Introduction
Introductory Paragraphs
Marketing is a crucial part of a firm, business or financial institution. It determines the number of customers using services from the entity. As a result, it determines the profits that the business entity makes per unit time. Consequently, it determines the solvency and prosperity of the whole business.
The firms, in turn, struggle to improve their marketing and advertising strategies in their system. The strategies must compete favorably with other firms that offer similar products. It must aim at adopting a strategy that leads to customers and client satisfaction. This ensures that the firms maintain their customers and gain more customers than their competitors (Kotler, 1986).
In marketing, public relation officers carry out researches which aim at getting preferences from the customers. In these researches, they collect data on the perceptions and opinions of the customers. This helps the business entities to provide new services and improve the quality of current goods and services.
Consequently, they retain their customer and attract others. The demand and profit margin rise simultaneously. This paper will focus on designing a research that aims at collecting opinions of the customers. Particularly, it will design a research on a restaurant offering fast food. Specifically, it will use McDonald’s restaurant for the research.
History
McDonald’s restaurant is found in USA offering fast food. It was started in the year 1940 by Maurice and Richard at San Bernardino. In 1948, the restaurant improvised a speed serving system which increased efficiency and gained more customers than earlier. The company changed administrative bodies of management severally.
In addition, it has changed the logo for a number of times due to marketing and advertisement. The restaurant operates in 119 countries around the world. In the countries, it has thirty four thousand restaurants that operate under the headquarters in Illinois. The restaurant offers sandwiches, breakfast, soft drinks and desserts. The restaurants in other countries deviate from the standard menu fitting the countries culture.
For example, china serves soup while the Indian restaurants refrain from serving beef. This is due to the religious taboos that exist in the country. They have the outdoor and indoor serving that fits the customer’s choices and decisions. Therefore, the restaurant is an all-inclusive restaurant that fits every social class.
Statement of Problem
The restaurant has grown rapidly in accordance to history. However, various criticisms have been directed to fast food. The critics target the menu, practices of business and the expansion of the business. For example, Morris group had designed leaflets which aimed at criticizing the health status of the restaurants. In 2004, a documentary called Super-Size blamed the company for increased cases of obesity.
The criticisms that revolve around fast foods have affected growth of the restaurant. For the last two years, the restaurant has been progressing in a slower pace than the previous years. This has posed a serious challenge to the overall profitability and the solvency of the company. As a result, this problem needs to be addressed with urgency.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the study is to solve this financial and economic crisis existing in the restaurant. The research aims at involving the customers in improving financial status and services. It seeks to use the outside-in strategy to solve the internal challenges. In addition, the study will enable the restaurant to make additional inputs in the current menu. Lastly, it will help the management to add attractive and useful services in the restaurant. This will be fulfilled through various objectives.
Objective of the study
- To understand their customers in details
- To collect the relevant information pertaining to customer’s preferences
- To make relevant recommendations and conclusions for improvement
Research Question
In this research, we seek to understand the perceptions and opinions of the customers towards the products and services offered. As a result, we need a query that will form the basis and foundation of the research. Therefore, we might seek to know whether restaurants perceive a negative change in the quality of the products and services offered.
- Do restaurants perceive declines in the quality of products and services?
This is a broad question that allows the development and design of the research. It provides sufficient space to get the opinions of the customers towards the improvements of products. It is a question which can form the methodological center of departure for the entire research.
Hypotheses
Although there is the research question, it is essential to speculate and make predictions before the actual research. Therefore, we could assume that there is no decline in the quality of the products offered by the restaurant. However, this hypothesis cannot be tested. We cannot carry out a research for the purpose of scrutiny. Scientifically, it is called the null hypothesis.
We could assume that there is a decline in the quality of food offered in the restaurant. The hypothesis will, therefore, state that restaurants perceive declines in the quality of products and services. The hypothesis could be broken down into sub-hypotheses to state that McDonald restaurant perceives declines in the quality of services.
It is, also, possible to research on the hypothesis stating that restaurants rarely perceive declines in the quality of products and services. All these could form alternative hypotheses. However, there is no research that dwells on more than one hypothesis simultaneously. Therefore, this research will dwell on the alternative hypothesis about McDonald restaurant. A research can be carried out to determine the validity of this hypothesis. As a result, the research will revolve around this hypothesis.
Background
Literature Review
The company has been offering products that have high calorie. The calorie products have been the target of criticism from many communities. Therefore, most customers feel that they should take food with fewer calories than the restaurant offers in the menu. Most of the current customers are aware of the dangers that the food bring to them. These dangers include obesity, high blood pressure and gaining unnecessary weight.
In addition, the restaurant does not offer bitter drinks that help in breaking down the fats they consume. The customers get cautious of this situation and prefer making food at home rather than visiting the restaurant. Employment of young staff has deterred the companies’ reputation.
The company was sued for the allegations of propagating child labor. Customers feel uncomfortable when they are served by staff members who are underage. The management has been overwhelming the staff for decreasing their efficiency during serving. Complains show dissatisfaction of service by the staff. This has been a crucial point of failure.
Definitions of terms
- Qualitative analysis- This is an analysis that uses subjective reasoning on non-quantifiable data or information.
- Qualitative analysis- It refers to the analysis of quantifiable data by mathematical calculations and deductions.
- Sampling- Sampling refers to tactical selection of data sets from the target population
- Methodology- This refers to the strategies that are used to collect records and represent data for analysis.
