Market and Customer Segmentation in the Restaurant Industry - Essay Example

Cebrzynski’s article looks at market and customer segmentation in the restaurant industry, using Houlihan’s and other real-world case examples.  Marketing, pricing, promotion, and customer and product segmentation are discussed, with an emphasis on market segmentation and special-offer deals.  “Houlihan's also hopes to increase its bar business with the return of "Mini Mondays," which offers mini burgers for $1 each. The burgers usually come in a flight of three, but when the chain unbundled them for a promotion in March” (Cebrznski, 2008).  Research of customer bases does not stop with market segmentation but continues in the form of assessing whether the efforts are working and how people are reacting, good and bad, to the product, price, distribution, and promotion. 

Cebrznski’s article shows how a restaurant can learn a lot about how to meet people’s needs better by letting customers have the opportunity to complain, and, more importantly, by listening to them.  This way, the company can focus on what the customer wants directly and make the proper accommodations.  Customer segmentation is not a process that stops when groups are identified as targets for the products or services offered by that company; it continues in terms of listening to how these markets are responding to marketing mix efforts and measuring the company against competitors and the markets’ perceptions of competitors.  A blanket statement may be challenged in individual market circumstances.   

            Product differentiation is becoming more and more of a factor in restaurant services promotions (Cebrznski, 2008).  Restaurants like Houlihan’s can start out with a differentiation that is more externally based, relying on the uniqueness of its services to separate it from competitors.  But due to marketing-related factors such as market saturation, the company may also have to differentiate its services internally to keep up with an increasing focus on segmentation of consumers and product differentiation to meet this segmentation.  Thus, Cebrzynski’s article shows how a restaurant should also move laterally to provide more choices to the consumer.  Houlihan’s, like other restaurant services, should also show increasing attention to service quality as well as incorporating extra-environmental trends such as vending into its traditional service line options of two differentiations.

From a quality assurance standpoint of marketing and sales, Cebrzynski's article shows how restaurant company marketing success has thus far mainly been due to profitable and well-timed expansion and the use of clearly-defined segmentation bases to which marketing strategies are applied with a high degree of innovation.  The company has established inroads into a frustrated customer base beginning with its expansion into consumer and environmentally friendly products.