KFC’s Success and Customer Satisfaction

1. Background of the study

The aim of any business should be maximisation of its shareholders’ wealth. So, companies taking on various activities that will add values to its customers and in exchange the company captures monetary values from the company. (Susanto, 2013) No matter the size of the company this is the puzzle that keeps a company’s management in constant captivation. The key to customer satisfaction is what greatly determines the success of a company. If a company fails to satisfy its customers, the customers will switch to other companies and the previous company will not be able to earn money which will ultimately leads to shareholders’ dissatisfaction and hence the company might end up in demise. For fast food restaurants, where the customers are free to switch between the brands at literary free of cost, satisfaction of customers is way more important. The difference between a successful company and an unsuccessful one is in its ability to keep its customers satisfied. KFC is one of those companies that have been able to do it so well over so long period of time and have reaped the rewards with its healthy profit margin. (Susanto, 2013) But customers’ preferences are changing rapidly. People’s living standard, the social norms and values, how they interact with each other everything is influencing their food habit. For example, in the age of industrialization the fast food restaurants gained big by serving food that were easy to consume. But right now, the fast foods are at question because of their unhygienic and lots and lots of calories. Customers are now shifting their preferences. Various environmental and social factors influence people’s eating habit (Booth, Sallis, Ritenbaugh, Hill, Birch, Frank, Glanz, Himmelgreen, Mudd, Popkin, and Rickard, 2001). Again, customers are no longer bounded by national boundaries as the world is becoming more of a global village. New foods are becoming more popular at an ever increasing pace. Comfort food is taking over the place of fast foods. All these are changing and shaping the food industry fast (Susanto, 2013). Though KFC has been able manage all these challenges do far of its journey, as of this point of our study, we want to see how KFC is performing at the moment, whether it is being able to satisfy the customers’ needs. Because we believe our findings not only help us to predict on the future of KFC but also, we can say what the future of the fast food restaurant chains is. Is the largest of the still have managed to stay relevant by providing the customers with its finger licking good foods.

Research Aim: The aim of the research is to try to understand one of the key success factors of KFC’s success for last 70 years, its customers. Whether the company has managed to stay relevant to its customers by serving the best finger licking chicken meals and still stay relevant after generations after generations. Most importantly we wanted to know whether people think of KFC’s legacy as a myth or they still think KFC is the best place that can serve their needs. This will also help us to predict on KFC’s future.

Research Objectives: Unless the objectives of a study are clearly stated, it is very normal to get distracted and hence divert from the intended purpose of the study. So, at the very beginning we have identified our research objectives based on which we have designed our later works. Our research objectives include the followings

Whether a restaurant business can still satisfy its customers by only serving specialized meal (Chicken meal in case of KFC)

In an ever-changing world are the customers still satisfied by with finger licking good chicken meals

Recommendations for improving the strategy of KFC in satisfying the long run customers

Research Question: The success of any study greatly depends on selecting the right set of research questions. Through the research question we tried to assess whether KFC is being able to fulfil its promises to its customers and keep them satisfied. Satisfied customers mean they are going to come back to KFC for more. Hence selection of appropriate research questions is an important aspect as they will hold the key for insights and the success of our study. We have prepared the following questions for conducting the research:

As a customer do you feel like you have the opportunity to find your desired meals at a KFC outlet?

Do you think it is still alright just to serve only chicken meals in a fast food restaurant?

Do you believe KFC’s chicken is still finger licking well?

Would go back to KFC for its “finger licking good” food?

Risk Factors and Their Mitigation: The potential risk factors include convincing the customers to provide us unbiased opinion and presenting ourselves as an independent researcher to them, otherwise they might consider the study to be an internal factor of KFC to assess their customer service. So, the researcher needs to be differentiated from the KFC outlet employees in their distinct appearance and their behaviour. Again, we need to keep in mind that people coming to KFC are looking for fast food experience. So, many of them might not be willing to participate in the study. While selecting the sample it should be carefully scrutinized. By surveying customers from only one region we may get a biased result and so we plan to survey customers from multiple regions.

