I have a dirty little
secret. I am addicted to a chain
of restaurants that sells junk food. Really cheap fast food.
No I don't mean
MacDonalds, Burger King or Kentucky Fried Chicken. In fact you would NEVER see
me in any of those places because I have been a strict vegetarian for the last
35 years.
The restaurant
chain I am referring to is a place you might not have heard of, and you have
have probably never visited. I am referring to the Tex-Mex fast food chain
called Taco Bell.
There are only a few
branches of Taco Bell in the entire UK. My nearest branch used to be in
Manchester, meaning it was a 90 mile round drive for me to get my fix.
Recently a branch has
opened up in Bradford, and I often make the 30 mile round trip there, purely to
savour the wonders of their bean burritos, hard shell tacos, cheese
quesadillas, and other yummy cheap Mexican delights.
I first became addicted
to the Bell nearly 30 years ago when I was working in the USA. Travelling
around small-town America as a vegetarian is not easy. There is a Big Mac and a
Burger King on every street corner, all selling an array of meaty burgers.
But apart from Taco
Bell, small-town America has very few options if you want to eat
cheap fast vegetarian food.
Branches of Taco Bell
are commonplace in the USA, and they offer a wide range of vegetarian and vegan
options. Even better, they are prepared to make anything on their menu
vegetarian for you, by simply substituting pinto beans for the meat. Perfect
for a vegetarian Brit living in the backwaters of the United States.
When I returned to the
UK, I spent 4 years working in London, and I was a very frequent visitor to
their (sadly now closed) branch in Leicester Square. At the time it was the only branch in Britain. It was my Saturday night
treat.
Aside from the USA, Taco
Bell are also prevalent in other countries, especially Spain which has 21
branches. Although bizarrely, they have no branches at all in Mexico itself!
Here in the UK, there
are only 9 branches throughout the whole country. I am sure that the reason for
this is that British people are a little bit scared of trying something new.
Especially with cheap
fast food, people want to eat something that is familiar to them. British
people are also a bit frightened about not knowing what to order.
There is also the
potential for embarrassment over pronunciation when placing your order. For
example, how many pople know the correct pronunciation of "quesadillas" or
"frijoles Mexicanos"?
So, in order to try to
get people to try out their food, and keep coming back, Taco Bell has devised
lots of customer loyalty offers and promotions
At recent visits, I have
been given two different types of loyalty card that get stamped on each visit.
For each alternative visit you then get a free item off the menu. In addition,
I have also been given two discount voucher booklets with generous money-off
coupons.
But it doesn't stop
there. In some (but not all) branches they offer 10% discount for people who work in
the same shopping mall. They also do occasional 10% discounts for
students. But it doesn't seem to be at all the branches. And just to confuse you even more, on every till receipt is the offer
of another 20% discount if you go online and do a short customer
survey.
But it gets messy. Very messy. Even more
messy than the food itself!
For some of these
special discounts there is a minimum spend of £3.00. For other discounts the
minimum spend is £2.50. If you do the online survey then you need to use your
discount within 14 days. But the discount booklets seem to have a lifespan of
several months. And the loyalty cards don't seem to have any closing date at
all (unless I have missed something in the small print).
So can these offers be
used in conjunction with each other? Erm...I'm not sure. And I don't think the
staff know either.
I recently used my 20%
customer survey discount at the Manchester branch in conjunction with my
customer loyalty card. But when I tried to do the same thing at the Bradford
branch a few days later, I was told that these two customer incentives couldn't
be used together!!
I got into an argument
with the staff member. Unfortunately he didn't speak very good English and he
didn't understand what I was trying to explain to him about the small-print on
the voucher. In the end I just gave up and paid full price. It was just easier
to pay up, and in any case the food is great value, even without a discount.
But the point about all
this is that Taco Bell has so many
different loyalty offers and discounts, that even their own staff don't seem to
understand them! It wouldn't be so bad if the offers were consistent, but when
you have an array of different closing dates and minimum spend levels, it's not
surprising that people just give up and head for Big Mac.
Of course, this will
never stop me from visiting my beloved Taco Bell. Their food is my drug. I just
wish they would make all their various customer loyalty offers and incentives a
bit more simple.
Moral of this Story
Customer incentives and
discounts are a great way to get people to try out your company's products and
become repeat purchasers. But these incentives need to be easy for the customer
(and your staff) to understand. They also need to be fair and not
contradictory. Finally, the closing dates of any offers need to be clearly
pointed out and consistently applied.