Maximizing Sales for the Business: Asian Dessert Cafe - Case Study Example

Research paper: Kowloon Tong Dessert Café Executive summary Parameters of the report KOWLOON TONG DESSERT CAFÉ is located in the interior of Richmond, San Francisco. It is well renowned for offering large varieties prepared in both Asian and Hong Kong ways. This café is owned by a small family and is normally controlled by few employees and family members. During weekdays, sales turn out to be low because customers feel too lazy to go out or do not get time to go to the café. I contacted this study for the purpose of maximizing the sales by taking catering orders from customers with events as well as offering delivery services. This will also ameliorate the Hotel’s reputation. Description of the problem Generally, this research project aims at examining the effectiveness of improving on catering and service delivery to maximize sales for the business. This was measured by enumeration of customer turn up on weekdays and tallying net sales. Additionally, this study aims at finding ways through which we could improve on the café’s sales. This included two major evaluations in advertising and printing of cards. For the printed cards, the customers were issued with the card before leaving the café. On the other hand, in advertising the management required to acquire customer’s impressions and future prospects about KOWLOON TONG DESSERT CAFÉ. This café would benefit from the study since the management will be able to point out other needs that their customers need as well as the positive influence that the new services offers to the business. This way the business will expand and more employees will be required and a possible means of transport to deliver products to the customers. Moreover, after evaluating the new requirements for the hotel, the management will be able to set appropriate standards and objectives with which they will be operating to meet the customers’ demands. Methodology This is about the methods applied by the management in collection of their data. At the closing of each business day, checks out forms were filled by the employee before leaving on net sales made in their shift. Statistics collected from the customers’ views on café’s services was recorded as per customer satisfaction. Findings Generally, the delivery and catering services in efforts of maximizing profits turned out to be successful and beneficial to the business. Total weekly sales increased for weekdays as well as nets sales for weekends and holidays. Data gathered from the waitpersons’ net profits showed improvement in the café’s net sale maximization. In addition, information from customer satisfaction response showed that the café’s number of daily and weekly customers had immensely increased as well as net sales. Unluckily these calculations were not reproducible round the said milestone days of the month. Recommendations The management did not implement a good method of collecting its customers’ views during the whole procedure of this study. However, it is good for them to make good use of suggestion boxes as a method of collecting customers’ views and experiences on their services. Continued use of social media will keep the KOWLOON TONG DESSERT CAFÉ more connected and close to its clients and customers. It will also be able to update information about its emerging issues. It is recommended that they introduce a computerized system of keeping the waitpersons’ daily sales and individual mean per day. SECTION I-Introduction KOWLOON TONG DESSERT CAFÉ is a little family business organization, which is situated in the inner part of Richmond, San Francisco. It has operated for over 10 years now. This cafe is famous for offering the best meals, and snacks mainly from Asian and Hong Kong tradition. It operates until late hours of the night and is usually visited by many people mostly young generation aged between 20-30 years. It serves highly renowned snacks such as: ice cream waffle sandwich, mango sago, crispy egg puffs, chicken fries and milk tea made in Hong Kong style among others. The owners and few employees usually manage this café. Creation dessert house and 100% sweet café are some of the Kowloon Tong Dessert Café’s competitors. Creation dessert house and 100% sweet café offer international meals and this attract visitors who are not familiar with the Asian tradition meals. These services tend attract many customers for these café’s. Thus catering service and delivery should be addressed to maximize our sales and beat our competitors. Section II – Statement of the Problem/Research Project Having my target to maximize sales through delivery and catering service at Dessert Café. I noted that very few people want to go out during the weekdays for desert and this makes weekday sales low. During weekdays, not many people want to go out for dessert, so sales of weekdays are less. Mostly, weekdays are very chilly in the cafe while weekend is very packed. Therefore, it would be necessary to strategize on simple ways to reach the customer during the weekdays. This way we were able to increase our sales during the weekdays and the problem to reach out the customers will be easy. Section III – Methodology A number of sources were used in data collection when working on this project. To give an introduction about the restaurant, I had to give personal knowledge on the restaurant. In addition, I had to answer many frequently ask questions from the quests regarding