Justification of the methodology chosen to address the research question: The research is to be conducted via a survey with both online and offline questionnaires. With survey we will be able to collect direct information from the customers and we will also be able get timely data. The online survey will help us to reach out to customers in different geographical region which is otherwise inaccessible.

Factors influencing the selection of research questions

In the recent era of globalisation, there is rapid growth of the restaurant and catering service industry, where the customers prefer new diverse food and beverages for fulfilling their preferences and needs. It further influences the brands across the globe to develop effective strategic planning in order to satisfy the customer. In the recent era of globalisation, there is high competition among the food chain across the globe, where the organisations face the threat of new entrants and substitute products in the market (Bojadziev, 2007). The customer’s demand on the other hand, is increasing at a rapid rate and it further influences the organisations and restaurant to diversify their products category and provide a huge variety of products and services to the customers. Hereby, the major factors influencing the research and developed questions are organisational activities, market growth and customer’s changing need and preferences as well as diversify product categories and high demand of the global customers in the food and beverage industry. The research questions are related to the customer’s preferences and their perception towards the chicken meals provided by the organisation KFC (Susanto, 2013). The questions are effective to collect proper data and information directly from the customers and understand their feedback about the foods and beverages provided by KFC. It further influence the company to restructure their product portfolio and develop diversify products to satisfy the global customers. The study is about customer’s satisfaction and in the recent years, in order to gain high competitive advantage, it is mandatory to focus on customer relationship management where it further influences the researcher to develop the research questions about customer’s satisfaction and their preferences towards the food items provided by the organisation.

2. Literature Review

Kentucky Fried Chicken or KFC started its operation in 1930. Till 1992 it was known as Kentucky Fried Chicken. In 1992 logo and name of the company changed and it became to be known as KFC Paul Dana, L. (1999). This American restaurant chain which has been operating for more than 70 years has 2100 outlets in over 130 countries (www.kfc.com, 2019). KFC is currently the second largest restaurant chain and world’s no. 1 chicken food brand (Franchising.com, 2019). (Hussain, 2014) KFC was founded by Colonel Sanders who opened its first store in Kentucky on March 20, 1930. It was during the great depression and Colonel Sanders used to sell his chicken in roadside. What made Colonel’s chicken so special was his unique blend of spices used in the recipe and how it was fried; He is one of the pioneers of the pressure fried chicken. He could rightly see the opportunity and Kentucky Fried Chicken was one of the first to explore the franchise option. Kentucky Fried Chicken opened its first franchise store is Salt Lake Ohio City in 1952. From then, KFC’s journey of conquering the world with its finger licking good food has amazed everyone. Currently the company has over 21,000 outlets throughout 130 countries. The company has evolved so much over the years while serving only chicken meals and smoothies and other refreshing smoothies. The company has stay true to its name and yet to incorporate other meat options. (Malshe, and Agarwal, 2015) Franchising business means every outlets of Kentucky Fried Chicken in operated by different groups. In Franchising type of business there is a franchisor and a franchise. The franchisor provides to the franchisee not just its trade name, products and services, but an entire system for operating the business. The franchisee generally receives site selection and development support, operating manuals, training, brand standards, quality control, a marketing strategy and business advisory support from the franchisor (Hussain, 2014). The fundamental of any business starts while it tries to solve a problem for its customers or while it tries to offer something new to its customers. By doing so, a business can monetise its provided services and products to its customers. For KFC, it is much more relevant. KFC is operating in fast food restaurant industry. This is a highly competitive and saturated industry. There are well established players like McDonalds, Burger King, and Pizza Hut etc along with innumerable small players popping up every day. But the fundamental of the business has always remained the same. Finding the right products and services to customers so that they can be satisfies. And satisfied customers mean that they will come back for more in future.

