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KFC Service Marketing Project Report PDF Free
KFC Service Marketing Project Report PDF Free
Introduction
KFC was introduced in Pakistan in 1999. After its introduction in Pakistan it gained rapid
popularity in Pakistan. It surpassed McDonalds because of its foods products appealed to
taste of local population. Due to its rapid popularity more people started to imitate the
products of KFC and local fast food chains started to emerge in Pakistan. Popping up of
these chains led to erosion of KFC’s brand image. New local chains were offering
customers fast food at low prices with acceptable quality of food and in some case the
food quality was comparable to KFC’s food products. Major competitor McDonalds
initially was losing its share in Pakistani market. But it changed its food product line
according to taste of Pakistani customers and provided better service than KFC.
The focus of project is to identify weaknesses in the KFC’s services and devise strategies
to overcome these weaknesses.
Target Market
Although KFC and McDonalds target same type of customers the elite and upper middle
class. The types of customers who are coming to KFC to consume eatables in KFC are
middle class and upper middle class. On the other hand, elite and upper middle class are
going to McDonalds. Because, people in elite class and upper middle class prefer that if
they have to consume same type of product so why not enjoy their food in friendly
environment and space in which they can consume eatables in a relaxed manner.
Chapter 2
Strengths and Weaknesses of customer experience at KFC
Strengths
KFC’s food products are very well suited to taste of Pakistani. Consumers like the food
of KFC. The slight taste of spiciness and the crispiness is liked by Pakistani people. The
food products of KFC are suited to not only the Pakistan but are also popular in Middle
East and India. Because of KFC’s popularity in Pakistan, different entrepreneurs tried to
copy the KFC’ food products. This imitation of KFC’s food products caused the KFC’s
image to dilute rapidly.
Weaknesses:
The main weaknesses of the KFC’s are due to its service escape. KFC’s service escape
has very limited space. Usually KFC service escape is made in Plot sizes of 5and10
Marlas (Marla (2.81 sq. meters)) or 1 Kanal (56.2 sq meters). These plot sizes fail to
provide a friendly environment for consumers. It looks like that everything in KFC is
crammed. Everything is very closely spaced that sometimes customers find hard to stand
in queues. It becomes difficult for customer to sit in the seating area. However,
McDonalds which is one of the major competitors of KFC has its service design
conducive for families to consume food in friendly environment. It usually has huge
space for customer seating, drive-thru, children’s play and a in some cases a park where
people can enjoy quality time with their families while eating their food.
Product
KFC’s products are much better in quality and taste as compared to others fast food
restaurants. Products of KFC have huge potential because KFC food products are suited
to taste of Pakistani consumers who like to have spicy and crunchy chicken meals.
Price
KFC’s products are priced high as compared to local fast food chains but its prices are
comparable to other major competitors.
Placement
KFC is usually located in the prime locations so as to increase customer’s convenience.
Promotion
It has been many years since KFC has given any significant amount of ads in Pakistan.
This is also one of the reasons that KFC is losing market share in Pakistan.
People
KFC employees are well trained and follow the standards established by the KFC.
However, they need to well informed so that they can serve customers in better way
Process
KFC has designed its cooking processes to provide quick delivery of orders. But still
employees fail to deliver it in shortest time possible.
Physical Evidence
KFC’s Service escape is poorly designed and needs a lot of improvement to attract
customers.
Chapter 4
Gaps Model
Need recognition:
Usually, people decide to go to Fast food chains when they feel hungry or want to
consume quality fast food products.
Information Search:
Ads
Billboard signs
Memory of customers
Friend’s opinion (peer pressure)
Brochures
Evaluation of Alternatives:
KFC
McDonalds
Hardees
Pizza Hut
Other local Fast Food chains
RFC (Royal Fried Chicks)
AFC (Al-Najam Fried Chicks)
Purchase
Selecting the KFC
Consumer Experience
Satisfactory or not good
Reliability
KFC usually provides standardized products and there is less chance of products which
have defects. However, when it comes to timely delivery of products KFC lacks to
deliver it exactly on time.
Assurance
The Knowledge of employees about their products was low on the Phone so they need to
improve their knowledge about available food products. However, employees of KFC
were courteous. They greeted by saying Aslam-o Aliakum when we visited KFC and
made a phone inquiry.
