales. It is very much easy to understand that the repeating customers generate more profit than the normal customers because it is been proved that loyal customers buy more each year than the normal customers (Bennekom, 2002). The operation management is majorly about the day to day activities within the shops of the particular target brand and that is McDonald’s. The aim of the efficient operation management is to execute the day to day work within the shops efficiently, quickly and with low cost (Chase, 2006). There is a close and very important relation between the marketing and the operations. The marketing activities must be supported with the operations within the stores. For an example, if an advertisement claims that maximum delivery time within the shop is 15 minutes, then it must be maintained by the store people to meet the expectations of the customers. In these cases the QFD is very important. Quality Function Development (QFD) is basically a systematic structural approach in the service industry. This particular approach helps the organization to create or design new services related t the customer satisfaction (Jeong & Oh, 1998). According to this approach the market demand is converted into a service in the service points. Chapter 3: Understanding the gaps within the services: The gap is the qualitative differences between the services delivered to the customer and the services expected by the customer. Understanding the customer needs is possible by many research tools but bridging the gap depends totally on the operation department of the each selling points of the McDonald’s. There are basically five Gaps; which must be taken seriously to analyze the flaws within the organization. 5 Gap Model: The five gap model is very important to find out the gaps within the organization which might affect the service quality of the organization. The needs, requirements and the perception of the customers must be understood properly to bridge these 5 gaps for delivering the best quality services according to the customer’s expectations. According to Kotler (2008) the relevant five Gaps are discussed bellow. Gap 1: Management perception versus consumer expectations: Many times the management of the hospitality industry has failed to understand the requirement of the customers. This is the gap which is very common in most of the cases. This is the gap which tells the organization to deliver high quality service which satisfies the customers (Kotler, 2008). Gap 2: Service quality specification versus management perception: This particular gap happens due to many reasons. Most of the time this occurs while managers know what to do but they don’t have adequate supportive service quality (Kotler, 2008). Gap 3: service quality specification versus service delivery: This is basically the service-performance gap. This gap happens when the manager of a shop knows what to do for the better service but, the employees are unable to understand or sometimes unwilling to work accordingly (Kotler, 2008). This is basically a communication gap within the organization. To bridge this gap the proper standards must be maintained within the employees of the shop. Gap 4: Service delivery versus external communication: This is a gap which creates lots of confusions among the customers. This is a gap between the extensive commitment towards service and the actual service can be delivered. In this gap the shops commits to deliver more but it fails to deliver the commitment accordingly. The high profile advertising campaign can be a cause of it (Kotler, 2008). The false impression of great services is a fatal approach. Gap 5: Expected service versus perceived service: This is a gap which is basically the combined effect of the all other four gaps. If the gaps of other four factors increase then this gap will automatically increase. The expected quality is the combination of all the services delivered according to the commitments made. (Kotler, 2008). This five gap model is very important to analyze the existing Gaps within the particular shop operation and to bridge the gap accordingly to satisfy the customers. Chapter 4: Assessment of the customer needs (Research work): The research work in this paper is strictly based on the surveys, interviews and in-store feedbacks. The McDonald’s must do these data collection methods to get the proper customer feedbacks. And these feedbacks must be documented and analyzed properly to maintain the service and to find out the gaps within the services. The primary data are collected through different techniques such as survey questionnaires, interviews and observations. Likert scale has been used for framing the questions as there are several advantages of Likert scale (Kothari, 2008). Questionnaire design: A good questionnaire powers up the survey process. However, there are no established ways or procedures to construct good questionnaire (Aaker, Kumar and Day, 2008). Surveys are basically costume built and each survey has their own specifications. However, the degree of freedom in