In 2018, KFC in the UK ran out of chicken due to a logistical issue that caused a disruption in the supply chain. Due to this issue, the franchise forced their restaurants to close and needless to say customers were not happy. To ease their frustrations, KFC took it to social media to shed some light on the crisis.
In any crisis situation, companies want to inform their consumers and stay up to date with them; KFC was no different. They took it to social media to show their customers that everything was fine and that they are fixing the issue. KFC posted “updates from the colonel” to stay engaged with the customers, created a hashtag “#wheresmychicken”, created a catchy URL for a website they made that said “crossed-the-road” and had several Q&A style posts with the caption “There’s gossip in the hen house, here are the facts…”. And they put an ad in the newspaper with the rearrangement of their name “FCK” as a clever way to say they messed up. The company thought they gained the understanding of customers, but they weren’t in the clear just yet. Customers started to call the police to complain about the issue and wanted KFC to be nationalized so it wouldn’t happen again. As if there wasn’t enough fuel to the fire, customers started questioning that if restaurants are closed, what happens to the food they currently have. KFC responded by saying that they would donate to local charities and other good ways to dispose of the chicken instead of just throwing them away. The response to this crisis was handled in the best way they could. KFC gracefully took responsibility for the crisis and used humor as a comic relief towards the ordeal. They could have thrown the logistical company, DHL, under the bus and made themselves look like they had nothing to do with the crisis. In articles that I read about this crisis said KFC resolved it well, while others say they were not resilient enough. I personally don’t eat KFC but if it did happen to any favorite restaurant of mine, I’d want them to handle this situation the way KFC handled theirs. They used humor and social media to keep the consumers updated. In 2022, that’s how most of the world communicates so I’d want to be informed through social media postings on the status of said crisis. I don’t think this crisis hurt KFC’s credibility. Things happen like this probably more than we know or that is actually talked about. For a similar example, I work at a local Old Navy as a Merchandising manager for the kids and baby departments and this past year has been awful for us clothing wise because of the pandemic especially during holiday. Normally during the christmas season, we have tons of jingle jammies for the family but this past year, we only had a few styles and customers weren’t happy. I don’t think it was a big enough issue to bring it to the media but it was a disturbance for shoppers. Just like the KFC crisis, there’s only so much they can do to handle the situation. So KFC was out of chicken, we were out of christmas pajamas but it didn’t hurt our credibility. The spokesperson for KFC was their social media/ marketing department. Like mentioned above, they created social media posts to keep the customer updated on the status of their restaurants, they created clever hashtags which are crucial in gaining the respect of the user/consumer, and Q&A postings about the employees, how they ran out of chicken, how many restaurants are still open, etc. Overall, I think this crisis was handled gracefully. They owned up to their mistake and used humor to keep the customers informed.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
April 2024
Categories |