Is Price Cut Effective in a Recession? McDonald's Says "Yes"

Fast food is in no doubt a very competitive industry, and the focus is always on price, food and location. How a branded customer experience could help the players to differentiate themselves and to win over their competitors? Would there be any other touch-points other than the in-store experience which also play a significant role in affecting consumers’ choices?

To explore the subject matter, G-CEM has organized a research study on McDonald's, Burger King, and KFC. The surveys began on January 15, 2009 and ended on March 3, 2009. A total of 4,515 valid responses were collected in Mainland China. The guiding principles and the tools for design, execution and analysis of this research are based on the U.S. patent-pending CEM (Customer Experience Management) methodologies invented by G-CEM.

Should Burger King Change her Brand Value

Respondents were asked to rate the satisfaction level of each sub-process during the entire fast food restaurant in-store experience in a natural time sequence. The average Experience Ratings (ER) of each sub-process are linked and mapped to form the three Emotion Curves* for McDonald’s, Burger King, and KFC in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Emotion Curve—Fast Food Restaurant In-store Experience: McDonald’s Vs. Burger King Vs. KFC

As you can see in Figure 1, Business Hours (S4) is the most significant pleasure peak and Healthiness of the Food (S20) is the most significant pain peak for McDonald’s consumers; Convenience of Store Location (S1) is the most significant pleasure peak and Product Pricing (S12) is the most significant pain peak for KFC’s consumers; Cleanliness and Tidiness of the Environment (S16) is the most significant pleasure peak and Attractiveness of Coupon Offers and Easiness to get Coupons (S23) is the most significant pain peak for Burger King’s consumers.

Business Hours (S4) is the most significant pleasure peak for McDonald’s consumers since of her stores are opening 24 hours a day in Mainland China; Convenience of Store Location (S1) is the most significant pleasure peak for KFC’s consumers as she has over 2,300 stores in Mainland China, who is more than double of McDonald’s 1,000 stores. In that sense, both McDonald’s and KFC are excelling their core brand values in delivering a branded experience. On the other hand, “Have It Your Way”, the slogan of Burger King, translated into Food Customization Service (S11), which is believed as one of her core brand values, is not performing so well (ranked 12 out of 25 sub-processes / attributes). Instead, Cleanliness and Tidiness of the Environment (S16) is the most significant pleasure peak for Burger King’s consumers. Should Burger King change her brand value to adapt to the Chinese market?

What are Really Missing at the Fast Food Restaurants

Figure 2 illustrates the importance rankings of all attributes, derived by regression analysis with 1 being the most important and 25 being the least important. CIW denotes Customer Importance Weighting; BIW denotes Brand Importance Weighting; PIW denotes Purchase Importance Weighting; and RIW denotes Referral Importance Weighting. For simplicity's sake, we only show the levels of importance for the top three most important attributes: Smell, Packing and Presentation of Food (S18), Taste of the Food (S19), and Feel you are “part of the group” (S21).

Figure 2: Importance Rankings of Key Attributes—Fast Food Restaurant In-store Experience: McDonald’s Vs. Burger King Vs. KFC

Referring to Figure 2, despite the fact that Smell, Packing and Presentation of Food (S18), Taste of the Food (S19), and Feel you are “part of the group” (S21) are the most important attributes, especially in driving satisfaction, repeat purchases, and referrals, they are not the current pleasure peaks to the fast food consumers. However, relatively speaking, Burger King is performing worse (with the lowest Experience Ratings, see Figure 3) than KFC and McDonald’s in these attributes. This may explain why Chinese consumers like Burger King the least amongst the three fast food restaurants.

Despite the fact that Feel you are “part of the group” (S21) is the most important attribute in driving satisfaction, brand differentiation, repeat purchases, and referrals, they are not performing well enough by McDonald, KFC, and Burger King to impress the consumers (ranked 15, 15, and 14 respectively, out of a total of 25 sub-processes / attributes). Since fast food is not cheap in Mainland China (price is one of the most severe pain peaks), especially to justify the premium price for KFC, psychological identification will probably be one of the priorities for the fast food restaurants to address and strengthen.

