Customers are powerful stakeholders and very important to McDonalds. Without customers McDonalds would not exist. The business depends on good customers and moreover huge quantities of customers for the business to survive and make profit. Customers provide regular sales and revenue. Regular customers are needed for the business to survive. McDonalds should have a range of advertisements to keep the customer alert of new products at McDonalds or just to simply attract the customer. Customers have opinions on how the business operates. They sometimes join together to act as a consumer pressure group. If they are unhappy with the firm’s work, or with the quality of its products, they will stop being customers.

EXPECTATIONS:

The customers expect McDonalds to follow the QSCV system which stands for quality, service, cleanliness and value. The main thing customers want is value for money. This means the food has to be at a reasonable price, for example customers would not come to McDonalds to eat fast foods at a price of something a 3 course meal would offer. The quality of food should be of a very good standard so customers will come regularly to eat (100% chicken etc). Alongside with quality food they also want good customer service and a clean environment to dine at. Customers expect McDonalds to present quality products, fast service, clear communication system, honest information, new services and so on. They would want new systems, offers, promotional products like free gifts and after sale services.

McDonalds have a lot of systems which provide this for example the 99p menu and free tokens. There are internal customers in a business e.g. when one functional area needs a product or service. Customers expect rapid fine customer service. McDonalds ensures that the customers receive this. They try to keep their customers satisfied by providing them with different menus to suit their taste. For example McDonalds has made more changes to last three years then past 28 years because more customers demanded healthier options. McDonalds works really hard to satisfy all stakeholders. It was a challenge to McDonalds when customers raised problems about obesity, salt and fat. McDonald’s sales decreased when customers started wanting healthier options. Treatment should be good.

INFLUENCE: Customers influence businesses by their spending patterns, by what they do or do not buy. McDonalds would be making a huge amount of loss if customers stopped coming, they are a powerful stakeholder as they can run the business down as well as up. They control much of the business therefore are very important. The three main things they are interested in is quality of products, the availability of products and the price.

McDonalds have to make sure that their products satisfy their customers. Good customer service would keep customers coming back. The more the customers the higher the profit. McDonalds have in the past failed to identify the needs of their customers. A couple of years back they suffered great losses due to customers demands changing and requiring healthier options on the menu, unable to receive that from McDonalds customers went elsewhere. McDonalds then had to identify their customer’s needs and make changes to their menu to win back their customers. McDonalds therefore changed their menu and now offer a vast variety in food where there are more healthy options.

Since customers are the most important stakeholders, without whom McDonalds could not survive. McDonalds take customers expectations very seriously and have to respond to these. McDonalds a few years back failed to see these and suffered big losses when their customers went elsewhere to look for their desired goods.

Pressure group:  ROLE This is an organised group of people who share similar interests, and who wish to further their interests by influencing others. They are independent organisations which fight for particular causes. Pressure groups check whether or not McDonalds are doing their job properly and if not they tell McDonalds to stop or change their activities. They have control over a range of areas including pollution, litter, illustrations used by the McDonalds opening hours. There are many examples of pressure groups like Green Peace, Encamps, Amnesty organisation, Vegetarian guides, Earth first etc.

EXPECTATIONS: Different pressure groups have different expectations. First and foremost they expect McDonalds to listen to their needs and to act on these. They expect McDonalds to clean after litter, provide healthy food, and deal with later openings. Litter thrown by McDonald’s customers around the street is known as litter pollution and pressure groups are against this. Pressure groups also dislike late night openings as customers may be vulnerable to abuse or danger. Therefore McDonalds are expected to make sure they abide by laws set up to do with health and safety.