Customer satisfaction is one of the key metrics of performance of a business. The primary goal of a business should be its shareholders’ wealth maximisation (Gitman and Zutter, n.d.). In way of doing so, the companies try to create values for its customers which can be exchanged for monetary units. So, unless a business can create an appropriate value for its customers it will not be able to survive and hence will extinct. So, we can rightly opine that customer satisfaction is an important thing to be considered for while evaluating any business (Malshe, and Agarwal, 2015). The major strategy of the organisation is to provide quality products to the customers so that it would be possible to meet the customer’s needs and preferences. It further enhances the chance to satisfy the customers. The quality ingredients, use of fresh raw material and taste and quality of the food are effective strategy of the organisation to satisfy the consumers across the globe. The organisation also aims at providing suitable services in order to provide a suitable place where the customers can enjoy their food and beverages. Another important factor to be considered that in today’s no business is immutable to vulnerability. In fact, as predicted by research firm insight half of the S&P’s top 500 companies are going to be replaced by the end of next year if the current churn rate stays the same. By 2026 the average time company spent on the S&Ps top 500 company will be only 14 years which was previously 20 years in 1990 (Inc.com, 2019). In spite of all these KFC is still one of world’s most lucrative franchises. In 2013 the company’s turnover stood to be US $26 billion. So, we can rightly say for a 70 years old company KFC is still going strong. The recipe developed by Colonel Sanders have already conquered 130 countries and is currently selling over 400 chickens pieces every minute throughout the globe (Mail Online, 2019). But in business sustainability is a very important aspect. The customers’ preferences are changing fast. New options are coming up every day. For companies like KFC it is not enough to do just okay rather being unable to stay at the top of their game might lead to the company’s poor performance which can ultimately break the company for good. So, KFC cannot sit idle and wait before seeing its customers switch to its rivals. The company needs to be proactive and take on various strategies. We can see strong digital campaigns from KFC on its social media and integration of latest technologies in its outlets to ensure that the customers can have the best experience.

One of the company’s clever campaigns was witnessed in last March 2018 as the company was facing severe problem in its supplies for chicken. The supply was inadequate and sadly many outlets were forced to close down. This is created much dissatisfaction of the customers. However, the company was witty enough to bounce back with and strong campaign and was able turn the disaster around. The social media was flooded with customers’ reaction appreciating the effort the brand took and how it responded (Campaignlive.co.uk, 2019). How a brand is able to communicate with its customers is also an important factor which can greatly help in ensuring the maximum customer satisfaction. Unless a brand can communicate with its customers misunderstanding may arise and hence the relationship with the customers may suffer which can ultimately lead towards a gloomy future for the company. Take for the previous case as an example. If KFC had mismanaged the situation not only would have the company lost crucial sales but also the company could lose its loyal customers to its rivals, as a result, not only the current period sales would have been affected but also the future sales would have been affected all leading to company’s poor performance. (Malshe, A. and Agarwal, 2015) Again, another major factor to be considered here is how KFC have been able to tackle the raising issuing of animal cruelty in food industry. There are many groups who are vocal against the health safety issues of the animals we consume and how they are being raised. Over the years they have unleashed many major campaigns. This has resulted into drastic fall in sales. But over the years KFC has bounced back. For instance, KFC’s reaction to PETA’s attempts to label its animal procurement and processing operations is a unique pattern of response with strategic interaction. In this case each tactic used by PETA was met with a new and adaptive response by KFC. (Libai, Bolton, Bügel, De Ruyter, Götz, Risselada) Even after extensive campaigns PETA was unable to change KFC’s policies (Griffiths & Steinbrecher, 2010). There has been a study on relationship of customer satisfaction and relationship quality on customer retention where the authors stated that in the context of relationship marketing, the authors tried to see customer satisfaction is as a central determinant of customer retention (Hennig-Thurau, & Klee, 1997).

Taking all these factors into account we decided to carry on our research to understand whether the 70 years old company have still managed to stay relevant by serving the best finger licking good chicken meals. In these 70 years the world has seen at least three economic recessions. But over the years KFC has been able to keep its operation going in a handsome manner. So, we tried to understand one of the key factors of its success, its customers, whether the company is being able to keep its customers satisfied in an ever-changing world.