Is Price Cut Effective in a Recession

McDonald's has launched a massive price-reduction campaign in Mainland China starting February 4, 2009, and KFC also has pice-cut promotions during that period of time. Our survey period actually covered both pre-price cut promotion and post-price cut promotion period. The survey responses were collected in two phases: the first phase was between January 16~22, 2009 and the second phase was between February 11~March 3, 2009 with 2,458 (1,229 for McDonald’s and 1,299 for KFC) and 3,286 (1,578 for McDonald’s and 1,708 for KFC) responses respectively. Figure 3 compares the experience ratings and the CEI (Customer Experience Index), BEI (Brand Experience Index), and PEI (Purchase Experience Index) of McDonald and KFC during the two periods, “Before” and “After”, of the price-reduction campaigns.

Figure 3: Experience Ratings of Key Attributes—Fast Food Restaurant In-store Experience: McDonald’s Vs. KFC

Referring to Figure 3, the price cut campaign of McDonald generated a very positive impact on the in-store experience ratings. Product Pricing (S12) and Attractiveness of Coupon Offers (S23) were improved significantly (8.06% and 12.38% respectively), and with a sum of 54% positive change on experience ratings of all 25 sub-processes / attributes. While the KFC price cut campaign also generated positive impacts on experience ratings, they are much less significant than McDonald’s. But how come the price-reduction campaigns could enhance the Taste of the Food (S19) and the BEI (Brand Experience Index) for McDonald but not for KFC?

We are Still Blind if We Can’t See the Full Picture: TCE

There are much more factors other than the retail touch-point to affect the emotions and decisions of the fast food consumers. Price cut alone could not generate all positive impacts to the in-store experience ratings. Instead, the choice of media (e.g. mass advertising, PR, social media, etc) and its execution could be decisive. We are not saying that media and advertising are the most important factors, and in-store experience is trivial. No. The message we want to convey here is: before we could map out all the touch-points and channels that consumers would encounter during the Total Customer Experience (TCE) with your brand, and assess the effectiveness of each of the touch-point/channel in driving the desired outcomes, we still can’t quantify the impact of different key variables, such as price, media, location, in-store service, etc., in affecting consumer behaviours and their brand preferences. We are still blind if we can’t see the full picture. A Total Customer Experience perspective is needed.

More about Total Customer Experience (TCE):
Building a B2B Purchase Experience Model in a Recession
Building an Effective Total Customer Experience Model for Telecom Operators

*Emotion Curve is invented and first put into applications by Mr. Sampson Lee, president of G-CEM, in 2006. It is one of the experience assessment and management tools of the U.S. patent-pending Branded Customer Experience Management Method registered by G-CEM. Emotion Curve maps the customer emotions generated at each touch-point or sub-process, and links them to form a curve in reflecting the perceived experience across the entire customer lifecycle (covers all touch-points at stages of pre-purchase, at-purchase, and post-purchase), or at a specific touch-point (e.g. retail, call center, website, etc.). Unlike the conventional approaches focus on enhancing efficiency and are process-centric; emotion curve represents the genuine customer feeling by addressing emotions and five senses, in a natural time sequence from an experience perspective. It is a truly [customer-centric] experience assessment and management method. The statistic data of emotion curve is derived through substantial X-VOC surveys, from the experience ratings on each touch-point or sub-process, evaluated by different target customer segments. The definition and selection criteria of touch-points and sub-processes are based on vigorous and scientific research, method, and sequential steps. An Emotion Curve shows how customers perceive experience. It is an innovative and powerful tool for creating a branded customer experience strategy. Furthermore, through a simple curve, from CEO to receptionist, no matter in boardroom or post room, all people in a company could easily understand and communicate the customer experience levels, by using a common graphical language.