- Instrumentation- Instrumentation focuses on the instruments used in the collection analysis of information.
Methodology
Population
The population is comprised of the customers’ visit to the restaurant for the meals. It includes customers from the 119 countries around the world in 34,000 restaurants. The total number of customers served by the restaurants is approximately sixty eight million per day. This is a huge population that makes it difficult to reach all customers. Therefore, the research cannot consider the whole population of customers. For the purpose of data collection, sampling will be carried out.
Sampling
During sampling, two data sets will be considered for the collection of views. The two data sets will include customers who make regular visits and those visiting the restaurant occasionally. Regular customers visit the restaurant for three meals daily. On the other hand, occasional customers visit the restaurant for one meal only.
On this sampling, the sample is not carried out in a manner that favors a desired outcome (Strauss, 1992). Therefore, the outcomes will be credible. The sample will randomize the respondent across gender, age and origin of the customers. Therefore, it will become extremely reliable and credible.
Instrumentation
The most crucial instrument of this research will be the questionnaires which will contain several questions aiming at understanding the perceptions of the customers. On this light, the following questions will be included in the questionnaires.
- How many times do you visit the restaurant daily?
- What is your most preferred food product in this restaurant?
- What is your most preferred drink in the restaurant?
- What do you think is omitted in the menu?
- What should we add in the menu to suite the eating habit?
- How do you rate the service by the staff in this restaurant?
- Does the waiting time coincide with your time management?
- Does the cost of products match with their quality?
- What is your opinion regarding the health of the food you take on the restaurant?
Customers will be given the questionnaires to fill when they visit the restaurant. Therefore, the questionnaire should have a few questions. This ensures that the questionnaire does not consume much of the respondents time. Otherwise, it would lead to incomplete or unreliable formation.
On this light, the questionnaires should be flexible. They should be designed in a manner that allows modification. This implies that it can be modified to include arising themes during the research. In addition, it allows the removal of any questions that are irrelevant to the study. These modifications arise during the actual research.
A Facebook and Twitter account will be opened for the research. People will be invited to like the page and make their contributions. The questions will be posted on the page and customers invited to answer the questions. This will be a technological extension for the questionnaires. It will capture the customers who are in the social networks. As a result, the number of people considered will be sufficient to make conclusions.
The children will be interviewed orally by the selected staff from the restaurant. The staffs will record the information on the questionnaire for analysis. However, the interview will be recorded using audio recorders. The audio recorders will ensure that the information that is omitted in the questionnaires is captured. Video recorders will be used where visual presentation of information is required.
For example, a child who does not know the real name of certain food will tend to point at the food. The video recorder or camera will be used to capture the information. As a result, all the information that is required for analysis will be available. Therefore, the research will be all-inclusive and reliable. Consequently, the recommendations, conclusions, and solutions derived from the research will be credible.
A suggestion box will be used for the purpose of the research. For the period of research, a small advert will be hanged beside the box. It will urge customers to drop any opinions on the box. The opinions will be incorporated in the analysis. This will widen the scope of the research.
Procedures and Time Frames
The most significant procedure of data collection will be filling in the questionnaires. The questionnaires will have the nine questions. This will take a maximum of three minutes to answer the questionnaires. The questionnaire will have a section which will seek to capture additional information and opinions from the customers. This section might take about two minutes to write and express ideas. In total, a single respondent might take five minutes to fill in the questionnaire.
The oral research for the children might take a little bit longer. Each question might take a maximum of 1 minute. On the other hand, they might take one minute to give an opinion about their experience in the hotel. A child might take a maximum of ten minutes to interview and get information that can be used for analysis.
Analysis plan
Analysis can either be qualitative or quantitative according to the data being collected (Strauss, 1987). In this research, qualitative analysis will be used to analyze data. During the research, the collection of data and analysis will be done simultaneously. The simultaneous operations will ensure that the questionnaires are changed and altered to accommodate new themes rising during the research.
The data between the mature customers and the children will be done separately. In addition, the data between occasional customers and regular customers will be separated. This allows comparison between the two data sets. It ensures that the existing similarities are reconciled, and the differences appearing in the opinions are retained. The diversity of the opinions in those data sets makes the results reliable and credible.
Reliability and Validity of the Research
Reliability and credibility in this research cannot be ignored. The consideration of the two factors is mandatory and paramount. Violating the reliability of research makes it biased and incredible. For this reason, the research has employed various factors to ensure the validity and reliability of the results. First, sampling will be done randomly. This implies that the research is not biased or inclined to a desired outcome.
Secondly, the use of various data sets ensures that there is sufficient variation among the respondents. The variation occurs in reference to age, gender and level of regularity to the restaurant. Lastly, the use of flexible questionnaires, which allowed the incorporation of the arising themes, ensured the capture of much information. Also, it ensured that the research focused on the relevant information only. The three measures ensure full credibility, validity, and reliability of the information collected from the respondents.
Conclusions
This research will be a positive step towards solving the financial crisis that is facing the restaurant of McDonald’s. It will provide the necessary information which can be used to make recommendations and conclusions. The research described every step and detail that will be followed in collecting, recording, and analyzing the data and information. Consequently, it can be described as an all-inclusive research. In fact, it will be a crucial step towards solving the challenges that have been posed to the company.
Works Cited
Kotler, Philip. Principles of marketing. 3rd ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1986. Print.
Strauss, Anselm L. Qualitative analysis for social scientists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Print.
Thompson, Steven K.. Sampling. New York: Wiley, 1992. Print.