3. Research Methodology

The methodology used to carry out a research greatly influences its success. Hence, careful selection of the methodology will not only lead to the desired result but also can ensure the proper utilisation of the resources in the fastest possible time. It is necessary to choose proper research method in order to progress in the paper and analyse the strategies and practice of the organisation KFC to manage customer’s satisfaction in the market. In this regard, the positivism research philosophy is chosen, where it is possible for the researcher to collect the data and identify social activities related to the research topic. This is effective to consider the primary data and information for further analysis by collecting the public reviews and opinion. In addition to this, the researcher will also choose deductive research approach, over the inductive approach. As per the deductive approach, the researcher will collect the data and information as well as review the theories and practice related to the research topic. It is also effective for the researcher to choose deductive approach in this study, where it is possible to collect a vast range of information about customer satisfaction as well as identify the company’s profile and strategies for further analysis and evaluation. On the basis of the theories and strategic planning of the organisation, the researcher can analyse the gathered data from the customers and conduct in depth research and evaluations. Apart from that, it is necessary to choose the data collection and data analysis method in the researcher. Among the two types of data collection method, the researcher chooses the method, primary and secondary. In this regard, the secondary data and information are gathered through reviewing the company’s strategies, annual report and news papers business articles about KFC. These secondary sources of information are gathered through reviewing the sources which further provides a scope to the researcher to improving understanding about the research topic and identify the practice and activities of KFC in satisfying the customers in the market. In the other hand, the primary data collection method s also utilised in this research in order to gather appropriate data and information directly from the customers. In this research, the researcher has undertaken a survey study for the research purpose. The research needs to be conducted on primary data to get the most recent insights. It will be an online survey which will cover people from 3 different countries. The questionnaire will be sent to regular customers of KFC restaurants through email and social media. Another important criterion for selecting the sample is the person should have visited any KFC outlet within the last 5 days of taking the survey. Our total sample size is 200. The questionnaires included only yes and no options to ensure that people chose only one option. To ensure best possible result we visited two outlets of KFC in UK and conducted a survey. To ensure consistency of the work and the result will the research will be conducted within 4 days. We are dealing with the cross-sectional data, which is we are studying different individuals at one specific time frame. The advantage of studying cross sectional data is that we could say the findings of our study will provide timeliness. With accurate designing of the questionnaire we could also ensure the relevance of our study. The questionnaire has been kept short and precise to ensure that the respondents feel engaged and can fill up within the shortest possible time. The researcher had different attire that could easily be differentiated from a normal KFC outlet employee so that the respondents can identify them as independent party. The respondents were picked at random according to their serial at the counter. There can be some biasness from the customers as KFC is a renowned brand. To ensure that the customers are providing us unbiased opinion and their privacy is well hidden, in our questionnaire we omitted collecting the names of the samples and have only decided to go with the address of the locality. This will also help us to identify whether there is a KFC outlet in the vicinity. We further tried to ensure that the customers believe us to be an independent researcher and we reached out to them us as such. The short duration of the study will help us to stay relevant and present timely data. We will also be able we address the uniformity of data as we are reaching out to samples from 3 different countries. This will help us to reduce the biasness. It is important to choose proper data analysis technique in order to complete the research and fulfil its purpose and objectives. In this regard, the researcher will choose quantitative data analysis technique, in order to evaluate the gathered findings through charts, graphs and figures. This further helps to identify the customer’s preferences and their actual perception about the products of KFC.

Strengths of methodology is that, the data analysis and data collection method are hereby beneficial for the researcher to gather relevant and valid information and analyse the above mentioned research topic efficiently. The research methodology is effective to collect the authentic data and valid information for further analysis. The secondary data collection method is good for the study as well as for the researcher to review the theories of customer’s behaviour and the organisational strategic planning. On the other hand, the primary data collection method is fruitful to acknowledge the consumers perception about the KFC products and their services. The weakness of the primary data collection method is that sometime the authentic information cannot be gathered. Quantitative data analysis technique is efficient in this study to evaluate the gathered data of the customers and analyse the feedback of the customers for identifying successful business strategy of KFC. The weakness are that sometime, the customers do not provide true perception and it further raise issues related to validity and reliability of the data and information. Another weakness is that the researcher fails to include the managers of KFC where it would be possible to collect more in depth information and data related to the internal organisational strategies and activities.

