According to a customer satisfaction report, burger giant McDonald’s is the major restaurant chain with the worst sales in the United States.
In the evaluation conducted by the American Customer Satisfaction Index Organization (ACSI), McDonald’s received the lowest ACSI rating of all full-service and fast-food restaurants.
At the other end of the scale, Chick-fil-A secured the top spot for the tenth year in a row, cementing its position as the king of fast-food customer satisfaction.
Steakhouse giants Longhorn and Texas Roadhouse both increased by four percent, securing first place in the full-service restaurant category, while Denny’s and Red Robin took last place.
Calculating ACSI results
The annual study is based on responses from nearly 15,000 customers surveyed between April 2023 and March 2024.
As part of the study, customers were asked about the American restaurants with the largest market share and rated each with an ACSI score between 0 and 100.
To calculate a company’s ACSI, the organization considers several principles of customer service and customer experience, including customer expectations, quality perception, value perception, customer complaints, and customer value.
In addition, the ACSI uses a number of CX benchmarks to examine year-over-year industry trends, as shown in the graphic below:
So let’s take a closer look at the report’s findings and find out what we can learn from them about the CX restaurant industry.
What guests want
As you can see from the chart above, while McDonald’s may be underperforming compared to its competitors, overall customer satisfaction in the full-service restaurant industry has improved since last year. All benchmarks have increased except for the two benchmarks related to mobile apps.
The situation is similar in the fast food sector. Although the increases are less pronounced, the benchmarks have increased or remained the same in all areas.
In fact, the overall ACSI score for fast food increased by one percent year-on-year, while the full-service sector improved by four percent, making it the best performing sector – ahead of breweries, soft drink manufacturers and mobile operators.
These numbers are all the more impressive given that restaurant prices are rising due to inflation. So how are these restaurants managing to increase customer satisfaction despite the economic turmoil?
First things first: value is key. The report describes how lower-income customers are spending less at restaurants and increasingly viewing dining out as a special treat rather than a regular event. This is leading to a need for companies to focus more on value/special offer options.
In fact, restaurants like Olive Garden and Chilli’s have seen significant year-over-year improvement, thanks in part to their cost-cutting and price-focused approach. This is especially true for the latter, as the report claims there has been “speculation about whether eating at Chili’s may be less expensive than at some fast-food restaurants.”
Despite the success of companies like Olive Garden, Chilli’s and IHOP, the general customer base of restaurants has shifted towards higher earners and college graduates, as Forrest Morgeson – Associate Professor of Marketing at Michigan State University and Research Director Emeritus at ACSI – explained:
“In both full-service and fast-food restaurants, customers tend to be higher-income and college-educated.
“Customers are forced to choose between grocery shopping and restaurants. At full-service restaurants, price increases have been about twice as high as at the grocery store over the past year, and at fast-food and fast-casual restaurants, prices are three times as high as at the grocery store.
Since eating out seems to be a luxury for customers, restaurants that stand out from the competition in terms of quality and value for money have a competitive advantage.
Despite the similarities between fast food and in-service, there were also some telling differences.
Perhaps most notable is the impact of technology.
As discussed above, mobile app ordering was the only area where full-service saw a year-over-year decline. Fast food, on the other hand, excelled in both mobile app quality (86) and reliability (85) and order accuracy (86)—suggesting that technological advances have improved order fulfillment accuracy.
Although McDonald’s would undoubtedly have preferred to see its name higher up the list, the company still managed to record an increase of three percent compared to the previous year.
Due to the unstable economy, customers are more cautious about visiting full-service restaurants. Fast-food chains that can provide higher customer satisfaction through value and quality could have a good chance of capitalizing on this restaurant trend.
More McNews
Last month, McDonald’s announced plans to end its experiment with AI drive-thru ordering systems.
Since partnering with IBM in 2021, McDonald’s has implemented automated voice bots in over 100 U.S. restaurants to increase efficiency, but the company has now confirmed that the automated order-taking technology will be removed from all locations by July 26, 2024.
Although McDonald’s highlights the positive aspects and claims an 85% accuracy rate for its AOT program, McDonald’s AI-powered drive-ins have come under fire due to viral TikTok videos highlighting flaws.
These errors included an order that mistakenly added over $250 worth of McNuggets and an AI agent that confused ice cream with ketchup and butter.
McDonald’s has not confirmed whether these publicized issues influenced its decision to discontinue the program, while IBM continues to defend the quality of its AOT technology.
