Over a year ago, a food contamination scare lost Chipotle a huge chunk of its customers. In a huge effort to gain back its customer’s trust, Chipotle added chorizo to the menu and began offering free kids meals. Despite all its efforts, however, things still don’t seem to be looking up for the restaurant. For restaurants that have been open for nearly a year, sales have dropped to around twenty-two percent.
While the concern of food contamination could be the main source of customer shortage, executives met Monday to entertain the possibility of another reason. They came to the conclusion that the problem lies with customer service. Longer lines, missing ingredients, and messy dining areas are driving customers farther away from Chipotle.
Chipotle’s new co-chief executive, Steve Ells, stated that, “Over time, we started to make running our restaurants more and more complicated. And on occasion, we lost sight of what really mattered: our customers.” In their meeting, executives also concluded that the company has been spending too much time on things like new hire interviews. Almost half of Chipotle’s 2,100 locations are lacking in customer service.
To better accommodate what they are lacking, the company has begun to create second lines for taking digital orders. This will cut back on the long lines that frustrate customers. Company executives also found that lack of certain food items displeased many customers. The solution to that problem would be better training for Chipotle employees.
These aren’t the only reason that customers seem to be dissuading customers from their favorite burrito chain, but they seem to be contributing factors. Issues notwithstanding, Chipotle executives say they still plan to open 195 more restaurants starting in 2017
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