Coop: Market Research

MGT 453 The Chicken Coop The Chicken Coop is a chicken restaurant established in **** by ****. Their focus has always been on offering quality chicken meals for value-based prices, and their competitors include fast food giant KFC. The company’s current goal is to halt and reverse the sales slump it is currently facing, and to create growth for itself in order to battle the current decline in market share and sales. The major problem with achieving this is that the company has no idea why sales are currently falling. There is conflict in the company both as to why this could possibly be happening and, therefore, how to find further information. One executive, McMichael, believes that the slump is sales is an issue of taste (current menu) and quality controls. Another executive, Wallace, believes that the major issue is of brand and how the company is perceived by consumers. Finally, the CEO Buckmeister is unsure of the exact issue, although he is nervous about making any major changes and believes that all the company needs are a more close eye kept on the store and some basic customer feedback. In total, the Coop has a rather daunting problem: limited money and an important investment decision on how to successfully research their problem in order to attain their goal of reversing their sales slump. There are three possible routes for facing this problem that have been suggested, in addition to the ever-present option of doing nothing. The first alternative was suggested by McMichael, and is focused on quality control. It would involve a taste test that would recruit loyal customers to come to the R&D center and sample the Coop’s food. The customer would also sample competitor’s food and would not be informed that this was a Coop-sponsored R&D project. Her plan would also involve a rigorous and systematic quality inspection program enacted by fake “customers” who could check things such as the quality of service and food, but could not necessarily do things