Below is a spider diagram to show what skills the members of staff need to provide a good or effective customer service.
When I carried out my questionnaire I found out that 19 out of 20 people were happy with the customer service that McDonalds provided for them
Below is a graph that shows this:
How McDonalds could improve its customer service
McDonalds is a well known fast food restaurant in the UK, and it has a lot of customers, however different customers have different needs and to ensure that McDonalds is providing a good or effective customer service McDonalds needs to be able to meet the customers demands. Meeting the needs and demands of the customers is a start to improve the customer service. McDonalds could improve its customer service by the following ways:
- Have a fun play area for children
- Have more facilities for disabled customers
- Have a reward scheme for customers
- Introduce new foods
Have a fun play area for children
Some children that go to McDonalds with their parents or guardians may get bored and want to go out of McDonalds and somewhere else. To prevent this from happening McDonalds should have an indoor play area so that parents and guardians can let their children play there while they eat. The play area should be supervised by a friendly worker at McDonalds. The play area could have a slide, colouring activities for children to do, Lego and a T.V that has children’s favourite programmes on.
Have more facilities for disables customers
most of McDonalds are disabled or have special needs and to make them feel welcome McDonalds should provide more facilities for them so that they wont feel left out. This is what most the people thought needed improving about the customer service at McDonalds when I asked the people to fill out my questionnaire.
Have a reward scheme for customers
if customers are able to take part in a reward scheme then it would encourage them to eat at McDonalds more and feel happy with the customer service that is provided for them.
Introduce new foods
If McDonalds was to introduce new types of foods for example sell Indian food for a limited time it would help to attract customers that like Indian food because at the moment McDonalds doesn’t sell Indian food. The customer service would be improving by the way that McDonalds would be providing an extra edge over its competitors. The new foods could be sold for a limited period of time and the theme could change which would help to make McDonalds appealing to different types of customers.
Why improve customer service?
McDonalds should improve its customer service so that customers can be assured that they are appreciated, valued, and cared for by McDonalds. If the customer service wasn’t improved and the customer service was poor then customers would not go and eat at McDonalds and go to McDonalds competitors. Even improving the customer service in unnoticeable ways helps any business including McDonalds to attract more customers and even be popular with some customers.
Even if the customer service provided by a business is good/effective the business should always concentrate on keeping that standard of customer service and try to improve it as much as the business can.
The spider diagram above shows how McDonalds can improve its customer service below is a spider diagram to show what McDonalds have done to improve their customer service so far.
On the previous page I have mentioned a few of the changes that McDonalds have made to improve their customer service, I will now explain the points.
Improved the taste of the children’s food and sell fruit– this has been advertised on T.V a lot that the taste of the happy meal foods taste has changed. This is an improvement to the customer service by the way that children would be happier with what they eat at McDonalds, and it may possibly tempt children to ask their parents to take them to McDonalds to eat. Due to this, parents the prime customers would take their children to McDonalds and compliment the food. As well as improving the taste of the food McDonalds have started to sell fruit for children, I think this is an excellent way for McDonalds to show that it can encourage children to eat fruit, this has improved the customer service by making McDonalds popular amongst parents of children who don’t eat fruit, but due to McDonalds been children’s favourite place to eat they would also be tempted to eat the fruit which is sold at a competitive price of 59p!
Introduced new lower prices – McDonalds has lowered most of the prices of food and drink to 99p! This special offer is called the “pound saver menu”. By reducing prices customers are pleased with the service they receive from McDonalds because McDonalds is helping customers to save money.
Introduced salads to the menu – Salads are healthy foods and McDonalds don’t sell many healthy foods like one of its rivals subway does, by selling salads McDonalds has probably become popular amongst more people that are on diets or don’t like to eat fattening foods.
New foods have been introduced for both vegetarian and non-vegetarian customers – This has improved the customer service by giving customers a new choice of foods to eat, some customers may have got bored with the old selection of foods that were available to buy from McDonalds. This may have also attracted new customers to McDonalds.
Buy one get one free offer on the Big Mac – This offer appeals to non-vegetarian customers however the offers only on during weekends after 3pm and on due to the football (Euro 2004) and ends when the Euro 2004 ends. This has helped to improve the customer service because it helps customers to save money, customers don’t like to be exposed (over charged and like to save money).
New packaging for all food products – This has improved the customer service not noticeably but customers like to see new things and McDonalds have changed the packaging of their food products so that the food looks more represent able and this is another thing that customers expect from McDonalds: their food to be presented well.
How the members of staff treat customers
Treating the customers well is a part of good customer service, the members of staff need to threat customers well all the time even when the customers are angry or make a complaint.
Talking to customers is one of the main jobs done by the staff at McDonalds, the customers need to talk to the members of staff to tell them what they would like to order, and the members of staff need to talk to the customer to tell them about other offers that the customer may be interested in, greet and thank the customer and go over the order again to make sure that the correct order will be served to the customer. The member of staff also needs to be confident when speaking to customers, so that the customer would feel comfortable talking to the member of staff. The member of staff needs to have good communication skills so that the customer is able to understand them, if the member of staff doesn’t have good communication skills it is likely that things may go wrong such as the member of staff may not listen properly to the customer and take down the wrong order which means that the customer wouldn’t be pleased as they wouldn’t be served with the food that they have ordered. The members of McDonalds also need to come across as friendly and polite to the customers, if the members of staff were not friendly and polite to the customers then customers wouldn’t feel like going to eat at McDonalds because they expect to be treated with respect and value. To be friendly all the staff at McDonalds greet the customer when they go to the till/drive through in a warm and friendly way, thank the customers for purchasing food from McDonalds and when the customers are seated a member of staff will also ask If everything is ok with their meal.
If a customer is angry and has a bad temper due to a complaint they are making it is a member of staffs responsibility to calm the customer down by telling them that they’re problem will be solved as soon as it can. Members of staff may decide to take the angry customer aside from the other customers because it may be disturbing the other customers; this is a good idea. The member of staff will always remain calm and apologise to the customer.
At McDonalds customers cannot exchange their food, like customers of a clothes retail shop could do. McDonalds sells food therefore it is unhygienic that food is exchanged after it has been purchased. This is a form of good customer care as well because it shows that McDonalds is hygienic.
McDonalds also aims to keep customers safe whilst they are in the premises of the restaurant to ensure customers and the members of staff are safe McDonalds abides by legislations such as the health and safety Act, consumer protection Act 1987, supply of goods and service Act 1982 and the Data Protection Act 1984.
As well as following these legislations McDonalds treats all its customers equally regardless of their background, colour or race. Below a chart that outlines the effects of good/effective customer service.