4. Resources, Logistics and Ethical Issues

The main resource of our study was the survey information collected though online and offline means. We conducted the survey online through mailing out the questionnaire to respondents and through social media. We collected their contact details through following the respondents on the social media pages of KFC. Apart from that we also circulated them through our friends and in various food bloggers’ groups. For the offline survey we visited three different outlets of KFC in UK. The outlets are Westfield Stratford City, Victoria Palace Centre and Bloomsbury, London. From these three outlets we surveyed a total 150 people. The total number of our sampling is 200 and 50 of them were online. (Libai, Bolton, Bügel, De Ruyter, Götz, Risselada) It was an anonymous survey to ensure the privacy of the respondents and ensure unbiased. We had to incur more cost for the online survey since we had to print out the questionnaire. However, the response rate was way higher in the offline survey than the online survey. The management of the three outlets of KFC that we surveyed were extremely helpful and they provided us with various assistance. The researcher had full access for around 4 hours of their stay at each outlet. However, during their time of the stay the researcher did not take any food from the outlet or any other sort of amenities from KFC. It should also be stated that we were able to cover only 3 countries among the 130 countries KFC is operating, So, we cannot say that the study conducted is equally applicable to all entities of Kentucky Fried Chicken or to all of its outlets and customers. But since we are covering the major hubs as United States of America, United Kingdom and Malaysia we can opine to have a more generalized picture. All of these places are dynamic and people from all walks of lives can afford to have a meal at local KFC outlets. So, KFC is a very familiar name to the residents and hence their opinions should be insightful. At every step of the study we wanted to make sure that the respondents are not influenced by us in any fashion. So, unless the respondents had anything to ask, we tried not to interfere with them. Apart from these there were some unfinished questionnaires which we had to exclude from the study (Chang, Wang, and Yang, 2009.)

Personal Strengths and weaknesses in conducting the research: Being a regular customer of KFC for the past 10 years has made me realize how the brand has evolved in last one decade. KFC is highly customer obsessed. They are always thinking about how to improve the customer experience. So, the researcher could catch a glimpse of how KFC values its customer relationship. Since the outlet stuffs of the offline survey were familiar with the researcher, researcher had a much easier access to the outlets. However, being familiar also could threaten the study about maintaining its unbiased stance. The researcher was able to deal it in professional manner. Again, another major weakness while conducting the research was not having access to some contact particulars of some regular customers of KFC in the United States of America and Malaysia market. Having access to their contact could provide the opportunity to reach out to more people.

Evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the research methodology and the research project plan and recommendations about improvement:

One of the key strengths of the study was determining all the major challenges and risk factors beforehand and taking the appropriate measures for their mitigations. Again, since the research work was carried out with primary data, we can say that the findings close to real life representations. However, one key weakness was covering on 3 regions while KFC is being operated in more than 130 countries. Within give limitations of resources covering three regions was a good choice to avoid regional biasness. If we had more resources and we could cover more regions our findings quality could be improved further.

5. Findings & Analysis:

The success of any study greatly depends upon the research questions. Hence the key findings of any study will start from the research questions. As we seen earlier our research questions were:

As a customer do you feel like you have the opportunity to find your desired meals at a KFC outlet?

Has KFC been able to pleasure your test buds to taste?

Would go back to KFC for its “finger licking good” food?

Kentucky Fried Chicken or KFC has been operating in more than 130 countries through its 21000 outlets globally. It should be noted that majority of these outlets are franchise based. That is each of the outlets is operated by its own operators. Still a midst all these KFC has been able to hold the secrecy of its 11 spices special herbs and what makes their chicken finger licking good. It should also be noted that while operating on such a large scale it is pretty easy to lose focus and get distracted. Again managing uniformity throughout the globe across all the locations is not an easy task. But KFC has been pretty successful in doing so over the past 70 years and have been able to establish itself as world’s 2nd largest fast food restaurant chain and globally the top ranked chicken meal serving fast food restaurant. The journey of KFC had its own ups and downs. However, in our study our focus was on finding the present state of the company. We were delighted to see that almost 76% of our respondents or 152 respondents opined that they can find their favourite meal at KFC. Since the other option was “No” we can say that of our surveyed customers 34% were not able to find their desired most meals at KFC. This can be due to the fact that KFC restricts the meat option almost in all of its outlets. This is a huge number that clearly states that the company is going strong in serving the customers their favourite meal and have managed to stay relevant even after more than 70 years of starting its journey. Hence, it can be stated that, the organisation is successful to fulfil the needs of the customers in the market by delivering quality products which may satisfy the customers across different markets. The food quality and taste are perfect at KFC for which most of the customers agree that they are satisfied with the products, provided by the KFC.