Empathy
KFC employees gave individualized attention to its customer.
Responsiveness
Employees of KFC were responsive to requests and demands of their customers. For
instance, during visit of KFC we asked tissues from helper. He immediately provided
tissues.
Tangibles
KFC seriously lacks in service-escape. How ever the employees are well dressed in
uniforms.
Service Recovery
If KFC fails to meet the need of its customers, customers usually do not complain in case
of fast food restaurants. Because when they decide next time to purchase fast food, at that
time they evaluate the overall service of fast food chain. The reasons behind switching
from KFC to other brands are high prices, a competitor offering better service (better
service in better environment), service encounter failures (knowledge of employees) and
delays in service delivery.
Chapter 7
Service Escape
Role of Service-Escape
Package
Service escape as a whole affects the moods and emotions of customer and influences the
perception of the consumers about the firm.
Facilitator
Service-escape allows the flow of activities smoothly and provision of service quite easy.
Socialize
Service-escape allows the customer to socialize with other customers in a better way.
Differentiator
Service-escape can differentiate one service provider from another.
Chapter 8
Service-escape
While investigating the service escape of KFC we kept in mind the dimensions described
in the article of Mary Jo Bitner.
Environmental Dimensions
Ambient Conditions
The temperature, air quality and odor were better. Instead of music and loud noise the
news on the TV were capturing our attention.
Space
We took the pictures of service-escape including the queue area, seating area, play area,
parking area, washroom and stairs area. There was no space specially allocated for KFC
customers. There were only 2 queue counters. The chairs in the seating area were so
closely spaced that we had to adjust them before sitting. Washroom was like a closet
which was converted into washroom. We also noticed the kitchen area which was very
small. The building was divided in several stories to accommodate the customers and
their cooking operations.
Perceived Service-escape
The overall impression about KFC in our mind was that layout KFC’s service-escape of
the KFC is crammed and not friendly environment.
Response Moderators
When customers came to KFC they expected a quick delivery of food products (impatient
customers). When we visited KFC we were in hurry to rush back to our homes and do our
work. In this case, KFC personnel forced us and other customer to wait for 5 minutes to
get our desired products.
Customer Response
The resulting response of customer was asking about how much more amount of time
they have to wait for the food to be delivered.
Employee Response
In response to customer’s inquiry about how much they have to wait. The employee who
was providing the service at the counter was worrying and yelled at supply people to
quickly deliver the products.
Employee Approach
Employee and his supply people worked hard to deliver the products to consumers.
Customer Approach
Customer who had spent their money for buying the products had to wait for products to
be delivered and consume them in crammed layout of seating area.
Recommendations
1. KFC needs to improve its employee’s knowledge about its products availability.
Simply provide the respondent with copy of brochure on which items which are
not available are crossed.
2. KFC needs to improve communication between franchises and regional and
global headquarters.
3. KFC needs to improve seating area and layout of seating plan
4. Improve parking area
5. Improve kids play area
6. Locate KFC franchises near public parks.
From 3rd recommendation onwards, requires KFC to redesign its franchise physical
environment layout. For this purpose, they may either suggest to their franchise owner to
rebuild their service providing facilities or induct new design of physical environment in
new opening franchises.
Reference to Articles
The article “Evaluating Service-Escape: the effect of cognition and emotion” by Ingrid Y.
Lin. In this article he has mention about the Gestalt study (page 164, Evaluating Service-
Escape by Ingrid Y. Lin) in which researchers have found that service-escape affects the
mood and emotions of customers and their overall evaluation of service-escape.
Customers evaluate the service escape and form their judgment about the service-escape.
Later in this study, he discusses about space of service-escape (page 168, Evaluating
Service-Escape by Ingrid Y. Lin). He refers to study of (Ching 1996), in which he
describes that high ceiling is associated to spaciousness while the low ceiling is
associated with coziness.
This article provides argument that low ceiling associated with coziness. In Pakistan
where people like spaciousness in their service-escape, KFC’s service-escape is small.
First of all customer face the problem of parking their vehicles which is like a first barrier
to entry customers face for going to KFC.