Words: 867
Revenue rose to nearly 1% during 2006 and the net refits also climbed. The profits climbed because the new CEO focused on customer service, changing the menu to customers change in tastes for food, and the structural look of his restaurants and modernizing them. The manager of a McDonald’s believes she has a problem because of a special that has drawn in a lot of senior citizens. She wants to keep the restaurant a friendly and safe place, several of the employees have grown relationships with the seniors that go in their every day.
The amount of senior customers that come in during the morning hours until mid-afternoon have increased causing a large crowd of senior citizens in the restaurant at once, some staying for several hours. She is worried that due to the growth of customers of a certain age and the only time frame they go into the restaurant it may deter younger crowds of people from going into her restaurant. She also worries that families and such won’t go to the restaurant if they see how busy it is inside and the customer service of her employees lacks due to the crowd.
Strengths: Although the crowd is largely made up of senior citizens it does bring in a lot of business for her restaurant, this is something the CEO is striving for. Seniors clean up after themselves, they don’t leave a mess as families or young adults would be more likely to do. Majority of the seniors leave before the afternoon rush, this frees up space in the restaurant and makes for less havoc on employees. The employees and the senior customers develop a relationship which makes for a happy workplace and place to enjoy their morning breakfast.
Do to the relationship with the customers they will become regulars that you can count on for business. Weaknesses: There are a lot of seniors in the McDonald’s at one time which takes up lot of space making the restaurant feel crowded. This gives the restaurant the “old people” reputation that the manager was referring to, and the fact that they spend a lot of time in the restaurant makes those weaknesses become a larger issue. The discount and the unlimited coffee refill means less profit for the restaurant when they could be selling to less customers for full price.
Opportunities: The biggest opportunity could also be the revenue, although they are selling at a lower discounted price they may draw in enough seniors to turn a larger profit then having few customers. Bingo games could draw in even more people and it would make the customer and employee relationship stronger. With so many seniors ordering food and coming in it makes for fresh food that is not sitting for long periods of time, something many customers do not like. Threats: The restaurant will become overfilled with customers as more seniors are drawn to the attention that the restaurant is getting.
The concept of getting fast food would be at stake as the more people the slower the food is made and prepared. This would open the doors for competing chains in the area as they will stop there instead. There is also the chance that the seniors would abuse the discount and order extra food to take home with them or order and give to someone else when they leave. An Alternative solution could be to dismiss the discount senior meal, if they are coming in for the meal then you would weaken the crowd. If you keep the free coffee refills you might keep a percentage of the crowd based on the fact that they don’t go there for the food.
If you get rid of the discount meal deal you may attract a younger crowd that doesn’t want to go into the “old people” lounge. This could bring the hope f the younger crowd buying more food that is more expensive that is selling for the non-discounted value. If they had the discount end earlier in the morning, say IMAM then the seniors wouldn’t stay as long and more of them would be gone for the afternoon rush. This would help draw in the younger crowds instead of drawing them back with the seniors throughout the day. Bingo would draw in an even larger senior crowd as they enjoy the activity the most.
The younger generation wouldn’t be drawn to bingo at all and having a bingo hall in the restaurant wouldn’t help in ringing in that generation. Although if the seniors are having fun playing bingo it would serve as a safe place for other people to go and large crowds draw peoples curiosity in and it would help lure in some curious customers. The conclusion I came up with is to have the discount meal end at a certain time in the morning but keep the free refills for coffee. This way the senior crowd is gone before the afternoon rush. The time could be at 1 AIM which would give the seniors time to play Bingo before the rush.