How Dare KFC Opened their New Resto During This Pandemic!?— UI/UX Study Case
Why I entitled this article so asdfghjkl? You’ll see.
Note: I hope this article could be taken as constructive input for KFC and other restaurant services in the future. And also can make fast-food restaurants evaluate their systems during this pandemic.
Now, let’s open our topic for today…
Indonesia, especially Jakarta, is now in Large Scale-Social Restrictions (LSSR, or in Indonesian is PSBB). This kind of community quarantine restrictions still gives a privilege for people to go out but only with health protocol. This is the way that the Indonesian gov takes to keep the Indonesian economy standing still during this COVID-19. For reference, you may see that topic here.
What is come to your mind, if a big brand company, during this quarantine, opening their new resto with good digital promotion strategy so far ago and ready to give cool gifts for their first 400 customers who come to their resto? Yes, this is what happened with KFC’s new resto, KFC Naughty by Nature, which promotes healthy foods.
As someone who ever lived for years in Jakarta, I know how most of the Jakartans are like. Most of us always nailed our eyes on smartphones, especially on social media, and KFC knows how to brand their new product. Yes, by social media. KFC knows too that most of the Jakartans are fast food lovers and the hype-follower. I mean, whenever something brand new or viral things happened, especially foods and instagrammable places, Jakartans always be there like the waves of people.
And the result? A big crowd! People were queueing inside to the outside of the building, and need around 1.5–3 hours more per person for queueing and waiting for the meals! This is when Jakartans enthusiasm collides with restriction protocols. But I can’t lie that their new resto and their healthy foods look so damn attractive! *my Jakartan soul raised up*
I have concerns with my people besides the 3 hours queueing. It is about the crowd during this pandemic. But they still want to see, taste the food, and take some selfies in this lux place.
So, in this case, I want to bridge between my concern about LSSR protocols and the Jakartans’ enthusiasm to keep coming to this new resto.
My points: I can’t blame both customers nor KFC. Customers are still following the LSSR protocols and KFC hadn’t expected that the customers will come as massive as this.
May it inspire other resto app or online food delivery apps to add this feature into their system because we can’t control our customers’ need-to-come feeling.
And still, during this pandemic, it’s better for you to order it with online food delivery. Or make your healthy food in your kitchen, that’s the best tho.
What are they mostly talking about?
Exactly, queue time
Dozens of customers queued for 1,5–3 hours just for taking away. It was just the same case for customers who had their seats for dine-in but the meals weren’t coming yet. The employees were so busy with a bunch of visitors.
Besides that, they are talking about some customers need a long time for reading the menu since it is a new resto with a new menu. This case extends the queue time.
Reservation services
They didn’t give clear information about how to reserve. Besides that, bad customer experience for Whatsapp reservation service. Some customers said that the admin of Whatsapp was so slow in responding. Some said that they’re waiting for the reply for hours, a day, or even days.
No calories information
No information about food calories. People with a healthy lifestyle are still anxious to buy here although this place has a slogan, “Pleasure without guilt.”
Problems were mostly in KFC Ordering Practical
We don’t know, is it still in their marketing strategy where they tried to read the waves during this COVID-19 or what? But some lacks are nosed at some days after the opening day:
- No drive-thru system
- Not registering their products to local online food delivery
- No reservation system at that time (But at the next day they open reservation via Whatsapp)
- Late to announce some system changes
Impacts:
- Those queued customers made a “U-turn” and moved to another competitor’s restaurant, and other prospective customers wouldn’t come there because they read all the horrible feedbacks on KFC NbN’s social media
- KFC NbN gave some free meals and/or drinks as compensation to their customers. Yes, what a cost
- KFC NbN got warned by the government because this moment baited a wave of people during this COVID-19
- KFC NbN got a poor customer experience valued by some customers, although the support and enthusiasm are still waving for KFC NbN
Objectives
- Make this place less crowded, especially during this COVID-19. Just ordering the meals from your place and take your meals here, if you still want to see this place. No queue.
- Make a system that flexible and can assurances the customer food ordering and table booking services.
- Make our customers experience the “pleasure without guilt” when they eat our foods and drinks.
Generate my Idea
Persona
Persona’s Storyboard
Designing Time!
Sketching
System Flow
Low Fidelity Prototype
High Fidelity Prototype
I believe that when we do the copywriting on our app, we do bring the soul of hospitality into our app.
Preview
Conclusion
Due to time constraints, the research and consequents assumptions are based on my personal experience and a small amount of data from social media.
Deep analysis and additional testing needs to be conducted in order to refine and validate the solution.
Thanks for reading! Hopeful you enjoyed this case study. If you have any feedback, I’d like to hear from you. Let’s connect on Linkedin or email me sergiussarmose1234@gmail.com
