No offence to those who work at KFC. It’s just my opinion. Also, thanks to Calum for inspiration.
Recently, I was waiting in the line of a KFC for a meal. The people in front of me were very frustrated, not only because of the long wait for food, but also because the lid of the large potato and gravy had some burnt on food on top.
Now, this was probably from an earlier accident where there was some spillage. But it is the reaction of the customer that is more important. He asked the staff member (a young-ish boy) to replace the potato and gravy, claiming that KFC weren’t allowed to sell spoilt food. The staff hesitated for a short while, and a small discussion ensued, and eventually the customer got new potato and gravy.
The moral of this story is that sometimes, these chain outlets hire incompetent people or do not train them enough. This is where most of the negative word-of-mouth feedback originates from.
Now, I’m not saying that every chain outlet is bad in this way. Take McDonalds for example. They train their staff so that they can handle almost all of the situations they are presented with over the course of their shift. The same service quality is present in any given restaurant anywhere in the world. (Yes, I am alluding to marketing theory, I’m typing this after my lecture.)
KFC have very inconsistent service across their stores. Their high-patronage outlets tend to have higher service quality than smaller stores. Also noticeable is that the store supervisor/manager has more presence in the shopfront. I interpret this as a stern reminder to the other staff to serve customers properly, instead of an attempt to lift standards of service.
Another noticeable example is Bunnings Warehouse. They hire a wide range of people from school students, to older tradespeople. All too often I see the ‘lower rank’ employees wandering around the shelves, attempting to present themselves to assist customers. Most of them possess no knowledge of the hardware that they sell, which renders them useless. Instead, they should be restocking shelves and serving at the check out counters. One example of disappointing service was when a customer asked where the insulation batts were. The staff member said that they did not stock insulation batts, and fibbed an answer.
If you have ever been served poorly by these incompetent people, I encourage you to be proactive about it and make a complaint to the supervisor. That way, we will never them get away with it.
Next rant: International students.
I currently work at KFC, and when you say, “No offence,” I’m still really offended by this rant. The reason why that there is sometimes spillage of the gravy is because the plastic containers are being filled up, the gravy is kept at really high temperatures, so it is safer to spill a bit then to burn ourselves, as the gravy is made using boiling water. We go through more than 100 per day, so there is no time to check all of them for little bits of gravy on the outside of the container. The staff at KFC are not incompetent or not trained well. The reason why the employee had a discussion and not just exchange it straight away, is that we are trained to not exchange something if they have taken it away from the counter, as they could have contaminated it, or that this issue rarely arises, so the employee has not experienced this type of issue before. At KFC, an employee is a trainee for 6 months and attends a 3 hour orientation at the head office with employees of other stores, so we are getting plenty of training. The reason why a manager/shift supervisor is at the front is because they do the drawer skims, so we dont carry a lot of cash in our register, and when there are enough employees at the back, they help out at the front when it is busy, as we work as a team. KFC has standards and protocols that need to be followed regarding customer service that our customers do not know about, so we do not need to reminded about it.
Recently I got a job at Bunnings, so I know about how the business is run on a day-to-day basis. Team members do not restock shelves during trading hours, as they may sometimes be in the way of customers, so they are restocked after trading hours. Anyone you see just wandering around the store is not trained to serve customers at the register. Everyone specialises in a certain department, so we can not just go to a different department when we feel like it and pretend that we know for sure what we are doing. For example, how would you feel if you wanted an outdoor plant and someone from the trade department sold you an indoor one without telling you, and about a week later the plant dies?
To recap, I am currently working at KFC and will soon start at Bunnings, so I know what I’m talking about. I’m also really offended by this because I interpret it the way that anyone that works in customer service would… a generalisation of everyone that works at KFC and Bunnings. Before you post rants about fast food or retail outlets, you should get a job in one so that you can be in our position and experience the hell that we go through and what we get from customers like you. That way, the statements that you make are no longer assumptions and are valid.
Comment by Kristie — 28 January 2011 @ 12:01 pm