the ownership and our cuisine. More often still, I am frequently asked questions, which I respond to diligently and ensure our personal relations with our guests are maintained to encourage more people to come to the restaurant (Sharon, 2005). In case there is any information required regarding the café cuisine and operations, I have the information ready for publishing, which is relatively simple. I requested the café’s owner t varnish me with the mission and vision so that I can manage to tackle any issue raised by the guests as well the people planning to visit and use our services. The numerical data about the café is readily available per night basis everyday at the close of business of every shift. I had to use the Open Table Reservation system in the café to be able to note the covers and turn out every shift. This is exported in a excel sheet, which is easier to analyze into charts. This was it is easier to understand the changes that are seen in the café every day especially in a given milestone dates. Moreover, I started making my records in September to December during my internship in the café, which date that I started operating at Desert café. I repeatedly worked on the same data collection method until April taking note of the coverage for the café operation. To get the data on sales per guest per day, I had data recorded from the server and ensured that from each server I provided paperwork to the employees to fill in every shift. Although to the owners, this idea was a wrong move to enroll the data. I only managed to make recording from my own check out (Amy, 2003). I recorded net sales on net sales for ice cream waffle sandwich, mango sago, crispy egg puffs, chicken fries and milk tea made in Hong Kong style among others. Further, I divided the sales on the mode of payment, which included payment by MasterCard, Redeemed gift cards, cash, AMEX and Visa. Section IV – Findings After data analysis from Open Table Software, it was easy to prove that, starting product delivery to the customers, desert café reviews was experiencing a recommendable sale increase. A month before publishing the café periodicals, in October there was a low number showing the coverage for the weekdays compared to the coverage for the weekends, the restaurant was able to confirm a high number of guest turn up in the restaurant. However, on weekdays, number the average number of guests was far much lower to appoint to confirming 19 guests in one of the evenings. After the restaurants October review release, there was increased weekday coverage than September. From Tuesday after 6th of October the first "milestone date" regarded in this paper, weekday average number of covers showed an increase from 40 to 56 people. One of the weekdays the restaurant managed to confirm 79 covers in one the weekdays in month of October. Additionally, there was an impressive turn out for both weekdays and weekends in the month of October where 64 guests was recorded compared to 53 from the previous month. Number of people on weekends stayed averagely invariable with the former month, as it would proceed to October and November, where the average covers for weekends in October 79, November78. For the month of October, the number of guests streaming was maintained per day. Most likely, this was attributed to by other milestone dates being looked at: when desert’s café advertising became more active, and when deserts café included Adam Top 100 in regions Restaurants was announced. Upholding this, there was an anticipated increase in the number of the covered persons, although that did not happen. Average covers for the weekdays remained low, although there was a slight increase in April. From the checkout on the personal server sheets there was clear data correlation indicating minimal efforts in marketing. Particularly, average coverage person in the month of September to December to April, the trend was not that specific. This was attributed by a number of factors affecting average per person other than the marketing issues. For instance, appreciation from a guest who orders juice cocktail while they dine in the restaurant and pay for them would increase the sales. Section V– Conclusions Overall, one of the marketing strategies which is minimal, it should show one of the most effective methods in marketing despite the fact that not much funding was required for the task. Since the data collection started in Septeber, and most of the weekends have been busy, social media has raised our numbers for the weekdays making our restaurant one of the top 100 in region. Additionally, the records indicate an increase in our net personal sales per night, which is attributable to the additional number of business volume accounted for by these "free" advertisements (Kimberly, 2009). On the other hand, due to the increase in number of our advertisement page users and increased reviews on our pages our personal relations with our customers have been boosted through the social media. It is significant to mark that, not all measuring methods of our minimal marketings give results to our business supported this impression. The average for per person for every night had no unmistakable relationship with efforts in marketing, being shaped more greatly by the total expenditure per guest in any given night out. This is based on whether the guest spent on drinking or a fixed menu. Moreover, net sales per night nightly trend show a slight increase around the milestone