A hungry man in Houston threatened employees at Popeyes with a handgun on Monday after they told him they didn’t have any chicken sandwiches.
My first reaction: This is NOT Popeyes fault.
Everyone knows: Chicken sandwiches don’t cause violence, people do!
But upon further investigation, Popeyes deserves some blame.
Last month, the fast-food chain introduced its new chicken sandwich with claims that it was tastier than the competition’s.
The product launch sparked loud debates on social media. In one corner, the reigning chicken sandwich champion from Chick-fil-A. In the other corner, the upstart challenger from Popeyes.
My news and social media feeds were flooded with articles and comments from food critics choosing sides. From my perspective, Popeyes won the media fight…
…and the marketing fight.
Customers began to flock to Popeyes.
They lined up out the door.
Clever chicken sandwich scalpers resold the vittles for 5X the retail price.
A huge success, right?
Well…not so much.
I visited Popeyes several times last month (I had to see what all the fuss was about!).
First time: No sandwiches and no idea when they’d have them again.
Second time: No sandwiches and “Come back tomorrow at 11:30. We’ll be out of them by noon.”
Third time (the day after the second time): No sandwiches and “Sorry ‘bout that. We didn’t get the shipment we expected.”
Fourth time: Hallelujah. A sandwich. Pretty good.
Every time: The place was a madhouse. The bathrooms were a mess, out of paper towels and T-P. The soda fountain was a mess. Out of root beer. Out of Coke. Out of Fanta. The tables were a mess (the guy responsible for cleaning them must have been out hunting for chicken sandwiches). The staff was…well…running around like chickens with their heads cut off (sorry, I couldn’t resist).
I don’t condone it, but I can understand how all of this ended in near-violence.
This was a massive systems and operational failure.
And therein lies the moral of this story…
Be ready for growth. Marketing success can quickly turn to business failure if you don’t have the systems in place to support growth. Customers won’t tolerate chaos and broken promises, no matter how tasty your sandwich is.
Thanks for reading.
Tom
MarketVolt
p.s. We help businesses figure out what they sell. Then we help them identify and connect with their target markets so people will listen to what you’re saying. If you want to discuss how to make it happen for your business, email me at tom@marketvolt.com. For no charge and no strings attached, we’ll discuss with you how you’re building email lists, generating new leads and generally finding and connecting with prospects.
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