This respective report will access the following questions which are Unlisted below:
- Introduction to Customer Satisfaction
- Discuss Literature Review.
- Discuss the Methodology
For a growing company like McDonald's, customer service carries significant value. Whatever the organization performs, they perform for their client. If they are not satisfied, then an organization may have to face a heavy loss or even have to leave the market, and their goodwill may decrease. Students generally are asked to write a case study on McDonald. So, this sample's main aim is to highlight each and every single aspect of the company. Also, everything about McDonald's is explained briefly in different chapters.
McDonald Customer Satisfaction
Chapter 1: Introduction to Customer Satisfaction
Customer satisfaction holds a significant value for every organization. Whatever organization performs, they perform for their customer and if they are not satisfied then an organization may have to face a heavy loss or even have to leave the market and their goodwill may decreases. The present report is about identifying whether or not improved quality of customer service leads to higher customer satisfaction (Conner, 2006). Customer satisfaction is a dimension, which is very much related to the concept of quality. The penultimate measure if quality is customer service. Quality of service becomes even more important when the organization in consideration relates to the hospitality segment (Dahiyat, Akroush and Lail, 2011).
According to Gilbert and et. al., (2004), customer satisfactionhas a vital place in marketing thought and action. Many writers have operationalized the concept of customer satisfaction by making use of a single construct. The current study espouses a rather different approach and sees customer satisfaction as a multi-faceted construct similar to service quality (David, Arturo and Agueda, 2007). The current report also does not aims at proving improved customer service as an end in itself to increasing customer satisfaction. It only tries to explain customer satisfaction from the context of enhancement in service quality (Dahiyat, Akroush and Lail, 2011).
The area of service quality has been chosen because it is one of the most important determinants of customer satisfaction especially as far as service industry is concerned. For this report McDonald has been chosen as the researcher is working with the company and access to relevant information was easy. The main aim of this report is to determine ways of minimizing customer complaints, to identify the tools, techniques and procedures for increasing customer satisfaction, to evaluate the important factors that influence customer satisfaction (Dahiyat, Akroush and Lail, 2011).
Chapter 2: Literature Review
A customer is an important stakeholder of a company who gives payment for the goods and services of the company availed by him with the aim of fulfilling some need and maximizing satisfaction. When a customer/consumer gets contended with the services or products it is known as satisfaction. It can also be an individual's feelings of disappointment or pleasure, which is a resultant from comparison of a product's or service's perceived performance with the expectations (Goodman, 2009). As per Hayes (2008), satisfaction is the pleasure of a person derives from consuming a particular good or service offered by someone else. Satisfaction is different for different people as it is a utility (Hill and Alexander, 2006).
Measurement of this satisfaction level can be quite tricky many a times, as it is an effort to quantify the human feelings (Sureshchandar and et.al. 2002). Indicated that consumer satisfaction must be seen as a multi-faceted construct and the items measuring them must be generated with the similar dimensions as that of the service quality (David, Arturo and Agueda, 2007).
To understand this issue, researcher has taken McDonald Company for their research. McDonlad is the largest fast food restaurant and it is also more concerned about the better service to the customers. The McDonald's started in 1954. Raymond Kroc who is the founder saw a hamburger stand in San Bernardino, California and visualized a nationwide fast food chain. At that time a complete revolution in the restaurant industry was seen, which bring in by Kroc tested. Today McDonald's is the largest brand of fast food restaurant and is spread all over the world. Today's data of McDonald depicts that they serve 52 million customers per day in more than 100 countries.
Customer Satisfaction Theories
The customer satisfaction suggests that service quality is more crucial than the products on offer. Buyers get satiated primarily due to the quality and there is a psychological effect on their preference when they select a particular place to eat at or visit (Allen, 2013). When a buyer develops satisfaction for a specific service they also gradually develop a loyalty towards the brand and become a repeat customer. The satisfaction of customers is directly related to their expectancy levels (Pang, 2008). To understand this concept better, you can seek assignment help from our writers.
Service quality - The concept of service provides a comprehensive account of the needs of the customers and how the company will deliver that service. Service quality is well known as SERVQUAL (Sivadas and Baker-Prewitt, 2000). The study of consumer satisfaction in the area of general marketing has developed into significant parameters which need to be found out and comprehended for satisfying the wants and needs of the consumers. As the success of the business is associated with providing high customer satisfaction levels, a considerable amount of attempt has been concentrated on determining how customers perceive quality of service in different settings (Sureshchandar, Rajendran and Anantharaman, 2002).
Quality in customer service - The quality of service that is given to the consumers is lot more important not just for the consumers but it is also very important for the service providers too (Huber and et.al., 2001). Common elements of satisfaction within a service cover product quality, service quality, location and price. The theory claims that the people factor in context of reliability, empathy, tangibility, responsiveness and assurance might be the most salient in determining overall satisfaction and repeated purchasing in service industries (Lockyre, 2002). Conner (2006) conceptualized professed quality of service as a long term assessment of a service; while on the other hand, satisfaction is a transaction-specific assessment (Lai and et.al., 2011).