answering the questions for the respondents is very vital for a successful survey. There are many set of questions are used in the survey and some them are open-ended questions with no specifications, open-ended questions with specified answers to choose from, close ended questions etc (Aaker, Kumar and Day, 2008). In this context there are 12 questioned framed for the sample group. And the sample is the random sample and the sample size is 50. In this case the open ended questions with options are chosen as it takes less time of the target group. Chapter 5: Measuring the customer expectations from the survey: There were 50 set of questionnaire were distributed among the people randomly and the answers of the questions are given in a Table below. (The example of the questionnaire is shown in the appendix). The answer table: Questions Answer 1 Answer 2 Answer 3 Answer 4 A 12 25 5 8 B 26 15 6 3 C 4 2 42 2 D 15 20 10 5 E 23 15 8 4 F 18 20 10 2 G 12 20 10 8 H 10 25 10 5 I 38 12 J 15 25 5 5 K 12 18 10 10 L 20 10 15 5 Analysis of the survey: The survey can be analyzed if the questionnaire is analyzed properly. From the above table the clear picture about the question asked is given bellow: Q. A. Analysis: (How did you get to know about us?) From the answers of the question as the conclusion can be drawn that the major portion of the sample that is; almost 50 % of the sample got to know about McDonald’s by word of mouth and only 24 % from advertising. This means most of the people do keep the faith on the brand name McDonald’s. Q. B. Analysis: (How was the service at the table reservation?) From the collected answers it can be observed that 52% feel the service on the table is excellent. And 30 % think it is good and 6% think it is poor. Well, the best compliments are the strength but McDonald’s must look into the reasons from the 6% poor feedback. As these customers can spread the negative word of mouth and that could be fetal for the brand as it has been seen that almost 50% of the people knew about the brand by word of mouth (from the question A). Q. C. Analysis: (Purpose of your visit) From the answers of the question C it is clear that almost 82% of the customers come in McDonald’s for relaxation and food so, the service must impress the customers so they can find this place relaxing and also a good place to eat. Q. D. Analysis: (How was the check in procedure?) According to the answers of the question D, it is clear that the check in procedure was excellent by 30% and good by 40% and the important part it poor according to 10% of the respondents. This 10 % people are the concern for the McDonald’s. They must know why the 10 % of the people feel they are not treated well at the time of check in. Q. E. Analysis: (How was the reception?) 46% thinks that the reception is excellent and 30 % think it is good and 16% think it is satisfactory and 8% think it is poor. There might be some personal perception of these 8% people who think the reception is poor. However, a great greeting is really important to make the new customers happy. Q. F. Analysis: (How was the food quality?) The food quality is excellent according to 36 % people and good by 40% of people and satisfactory by 20% of the respondents. From this feedback it is clear that most of the people think the food quality is good and satisfactory but may be it could be bit better. So, in this case McDonald’s must look into the freshness of the products. Q. G. Analysis: (How was the service delivery time?) The service delivery time is another factor to be taken very seriously. From the collected answer it is clear that only 24 % thinks that the service delivery time is excellent, 40% think it is good and the most important 16% of the people think it is poor!. This factor should be taken very seriously as customers hate to wait on the table for the longer time. McDonald’s must entertain the customers by some means so they would not be thinking that they are waiting for the food. For example a small gaming device can be provided to the customers so they can spend time if the delivery is late. Q. H. Analysis: (How do you rank the menu?) The menu is a very important factor. The menu must be done in such a way that the people would understand each and every item in the menu so they can order accordingly. However, from the collected answers 50% think the menu is good and 20% think it is excellent. 10 % think it is poor. From the feedbacks McDonald’s must check the menu again as many times it happens that some menu cards contain the old menus instead of the new menus. However, that would be simple mistake which can be rectified easily. Q. I. Analysis: (Would you recommend our branch to friends or family?) The most important factor is the recommendations and word of mouth promotions by the customers. From the question I it clear that major part of the customers are highly satisfied with the overall service quality of the McDonald’s, almost 76% people think they should recommend the brand to their friends and relatives. This is a great achievement. However 24% think they must never recommend the Brand to anyone. McDonalds must understand that these 24% people are not satisfied for some low quality services. The Aim should be to get 100% satisfaction from every customer. Q. J. Analysis: (How was the standard of the ambiences?) 