KFC VS McD: What do the people say?

Nov-9-2008 By ColourfulWorld

There is no such thing as free lunch, therefore free surveys like PollDaddy have a monthly sample limit of 100 but it’s better than nothing at all. For those who hasn’t check out the questions please click here.

The purpose of setting up this survey is to understand the public perception regarding the strengths and weaknesses of both popular fast food chains. The results are the indicators whether the company’s goals are in line with what the public expect.

Percentage of respondents according to country:

Australia: 6%
China: 3%
Japan: 1%
Malaysia: 73%
Singapore: 6%
Taiwan: 2%
UK: 1%
US: 4%
Unknown: 4%

Percentage of respondents according to age group:

<13: 0%
13 - 18: 6%
19 - 24: 78%
25 - 30: 14%
31 - 36: 0%
37 - 42: 0%
43 - 48: 2%
49 - 54:0%
>54: 0%

Looking at the demographics and you’ll see that majority of the respondants are from Malaysia and most of them are males in the 19 - 24 age group.

There are all together 12 parameters to be evaluated using the modified Likert Scale. The parameters following alphabetical order are:

Ambience
Career Opportunity
Cleanliness
Convenience
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Crew Friendliness
Food Quality
Food Variety
Environmental Responsibility
Interior / Exterior Design
Marketing Outreach
Product Pricing

Ambience

Ambience is defined as the overall audio quality of an environment. Therefore this parameter measures the satisfactory level of consumer regarding the background noise of the outlet.

If you look at both the category of Satisfied and Very Satisfied, you’ll notice that there is a clear distinction of satisfaction level between KFC and McD. KFC consumers are slightly dissatisfied compared to McD consumers. Therefore it is clear that consumers are more satisfied with the ambience of McD outlets. Reason? My best guess is that people like places with light background music, for instance McD FM. Furthermore, some McD outlets even installed LCD projector and LCD monitors thus providing extra entertainment value for those dining in customers.

CAREER OPPORTUNITY

When people work, they often seek employment with potential promotion and better remuneration. While the slang McJob defines a low-paying, low-prestige job that requires few skills and offers very little chance of intracompany advancement (quoted from Wikipedia), here we compare the public awareness about the job positions, job social and economical statuses, career paths etc between KFC and McD to see which company provides better options.

Apparently more than 50% of respondents are not aware of work positions offered by both company although most of us are familiar with the job positions of restaurant crew, restaurant manager etc. Just like other companies in this world, they constantly require people to fill in various positions in a corporation, for example account executives, legal executives, asset management officer and even logistics planning officer. A quick browse online shows however, that KFC Malaysia provides virtually no information regarding its career opportunity while McD Malaysia has a complete set of career related webpages for you to check out the relevant work positions, job descriptions and requirements. Guys and girls, next time when you are looking for job, do consider the opportunities offered by fast food corporations ya. =p

CLEANLINESS

What do we expect from a clean fast food outlet? Yes, first of all, we want to know that the restaurant is constantly keeping the tables and floors clean, next we want to know that there is a minimal fly count in the area or at least not disturbed by those horrible flying insects while enjoying the meal. We also want the glass panels to be squeaky clean and shiny. We also do not want to inhale other than the smell of delicious food. Last but not least, we want to see hygenic crews working in a clean kitchen following all the required cleaning procedures

Again, McD potrays a better image compared to KFC. One of the critical element is the speed and response of the crew in cleaning up the table whenever a customer leaves. In fact, if you have done with your meal in McD and still staying there to chit chat, the crew may even politely asks to clean the table for you. Another factor which might contribute to the above score is that the viewability of McD kitchen is higher than KFC’s. The more you can peek into the kitchen, the higher the confidence that you have the perception of actually supervising the crew. I’m not very sure about this minor effects, maybe someone else could further discuss about this?

This post is getting too long. We’ll discuss about other parameters in the upcoming posts. Right now comments and suggestions are highly welcomed. =)