Promotional Strategies And Customer Perceptions: A Mixed Research Essay On Pizza Club.

Quantitative and Qualitative Research Design

Discuss about the Analysis of Sales and Promotion Schemes of Pizza Club.

Promotional strategies and the decision making process that goes into its determination is a task which requires a lot of insights. Insights such as these come from knowledge regarding customer preference and emerging trends in the market. Quantitative data analysis has proven to be an invaluable tool to serve this purpose of providing insights about the market, its challenges and scopes (Cooper & Schindler, 2014). The customer service industry is vulnerable to customer perceptions which in itself is complex, subjective and contextual. Therefore traditionally qualitative analysis had been used to gather insights in the associated fields as well. Mixed research studies have therefore been found to be valuable in providing both hard core fact based generalized insights as well as contextual in depth understanding of the phenomena being studied ( McCusker & Gunaydin, 2015).

The company under study is one whose business is based on customer service. This paper is a study of the ensuing customer perceptions in response to the existing schemes as designed by the company Pizza club. It also explores tentative modifications to the existing schemes based on the information provided by the participants from whom data has been collected. The study follows a mixed research design of both quantitative and qualitative methods and in addition to the quantitative analysis conducts a thematic analysis on the transcripts of a series of interviews of customers who use products and services of the brand.

The aim of this study is to gauge the ratings and prevalent opinions of customers and then use the results of the analysis to identify key strengths and weaknesses that exist in the promotional and operational levels of the Pizza Club and provides some recommendations on the basis of insights gained off of the analysis.

The study used a mixed researched method using both a quantitative approach as well as a qualitative approach to gather and deliver insights regarding the promotional schemes and sales of the brand Pizza Club.

The quantitative part of the study was done using data collected through a survey questionnaire that was designed utilised a set of closed ended questions enquiring about customer history with respect to the brand, opinions, preferences and recommendations. The questionnaire and the data collected have been included in the appendix section. The questionnaire was distributed among the customers and twenty five responses were received on the basis of which some quantitative measure were computed to get a picture of the scenario under study (Heeringa, West & Berglund, 2017). The variables upon which data have been gathered include, “Where have you heard about The Pizza Club?”, which was nominal scale with “advertisement”, “social media”, “word of mouth” and “others” as categories, “Are you satisfied with The Pizza Club’s services and products?”, which was ordinal with “not satisfied”, “good” and “excellent” as ordered categories, “Are you satisfied with the different deals of The Pizza Club?”, which was also ordinal with four ordered categories, namely, “ dissatisfied”, “average”, “satisfied” and “very satisfied”, “How would you rate the quality of The Pizza club products?”, which was ordinal with four ordinal levels, namely, “not good”, “good”, “very good” and “excellent”, “Compared to other companies what do you think about the price levels at The Pizza Club?”, which was again ordinal with “low”, “average” and “high” as levels, “What makes The Pizza Club stand out from the competition?”, which was a nominal variable with “taste”, “quality” and “price” as categories, “How long have you used products from The Pizza Club?” , with four ordinal levels, “never”, “less than six months”, “between six months and a year” and “more than a year”, “How likely are you to recommend our products/service to others?” , with three ordered levels, namely, “likely”, “unlikely” and “very unlikely”, “Please suggest how we can improve our products/services to better serve you?” which has listed nominal categories, viz., “Improve quality of food”, Improve aesthetics of surroundings”, “Increase quantity of the food” and “Decrease the price of services and products” and finally, the last variable was, “Are you satisfied with our delivery service?”, which had four ordinal levels, namely, “Dissatisfied”, “Average”, “Satisfied” and “Very Satisfied” (Rumsey & Unger, 2015). Additionally an interview was conducted on selected participants, the transcripts of which was used to conduct qualitative analysis to get an in depth context based understanding of how the present schemes of pizza club might affect the customers and how it could be improved. The transcripts of the three participants considered for this stage of the analysis have been also provided in the appendix section of the paper. A thematic analysis of the data was done through grounded theory approach.

Results of Data Analysis

The data was collected from the participants after letting them know of the motivations and implications behind the rationale of the study and acquiring consent to use data contributed by them as per ethical guidelines (Neuman & Robson, 2014). The customers involved in the quantitative data collection process were assured of anonymity and their identities were not retained and participants of the qualitative interviews were made fully aware of the reasons for the interview (Moser & Kalton, 2017). 

The data collected via the survey questionnaire, an exploratory analysis was made and the descriptive summary measures were used to understand the position of Pizza Club as per the perceptions of the respondent customers as has been discussed in Cox (2017). The findings and implications are discussed hence.