Moving on with the second question of our study we found that more than 63% respondents or 126 or the respondents feel that KFC has been able to fulfil its promises to them by serving them up to their expected limit while 37% of the respondents or 74 respondents differ otherwise. This is also a statement about the customers’ perception that the fast food restaurant chain has been able to stay relevant to its customers by serving them the possible experience within the price. As per the analysis, it can be state that, most of the customers in the organisation are satisfied with the products and services, provided by the organisation KFC, however, there are percentage of the consumers who are not satisfied with the products due to their changing preferences, different needs for food and beverages.

In our 3rd question of the study we found out that only 36.5% respondents or 73 of our respondents believe in today’s world it is still enough to serve only the chicken meal and leaving out all other meats. We Know KFC has its specialisation embedded to chicken and has always restricted its menu to chicken only in majority of its outlets. It should also be noted that 63.5% of the respondents that is 127 respondents differ otherwise. We believe this is a very crucial finding of our study that needs further attention in future (Bojadziev, 2007).

In the fourth section of our study we tried to find out whether the special 11 her recipe was still at work for KFC. That is whether the customers were still satisfied with the taste after so many years. Yes, KFC has been successfully in rolling out many other menus in addition to its original recipes but the philosophy has not changed much over the years. As we have seen in our study magical 83% respondents or 166 respondents have opined that KFC meals were still appealing their test buds while 37% of the respondents or 34 tend to oppose that. (Bojadziev, G., 2007)

To find out whether the finger licking good food from KFC is just a mythological legacy of the brand we tried to find out what the customers think about it. (Bojadziev, G., 2007) Out of the total 200 respondents only 67, that is 33.5% of the respondents said they think KFC meals are actually finger licking good while 133 respondents or 66.5% of the respondents were of the opinion that it was finger licking good as the company portrays in its marketing campaigns and activations.

Finally, we asked our respondents whether they would visit a KFC outlet again in near future. Though this we actually wanted to understand whether the customers were still finding their value for money experience at a KFC outlet. Out of our 200 respondents an astonishing all 200 people stated that they would come back to KFC. The percentage of respondents agreeing to come back in future was 100%.

The above findings clearly state that KFC has still been able to keep its customers satisfied and thus have become world’s top ranked chicken meal fast food restaurants. This is clearly a daunting task because KFC has to compete against some the biggest names like McDonalds, Burger King, and Pizza Hut etc. along with many other innumerable local restaurants. However, one thing to be mentioned that in our study we have find one interesting fact that only 33.5% of our respondents had the opinion that KFC’s chicken meals are still finger licking good. Though it is much early to make any comment but we think perhaps since the preferences of people are changing further works need to be carried out to understand whether KFC’s signature finger licking good food can keep it alive in the longer run and make it the most preferred place for the customers. (Bojadziev, 2007) Again, in our finding it was astonishing to see the customers’ loyalty to the KFC brand and how the easily decide that KFC is still the place they want to have their quick meal. When every one of your customers without any hesitation states that they are willing to come back to you then definitely your brand is doing something fantastic. In our study we have seen how KFC have been able to do as such. As per the research, the customers are satisfied with the quality of products and taste of the food products at KFC for which they are willing to visit the place again for enjoying the KFC buckets. However, there are some customers, who are not satisfied due to lack of verity of products available in the organisation. Also, it has revealed that, the customers do not believe the products are finger licking where they beloved that the information related to finger licking products at KFC is only for the marketing campaign to attract the audiences (Bojadziev, 2007). In spite of that, most of the customers stated that the products are good and it is able to pleasure the test buds to taste of the consumers. Along with this, the customers reveals that, it is not good for the organisation to only provide chicken meals at the restaurant as it may hamper customers base of the organisation. Hence, it would be necessary or the organisation KFC to focus on strategic planning in order to satisfy the customers, as most of the customers are not satisfies with the product availability at the restaurant and this may hamper the smooth business pace of KFC.