times is not sure due to the similar elements. Although it was accidental, the slow of posting about the café on the café’s Facebook page in reality facilitated in influencing minimal marketings result on the popularity for the restaurant, likewise through number of sales and covers. In November, there less information was supplying less information to "fans", and this contributed to a reduction in our posting feedback to drop drastically. Although the administrators were however posting a number of posts for customers to view, most of the posts included videos on behind-the-scenes on the front-of-the-house dancing before service, this did not capture the attention from the people. Because of this, the impression shown by the people in April was lower than the other months. For the advertising administrators to get the “fans” they ought to post what most of the fans are interested in viewing. Specifically, their focus ought to be on food quality and preparing as well the services offered for catering; this serves as the motivational key to bring people in the restaurant. In addition, it would be appropriate for the administrators to begin posting press release about the restaurant in food blogs and other behind scene activities that will win the peoples interest. Section VI – Recommendations Dazing from the findings and subsequent conclusions of this research paper, there are a number of recommendations for the owners of the Kowloon Tong Desert Café regarding how they should utilize this paper to their benefit. First, it is highly recommended they begin implementing the comment cards as soon as possible to gain a first-hand account on how guests heard about the restaurant and felt about their overall experience. In addition, they can begin keeping information of guests anniversaries and birthdays, better personalizing their experiences on dining. Since social media has become communication that is more used in and marketing, administrators should engage the restaurants social media pages more. I can provide assistance with this, since I will continue using the social media as an administrator for our café pages. We should take advantage on the well-known post subjects have used in the past, and write more things that our fans will be more interested to share in a post like for the "fans" to see. This way, we will be able to increase our active user’s impressions, which would leave them with an urge to make an order. When a customer makes an order, a quick response team should always be available. In addition, we ought to post additional information more often, this way most people will be interested in visiting the café and see or try to make an order from their work place or homes. This has been proven from the reviews received from our pages, which has shown most viewers interested in our services. Further, we ought to focus more on our cuisine marketing, since during the weekdays, majority of customers will be in need to place for an order, which will depend on service delivery from the café. The café owners ought to aid in utilizing the marketing the cafe as much as they can manage. Currently, most of the employees that we make sure that most of the customers have all the supplies that the café catering can supply. Therefore, it would be appropriate if we have different delivery teams to ensure that they delivery the orders to the customers in time. Through this plan, our café would receive more exposure to the outside world and more customers will be attracted to try our cuisine and perhaps increase our business changing it from first time dinners. Data collected on customer attendance to the café was not that accurate to give a conclusive answer on customer satisfaction and attendance. Therefore, it was appropriate to account for the comparison between per person average and nightly check out in the restaurant. Additionally, the office administrators and the staff should try to involve themselves in per person marketing strategies to reach out to the future customers. Further, the other factors that needed changes included: Since we open until 1AM on Sunday to Thursday and 2 AM on Friday and Saturday and many of our customers ask if we do delivery, which it is unfortunate that we are not. During weekdays, the sales and customers are less than on weekend. Therefore, I want to take advantage to be the first Asian Dessert Café to have delivery service. Advantage: on weekday for lazy people who do not want to go out for dessert, on weekdays, can maximize sales for customers who do not want to wait in long lines which can take approximately 20-30 min waiting. Therefore, giving additional delivery service will be advantage to both customer and the dessert café. We can also take catering order for party to maximize sales. Majority of the customers are either too busy at office or working at home and they do not have enough time to go to the dessert café. Therefore, offering delivery services to such customers would further maximize on my sales. References Amy, S. J., (2003). Restaurant Marketing and Advertising: For Just a Few Dollars a Day. New York: Atlantic Publishing Company. Sharon, L. P. (2005). Opening a Restaurant Or Other Food Business Starter Kit: How to Prepare a Restaurant Business Plan & Feasibility Study : with Companion CD-ROM, Volume 1. New York: Atlantic Publishing Company. Kimberly, W., (2009). Marketing Analysis Chipotle Mexican Restaurant and Applebees Restaurant. Berlin: GRIN Verlag. Read More