Relationship between customer satisfaction and improved customer service in case of McDonalds
In recent times, customers are more concern about the services. If the service is good then automatically the customer feels satisfied. Service is more important in every company. Service to customers is widely used in the fast food industries. Service quality has a significant impact on the customer satisfaction (Butscher, 2002). Customer satisfaction is the front lines of business and it may be negative or positive depending on the customer service quality. From cheeseburgers to onion rings, fast food is becoming one of the fastest mushrooming industries of the world. The demand for the products of McDonald is quite high. The speed of service is fast enough however it can be improved. The customer satisfaction of the McDonald Hounslow has been increasing immensely (Grigoroudis and Siskos, 2009). This has been a resultant of the improved customer service at the outlet. The stewards are very prompt in responding to the requests and orders of the customers and no one has to wait. The staff is very polite towards the guests and is always ready to help. The quality of food has been the same but with an improvement in services, there was a remarkable increase in customer satisfaction at the outlet (Hurth, 2006).
Other than that some methods that McDonalds should consider to improve customer satisfaction are: (Bessley, 2013).
- Ask them: Company must ask their customer that what changes they should bring in their services or in their product (Grigoroudis and Siskos, 2009).
- Conduct focus group: In lab test with a group of customer in a company to check their views and suggestion.Listening carefully their complaints and compliments, that will provide them way of improvement for customer satisfaction (Butscher, 2002).
- Mystery shopper: In which an employee of a McDonald company enter into an outlet as a customer and check out the behavior of employees serving in outlet and talk with customer to find problems and improvement area (Lockyre, 2002).
Chapter 3: Methodology
Research questions
- What are the ways through which the customer complaints can be reduced?
- How the level of customer satisfaction can be increased?
- What are the factors that influence the customer satisfaction?
Research Design
The methodology chapter of the research focuses on the different research methods that have been used in an empirical study. Through this chapter the limitations as well as potential of a study is determined. This section lays down a proper framework and structure which is followed to conduct a particular study (Chilisa, 2011). The current paper is focused on relationship between improved customer satisfactions. For identifying this link, several research approaches and methods have been deployed for the accomplishment of authentic research outcomes. The following paragraphs explain and justify the different methods used for the successful completion of the current research. For this research, exploratory research design has been adopted. This design is primarily used to acquire deep insights about a specific phenomenon so as to develop a more precise and exact problem statement.
Methods of data collection and sampling techniques
The primary data has been collected by means of furnishing close ended questionnaire to the customers of McDonald. The rationale behind using a close ended questionnaire is that such questions implore details to be contributed by the research participants. This type of questionnaire is considered as less threatening by the research participants as compared to interviews because it allows them to provide free and unrestrained responses (Data collection, 2012). These questions require less time to answer and as the customers generally do not have much time to give to a survey, it proves to be effective as compared to a questionnaire containing open ended questions (McDonald and Adam, 2003).
Chapter 4: Analysis and Findings
Research analysis provides in-depth information about the research that has been conducted by the researcher. with the help of research analysis, whole report are shown in the format of bars, graphs and in linear format so that it become understandable to other person or to the people associated with that report. In the above report which aims to improve to customer satisfaction in MCDONALD, researcher has taken the random sample of 200 people from the population.
The tool that has been taken to conduct research is questionnaire method as data collected from this tool is reliable. Now this 200 people are asked to some question that has been formed by KFS to check that what improvement they can inherit in their organization.
Chapter 5: conclusion and recommendation
The above analysis shows that customer satisfaction at McDonald is reasonably good. However, majority of the customers are not satisfied with the prices of the food items. This is a major thing which the McDonald officials must be concerned about. Another thing that can hamper customer satisfaction at the fast food joint is the quality of food. In one case, McDonald was attacked by 9ye old girl saying their food are not hygiene and still they are targeting kids by providing them toys. But the strong point of McDonald is that their products still like by people and says that they are hygiene and are differentiated in too many flavors like veg, non-veg, fries etc. Hence, the inferences that can be drawn from the analysis part are that improvement in food and differentiate product does leads to higher customer satisfaction.
For more, recommendation for McDonalds is that they should improve their quality of food. The organization should take feedback from the customers. Improving in the customer service also helps in improving the reputation of the company. McDonald should revise its menu and also provides healthier food items for meeting the demands of the customers. For maintaining the success of company the service must be related to the trust and satisfaction to the customers.
References
Books, Journals and Articles
- Bell, R. C., and Patterson, R. J., 2007. Customer Loyalty Guaranteed: Create, Lead, and Sustain Remarkable Customer Service. Adams Media.
- Brandi, J., 2001. Building Customer Loyalty: 21 Essential Elements in Action. The Walk The Talk Company.
- Bryman, A. and Hardy, M.A., 2009. Handbook of Data Analysis. SAGE Publications Ltd.
- Bryman, A., 2008. Of methods and methodology. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal. 3(2). pp.159 - 168
- Butscher, A.S., 2002. Customer Loyalty Programmes and Clubs. 2nd ed. Gower Publishing, Ltd.
- Cahill, L.D., 2006. Customer Loyalty in Third Party Logistics Relationships: Findings from Studies in Germany and the USA. Springer.
- Chilisa, B., 2011. Indigenous Research Methodologies. USA: SAGE.