Based upon the data collected via the questionnaire, it was found that 44% of the respondents had come to know about The Pizza club through advertisements and 28% had come to know about it through word of mouth. It is thus inferred that the advertisement campaign had been successful in gaining attention of its potential customers since out of all the customers majority have reported to have been made aware of Pizza club via its advertisement campaign(Ragsdale, 2014).  Additionally, it seems that Pizza Club has been managing to gain considerable attention through recommendations by its customers as well. The following chart depicts the situation in this light.

The performance of the business in regards to customer satisfaction was found to be good, with 20% of the respondents of the survey rating their satisfaction with Pizza Club’s services and products as “Excellent”, 68% rating it as “Good” and only 12% rating it as “Not Satisfactory”. The following chart ,computed in MS Excel, graphically shows the situation.

Only 8% out of all the respondents of the survey questionnaire reported to be dissatisfied with the different existing deals by Pizza Club. It is thus suggested that pizza club has been performing well in this aspect of its marketing scheme.

Quality wise The Pizza Club has been observed to be rated positively by the respondents with 8% rating is as excellent, 28% rating it as very good and 56% as just good and only 8% as not good.

For people who were dissatisfied, the causes for their dissatisfaction were. Based on the suggestions for the Pizza Club, 35.71% of the respondents claiming that improving aesthetics of the surroundings of the restaurant and improving the quality of the food was found to be the top suggestions made by the customers who rated themselves neutral or dissatisfied by the Pizza Club.

Recommendations

The delivery service by the Pizza Club was however rated in a more favourable light by the less than satisfied customers suggesting that the cause for dissatisfaction was unlikely to be the delivery service. Only 14.29% out of all less than satisfied customers rated the delivery service as dissatisfactory.

Again considering the opinions of the customers participating in the survey who reported that they were satisfied or more than satisfied, it was found that Price was rated as the foremost reason that they feel the Pizza Club has an edge over its competitors with 54.55% of the respondents claiming so, followed by taste of its food with 27.27% of votes and then quality with 18.18%.

Three customers of the Pizza club were chosen to be a part of an interview to understand in depth their feelings about the chain of restaurants regarding their experience as a customer of the Pizza club so far. Following the directives for identifying the relevant topics in thematic analysis as per Glaser(2016), the participants were asked a series of open ended questions regarding how many times they had visited a pizza club restaurant before and with whom and their preferences in terms of the restaurant’s services, products and recommendations.

The transcripts were studied and based upon the identified similarities and notable discrepancies in the answers, using techniques of open coding, axial coding and selective coding five themes were identified that underlay the conversations between interviewer and interviewees (Graue, 2015).The themes identified upon analysis of the transcripts has been discussed in the following section.

The five main themes found to be emergent from the conversations of the participants are, Value for price product related to the pricing scheme of the pizza club in comparison to the quality of their products, Services in relation to the quality of their delivery service, service time and service quality in general, Offers and Discounts in relation to the offers they provide, Outlet facilities in relation to the general facilities of their physical outlets and the Rising demand for pizza which relates to the market opportunities of their line of business.

Value for price product

A frequent point that came up within the course of the interview process was how Pizza club offers pizza which are affordable and yet maintain a quality standard product which taste good. The participants all agreed upon the point that Pizza club products are “pocket-friendly” and “tasty”. A participant in relation to this point said,

Conclusion

“The price is very reasonable according to the quality of pizza, which the pizza club delivers. I have visited other well-known pizza shops but they charge higher prices for the same amount of pizza with same quality compare to pizza club”

Considering the prices of the other competitors, the participants seemed to unanimously agree that Pizza club stands out as the top choice when prioritizing taste subject to quality and price of the product. Another interviewee expressed this point in the following quotes,

“I like its taste. Based on its price, quality and taste, pizza of the pizza club is better compare to the same product of other shops.”

“Cheese oozing pizzas with soft crust and outstanding combination of quality service at a pocket friendly price…”

Services

Regarding the quality of service of the Pizza club, a number of aspects were discussed. Delivery service, Service time and behaviour of the servers and employees with the customers were all brought under discussion. It was revealed from the analysis of the conversations that Pizza Club maintains quality delivery service which is fast and also includes incentive offers. It therefore received praise from the participants.

“They deliver items within time and sometimes they give free beverages to their regular customers and offer free delivery charges.”

The service time however was criticised to be slow, although behaviour of the employees were praised to be accommodating and pleasant.

“However, I would recommend that if pizza club could reduce their service time, then it would have helped the firm largely to serve large number of people at comparatively lower time.”

It seems that although the participants felt a bit discomfort regarding the delayed service time at the restaurants themselves, the employees managed to make up for it by their good behaviour while tending to the customers. This was also quoted to be one of the reasons that a participant felt that draws new customers and keeps old ones as expressed from the following quotes,

“They always try to maintain a good relation with their old and new customers.”

