Index IntroductionBackground and ContextChallengesSolutionsCommunication TacticsResultsStrengthsWeaknessesRecommendationsIntroductionThe popular fast food company KFC was forced to temporarily close hundreds of food outlets in February 2018 in the UK due to a shortage of chicken deliveries. This problem arose when the company changed its delivery contract from Bidvest to DHL and QSL. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Background and Context KFC is an American fast food chain founded in 1930 by "Colonel Harland Sanders" in "Northern Kentucky". It was initially known as Kentucky Fried Chicken and opened its first franchise in "Salt Lake City, Utah" in 1952. It is world famous for its delicious fried chicken. It is the second largest fast food company in the world after McDonald's. Its finger-licking good franchises can be found in 136 countries with nearly 23,000 locations. In the second week of February 2018 KFC changed its delivery contact in Britain to DHL, a company owned by Germany's Deutsche Post, which put the company in the throes of shortages in chicken delivery. Some claim a pick was spotted at the delivery depot where chicken was going to waste because trucks were left waiting for hours before entering the company's new delivery site in Rugby. The Chamber claimed that the site was being used to store chicken before it was signed up for this purpose, however, KFC's transport contract worker, DHL, had since signed up. KFC said it was doing everything it could to "maintain a strategic distance from" nourishment waste and DHL said it was attempting to manage the issue. There is a website called “wired.co.uk” which published a blog titled “The inside story of the major KFC chicken shortage in 2018”. This blog presents the fact that – “around 01.40am on February 14, a collision involving seven vehicles took place between junctions two and three of the M6. A man was killed and two others injured. Police closed the area between the two junctions to investigate and eventually made arrests a man suspected of causing death by dangerous driving. Shortly afterwards, two trucks collided near junction one, although neither driver was injured. These three junctions are in the vicinity of Rugby, where the warehouse is located of DHL. With its trucks getting stuck in traffic as soon as they left the depot and nowhere else to send deliveries from, the delays that would lead to KFC chicken shortages began here.” The company began running out of chicken products. Prior to the transformation of this delivery contact, all supplies to UK KFC restaurants were delivered by Bidvest, a South African owned distributor. United Kingdom, On February 16, 2018, disappointed KFC customers posted on social media about the unexpected closure of some KFC grocery stores (thesun.co .uk, 2018). This trend was followed across Britain and it became known that hundreds of KFC food outlets were closed. Signs in store windows read: “Sorry, we're closed. We deliver fresh chicken to our restaurants, but today we had some delivery issues. We wouldn't want to open without offering our full menu, but we will return to the fry shop as soon as possible." In the meantime, no one had noticed what was happening. Then, on February 17, 2018, KFC confirmed the news that restaurants were running out of chicken. A totalof 562 KFC grocery stores were closed during a weekend outage, this number was up to 646 on Sunday evening. KFC released a list of a total of 338 of the 900 outlets still operating Monday evening. Few of them worked with limited offers only. This crisis was so complicated that even the company was unable to provide any statement on when this issue would be resolved. Challenges The passion for fried chicken was so strong in people's minds that they were anxiously waiting for KFC to get back on track. Others began switching to other companies in the food chain such as McDonald's and Burger King. This situation has been nothing less than a nightmare for KFC, because it is the customers who help a company touch the heights of success. Therefore, it was a challenge for KFC to maintain public trust. This problem was taking on the appearance of a crisis and the company's reputation was collapsing in the eyes of the people. It has been very challenging for the company to maintain a good image in the minds of fried chicken lovers. People started mocking the company in different ways. Famous comedian Aurie Styla from London wrote on his Twitter: "How can you be out of the one thing you are known for selling?". Danielle Harold wrote on February 20, 2018 "So KFC is just a chip shop now." Similarly, Helen wrote on February 19, 2018 “How can Kentucky Fried Chicken run out of chicken? Next thing you know, McDonald's will run out of Donalds. There were many regular customers who regularly went to KFC to have at least one meal a day, and they started calling the police and reporting this situation. The police were tired of these types of calls. To stop this the 'Tower Hamlets Police' posted on their tweeter “Please don't call us about the #KFCCrisis – it's not a police matter if your favorite restaurant doesn't serve the menu you want”. It has gone so viral on Twitter that this tweet has currently received more than 20,000 likes and has been retweeted nearly 12,000 times (Barr, 2018). It has been very challenging for KFC to deal with these social media campaigns. Solutions In March 2018 KFC returned to its original chicken delivery recipes by reconnecting with Bidvest following last month's supply fallout with DHL. To manage the social campaign KFC reacted by apologizing with full page newspaper adverts from the famous marketing team and agency Mother London. KFC used public relations strategies via web-based networking media, explicitly attracting customers on Twitter. #KFCCrisis began to spread on Twitter, so the organization used online life strategies to control the story of further damage to the brand. “To put it simply, KFC tweeted: we have chicken, we have restaurants, but we were having trouble putting it together.” Another tweet shortly after the emergency contained a funny realistic play on a nursery rhyme. The tweet assured customers that the Colonel was working on it, and the graphic exclaimed: "The chicken crossed the street, but not for our restaurants." Communication Tactics To manage social media campaigns, KFC responded with full-page newspaper ads showing a bucket of chicken with its KFC Logo rearranged to “FCK.” The accompanying text read: "WE ARE SORRY. A chicken restaurant without chicken. Not ideal... Thank you for your patience with us," KFC also added: "we hugely apologize to customers, especially those who they went out of their way to find us and unfortunately we were closed. Huge thanks to our KFC team members and our franchise partners for working tirelessly to improve the situation.