50% of the customers think that the ambience in the McDonald’s is good and 30 % think it is excellent. Well, this must not be forgotten that McDonald’s is a fast food restaurant and the major part of the crowd is made of teenage crowd so this feedback it good enough for the McDonald’s. Q. K. Analysis: (Which is your best fast-food center?) Threats are the factors which come from the external market and that can pull the loyal customers away from the brand. Among different external threats one is the competition. In this case 36% of respondent thinks that KFC is the best, 24% think McDonald’s is best, and 20 % think Subway and Taco Bill is the best. From this answers it is clear that KFC is the main rival of the McDonald’s. And McDonald’s must check the new products of the KFC and also the services of the KFC to analyze the threat. Q. L. Analysis: (According to you which is important to meet your expectation?) The value added service can make some great change over the customer perceptions about the services. However, the general services and the food quality are the main factors which drive the brand. However, as a recommendation almost 40% respondents think that quick home delivery can make a huge difference in the service quality. 20% think the food quality must be good, 30% think improvement of the services in the stores can make a big difference and 10% think the menu must be changed. From these feedbacks it is clear that the home delivery and the in-store services can satisfy the customers From the above answers of the 50 people the perception about the McDonald’s has been clarified. In case of recommendation almost 38 people said that they would refer to their families of friend to come to the store but in other cases the public opinion is not showing the excellent service qualities in all the aspects. In case of competition the KFC is preferable than the McDonald’s as per the public pole where 18 have voted for KFC and 12 for McDonald’s. However, the overall result is good for the McDonald’s as far as the customer satisfaction is concern Recommendations: After the survey there could be many recommendations. However, few recommendations are given below. 1. Treat the new customer with a great respect. 2. Commit what should be committed, specially the service delivery time. 3. Improve the home delivery service. 4. Maintain the customer database. 5. Maintain the hygiene within the store. 6. Help the new customer to find the best menu. Conclusion: From this descriptive paper is has been clear that the customer needs are the most important factors to be analyzed properly to run the successful business. In this particular case the help of the McDonald’s has been taken as the service provider. The survey method and the questionnaire were the basic tools for the assessments. After the vast discussion it can be concluded that, the customers are the real business generators for the organizations. And they want fast service, quality food and good ambiance with clean and proper hygiene within the store. The extra value added services are the additional service to be provided to the customers. However, the value addition services vary from customer to customer. The bottom line is while the customers are coming to the store they must feel they are the kings and the service people within the store must understand that and behave accordingly to serve the kings with the great pleasure. Appendix: The Questionnaire A. How did you get to know about us? 1. From advertising 2. Word of mouth 3. From a travel agency or catalog 4. From magazine B. How was the service at the table reservation? 1. Excellent. 2. Good 3. Satisfactory 4. Poor C. Purpose of your visit: 1. Business 2. Meetings& events 3. Relaxation /wellness 4. Health & fitness D. How was the check in procedure? 1. Excellent 2. Good 3. Satisfactory 4. Poor E. How was the reception? 1. Excellent 2. Good 3. Satisfactory 4. Poor F. How was the food quality? 1. Excellent 2. Good 3. Satisfactory 4. Poor G. How was the service delivery time? 1. Excellent 2. Good 3. Satisfactory 4. Poor H. How do you rank the menu? 1. Excellent 2. Good 3. Satisfactory 4. Poor I. Would you recommend our branch to friends or family? 1. Yes 2. No J. How was the standard of the ambiences? 1. Excellent 2. Good 3. Satisfactory 4. Poor K. Which is your best fast-food center? 1. McDonald’s. 2. KFC. 3. Subway. 4. Taco Bill. L. According to you which is important to meet your expectations. 1. Enhancing in Home delivery 2. Improving quality of the food. 3. Improving the service in the store. 4. Improving the menu. References Aaker D A, Kumar V and Day G S, (2008). Marketing Research, 9Th Ed. New Jersey: Willy. Bennekom F C V. (2002) Customer surveying: a guidebook for service managers. 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