The CRM strategy of McDonald's

Résumé du document

Among the fast food chains across the world, McDonald's is quite popular . Started in the early 1950s, the chain has grown regularly until the late 1980s with more than 5200 restaurants in the United States. At present, there are more than 30 000 restaurants located in about 110 countries. McDonald's serves more than 48 millions of meals every day. Thus, it would be interesting to study the CRM strategy of one of the biggest companies in the world.

During the last 50 years, the strategy of McDonalds has evolved considerably. They have evolved from being a basic fast-food joint to a fast-food chain and are also provide plenty of add-ons as well. Hence, I wanted to choose McDonald's as an example of a company that has a good CRM. Additionally, it would be interesting to study and analyze a company whose primary concept was to have the least relationship with the customer and a company that now wants to retain them for as long as they can in their facilities.


McDonald's CRM objectives and strategy

a.General strategy
First of all, we shall study about the general strategy of McDonald's. This will allow us to precisely understand as to how they work and react to the market.

McDonald's have developed a price-slashing and low volumes policy; and comprise the main components of its competitive advantage. Prices have to be affordable in order to deliver a variety of meals everyday. McDonald's is not a regular restaurant. They want to attract the customer as regularly as possible, and thus, the prices of the meals cannot be too expensive. The prices are not the same in every country and they can vary in a country depending on the city or the restaurant.

Moreover, about 70 % of the sales at McDonald's are conducted within four hours. Hence, they decided to try and change the dietary behaviour in order to attract more customers during the off-hours. For example, if you buy a meal at lunch, you have a discount on a second meal which is bought before six in the evening.

Extraits

[...] Interaction with the customer Another important point of the strategy of McDonald's concerns its interaction with the customer. The objective of the company is not to know the customer, but to know the market they are in. There is no regular loyalty program, as it can be in other restaurants: no loyalty card for example; but they identify their target and are doing their best to forecast its needs through many different partnerships: for example, as one of their target are the children, they offer in the Happy Meal (the meal for children) several presents linked to comics or movies that children like. [...]

[...] The thing is that nowadays customers are more and more demanding, they want a concrete relationship with the company they are regular customers in. Mc Donald's might have to adapt its strategy to the will of its customers. b. Controversy Mc Donald's also had to face lots of controversy which was not very good for its image. They focus on two main points: the child advertising and the health issue. The main targets of Mc Donald's are the children; it can be seen through the advertising and the facilities put in place in the restaurants (playgrounds for example). [...]

[...] In 50 years, the strategy of McDonalds evolved obviously. They went from a basic fast-food to a fast-food accompanied with lots of extra services. Those are the reasons why I wanted to choose McDonald's as an example of a company that has a good CRM. I think that it is interesting to study a company whose primary concept was to have the smallest relationship with the customer and that now wants to keep them as long as they can in their facilities. [...]

[...] General strategy First of all we will quickly study what is the general strategy of McDonald's. It will allow us to see more precisely how they work and react to the market. McDonald's developed a price-slashing and low volumes policy; that are the main components of its competitive advantage. Prices have to be affordable to deliver so many meals daily. McDonald's is not a regular restaurant. They want to attract the customer as regularly as possible, so the prices of the meals cannot be too expensive. [...]

[...] The main criticism made to them is that they do not care for their customer and see them only as potential money. The company, to improve its image, works a lot on charity business, with, for example, the Ronald Mc Donald House Charities whose aim is to help sick children. Mc Donald's tries to get rid of its image of heartless company. So to conclude we can say that Mc Donald's has a good CRM in the way they excel in knowing and forecasting what its market wants. [...]