Key Elements of Success in the Fast Food Industry
by Jagg Xaxx
Success in the fast food industry requires mastery of different parameters than fine dining. Customers who go to a fast food business are looking for speed, convenience and predictability rather than a memorable dining experience. Fast food entrepreneurs who understand this can master these elements of the business and perhaps make a profit.
Branding
McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s are examples of extremely successful fastfood branding. Their signs, logos and slogans are recognizable around the world. Fans of fast food like predictability, and they want to know exactly what they are going to get before they go through the doors, according to the website Customer Service Zone. By providing consistent, easily recognizable and simple branding, a business reassures customers that nothing has changed. Simple slogans that lodge themselves in the brain are repeated endlessly on television and radio commercials, ensuring that when customers see the fast food outlet, they are primed to respond because the brand is already “inside” of them.
Location
Fast food is about convenience, so to be successful a fast food outlet should be located in a high-traffic area, according to the website Bplans. Fast food isn’t considered a destination; customers won’t travel into the countryside for a bag of fries in the same way that they would for a special restaurant experience. By locating outlets in shopping malls and on busy commercial strips, fast food companies gain business and impulse purchases from customers who had no preplanned patronage of the restaurant.
Speed
Fast food that lives up to its name gains more business than fast food that is actually slow. Many people grab fast food on the way to work or to another destination. The reason that drive-through windows are popular is that people don’t even want to take the time to get out of the car. The faster a restaurant can deliver the ordered food, the happier the customer is. Setting up efficient and standardized kitchens and focusing on foods that can be cooked quickly are two of the ways that McDonald’s became so successful in this competitive industry, according to Business Week.
Efficiency
Fast food restaurants run on thin profit margins and make their money by selling lots of product, according to the website Street Directory. In this commercial environment, functioning efficiently is critical. This means minimizing food waste, hiring help at minimum wage and benefiting from economies of scale when purchasing supplies. Every dollar that is unnecessarily spent on operations is a dollar subtracted from profits. Because of high employee turnover in the industry, training regimens for new employees need to be standardized, rapid and effective.
Downloaded from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/key-elements-success-fast-food-industry-24913.html 17 June 2017