“…where employees are always ready to serve you with their best possible service.”

A notable point is that although service time for customers visiting the restaurant outlets was negative, the one for delivery and take away was quite positive, suggesting that a lot of their orders are ordered in by the customers.

Another topic frequently addressed and that became emergent as a theme in the interviews was the incentives, discounts and offers that Pizza Club indulges its customers in. It was emphasized that Pizza Club has impeccable record of treating its customers well and it is further supported by the revelation that it pays particular attention to its regular employees by providing complementary services to its regular employees and regularly indulges its customers with discounts, offers and deals. A regular customer thus revealed in his interview,

“They deliver items within time and sometimes they give free beverages to their regular customers and offer free delivery charges.”

“…they provide some discounts on pizza to their customers for one hour daily.”

Outlet facilities

Regarding the available facilities of the Pizza Club’s physical outlets, the participants expressed that in general the outlets are small and lack space. However not all viewed it in a bad light, a participant in particular referred to the outlets as “quaint” and private due to the limited number of people the outlet accommodates. This however was viewed as inconvenient by others owing to their lack of opportunity to take big groups consisting of friends and family to visit and enjoy.

“Their service is very good. However they could work on improving the space of their restaurants as they are often too small and thus it sometimes becomes a problem when I’m visiting with a large group”

“..it should have outlets with larger area. ”

Another point that was suggested by a particular participant was that the menu could use a bit more variety of vegetarian items to accommodate those who prefer it.

“As people are becoming very health conscious and some customers prefer to eat veg-items, it is essential for this shop to enhance product varieties.”

Rising demand for pizza

A very obvious theme that emerged out of the interview transcripts is the increasing preference for pizza that all the participants expressed. The participants revealed themselves to be frequent consumers of the product and emphasized their love and appreciation for the food item.

“Pizza club is going to be very popular within few months as the demand of their pizza is increasing significantly.”

Relating this them it is thus evident that the restaurant chain would do well to increase the number of outlets. This was also pointed out by another participant who said,

“Hence, to meet their increasing demand, it is beneficial for them to open new outlets in some other cities and also at the same city, which has large population”

Reviewing the aforementioned themes, a theory about the core underlying picture was identified (Zhang & Wildemuth, 2016).It seems that strong points of Pizza Club include its fast and efficient delivery services, however perhaps this is associated with the small size of its outlets and delayed service time there, since much of the effort is spent after meeting the delivery orders. Pizza being a product which is fast gaining popularity among the people is thus becoming a lucrative business avenue and this opens up a lot of opportunities for expansion for their business.

Conclusions

The study hence concludes that Pizza Club is dependent on it delivery orders to a large extent .It is affordable and maintains taste and reasonable quality for the price it offers. It has been relatively successful in gaining customers through its promotional drives. Owing to growing demand for pizza, Pizza Club has a good potential for business growth provided it works on its weaknesses, especially by focussing its attention on its services and improving the available facilities at its restaurant outlets.

Based on the results and conclusions it is suggested that Pizza club would benefit from designing its outlets so that it is more spacious and could accommodate more customers and include special facilities for children and pets. It could also employ more people to tend to each outlet in order to balance the delivery orders and the customers present at its restaurants. This way it could improve its service time for the in-restaurant service. Additionally, it is recommended that they expand their chain of restaurants and establish more outlets around the city to meet the growing demand for pizza.  

References

Cooper, D. R., & Schindler, P. S. (2014). Business research methods.

Cox, V. (2017). Exploratory data analysis. In Translating Statistics to Make Decisions (pp. 47-74). Apress, Berkeley, CA.

Glaser, B. G. (2016). Open coding descriptions. Grounded Theory Review, 15(2), 108-110.

Graue, C. (2015). Qualitative data analysis. International Journal of Sales, Retailing & Marketing, 4(9), 5-14.

Heeringa, S. G., West, B. T., & Berglund, P. A. (2017). Applied survey data analysis. Chapman and Hall/CRC.

McCusker, K. & Gunaydin, S., (2015). Research using qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods and choice based on the research. Perfusion, 30(7), 537-542.

Moser, C. A., & Kalton, G. (2017). Survey methods in social investigation. Routledge.

Neuman, W. L., & Robson, K. (2014). Basics of social research. Pearson Canada.

Ragsdale, C. (2014). Spreadsheet modeling and decision analysis: A practical introduction to business analytics. Nelson Education.

Rumsey, D. J., & Unger, D. (2015). U Can: statistics for dummies. John Wiley & Sons.

Zhang, Y., & Wildemuth, B. M. (2016). Qualitative analysis of content. Applications of social research methods to questions in information and library science, 318.