Benefits of the research

The research is beneficial for further investigation, where the other researchers will follow the information and conduct more in depth data by considering more customers across different international market. The research is also beneficial to analyse the business activities, products and services of KFC. Through the research, it is also possible to acknowledge the needs and personal preferences of the customers in the market. Through the analysis and evaluation, it is also easy for the researcher to recommend some suitable suggestions for the organisation to gain high market share. Hereby, the research also provides a scope to the organisation to strategise their business model in near future for further expansion of the organisation and satisfying the customers in long run. Further researches in near future can also be possible where this particular research is fruitful to analyse the findings and utilise the customer’s decision making behaviour for further research.

Impacts of research outcomes

The research outcome is effective for the multinational corporations to identify the business strategy to strengthen the customer’s base and satisfy each customer in the market. The research reveals that the organisations should focus on products diversification for maintaining suitable product portfolio and attract diverse customers across the international markets. The research is also advantageous and it has possible impacts on the business entrepreneurs to think differently and develop creative strategy for successful expansion of the business firms. The customers satisfaction, product diversification and fulfilling the needs of the consumers are the major aims of the corporate firms to engage with the stakeholders and secure future sustainable development. The study has crucial impacts on the entrepreneurs as through this research, it is possible for the entrepreneurs to acknowledge the perception of the customers and restructure the business efficiently to gain high competitive advantage in future.

7. Limitations and Conclusions:

In our study we had a total sample size of 200 across 3 countries. We survey both offline and online mediums. In our online survey we had 50 respondents from the United States and Malaysia. On the other side we surveyed three different locations in United Kingdom by visiting the outlets. One of the major limitations of our study is that we could not cover much more countries as a result it is tough to state that our study will be equally applicable thorough out the globe. However, since we covered US, UK and Malaysia we can say we covered the regional hubs which can give us the best possible understanding of the regions. (Bojadziev, G., 2007). We saw in our study how KFC’s customers were still finding the brand relevant and trusted in their specialty. KFC’s success story is of serving only one specialised meat, the chicken meal while competition against competitors serving more options to customers is really inspiring. This is a true testament to the fact that when you know how to serve and to whom to serve your, you can still earn the right place (Libai, Bolton, Bügel, De Ruyter, Götz, Risselada). It is KFC’s continuous strive for excellence that has kept it going and made it the most preferred fast food restaurant to its customers. KFC has been successful in keeping its promises to customers fulfilled and as such all our respondents had the opinion that they were coming back for more. But it is to be noted that one of our key findings were people were not convinced about the finger licking good food of KFC. Though further study needs to be done in this case but we can relate it to the rising trend of health consciousness of the customers. The vegan options are flourishing fast and many groups are raising awareness about animal cruelty. Again, people now are opting for less spicy options and tend to be consuming less salt and other taste enhancers. KFC has always been a strong player to identify these new trends and surely, they have some strategies at place to tackle the situation. But till now one thing we can say for sure, KFC has been able to keep its customers highly satisfied and they would come back to KFC for their favourite meal. Through these findings, it is possible to meet the first and second research objectives.

Additionally, for third objective, it can be stated that the strategic planning, of the organisation for meeting the customer’s needs and preferences will be effective to achieve future organisational success. The customer’s satisfaction further provides a scope to the organisation to strengthen their customer base across the global markets and generate long term profitability and sales volume. The major business objective of KFC is to maximise profitability in long run and through successful retention of the consumers by improving satisfaction of the customers in the market, KFC would be able to fulfil the organisational aim and run the business successfully. Through the analysis, it is effective to understand that, retention of the customers for securing future sustainable development of KFC, is mandatory for the firm to improve their operations and efficiency to sustain in the industry. After the analysis and evaluation, it is essential to fulfil the fourth objective, by recommending some suitable suggestion for the organisation through which it is possible to strengthen their customer’s base and satisfy the long run consumers across the international markets. It is mandatory for the company to diversify their products by product diversification strategy, where the company should increase the variety of items available in the restaurant as well as there needs to be a huge variety and innovation in the product portfolio. This further helps the orgnaitaion to impprve product portfolio strategy and satisfies the customers in long run.

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