After several decades of being one of the leading fast-food companies in the industry – It appears that the world’s biggest burger chain has been experiencing drastic customer loss. Apparently, the burger giant seems to have been losing a lot of customers to other fast-food competitors.
McDonald’s Is Dealing
Since 2012, McDonald’s admitted to having lost 500 million potential customer transactions. However, this loss doesn’t seem to have hit them by surprise as they failed to properly analyze their customer satisfaction survey on www.McDVoice.com and keep up with the ever-evolving pace of the fast-food industry. Today, McDonald’s is on a quest to rise from the ashes and get back to the top.
1. Improved quality
The senior vice-president, Corporate Strategy & Business Development at McDonald’s Corp, Ms. Brady, has made plans to improve the quality of their meals, the burger and chicken offering especially. The plan is to win customers back by improving classics and adding more options to the menu that cuts across their varying preferences.
Putting a stop to the addition of artificial preservatives to the Chicken McNuggets and replacing margarine with butter on the Egg McMuffins sandwiches are some of the quality changes they seem to have made.
2. Faster Delivery
McDonald’s is now increasing the speed of food delivery. They believe quick delivery is just as important as quality food, as customers want their meals fresh and hot. Customer satisfaction will reduce when they can’t get their order on time, especially if they end up losing their appetite. By utilizing the strength of its proximity to customers, the company is optimistic about applying this strategy.
3. Utilizing Technology
Technology is quickly evolving, and McDonald’s plans to seize this opportunity in improving customer satisfaction. To facilitate order and payments, McDonald’s is rolling out mobile pay, mobile ordering, and curbside pickup to make their services more accessible to customers.
4. “Experience of the Future” Initiative
McDonald’s is willing to bear the cost of changing its mode of service in restaurants around the globe. To win customers back, they are ready to invest a ton of money in upgrading their franchises. These upgrades include installing table locator technology that prompts employees to bring food to the customer’s table, self-order kiosks, and an upgrade to dessert counters. To make sure these upgrades are possible and effective, they are willing to pay each franchise 55% of the estimated cost required to achieve this initiative.
5. Value and Price Review
The company has also decided to review its McPick program. They believe that it offers too many value combinations that make it difficult for customers to place the right orders. McDonald’s then decided to simplify the menu, enabling customers to select multiple items at a discount. The McPick Program also has fewer combinations that are more affordable than they used to be.
Final Thoughts
Evolution is constant. It takes more than just a tasty meal to keep customers and McDonald’s learned the hard way. Seeing that the company is putting in the effort to win back and retain loyal customers is soothing. Improved customer satisfaction means more loyal customers. More loyal customers mean more sales. More sales mean more profit.