Stuck in a Rut at the Hut?

Starbucks stays on top, Pizza Hut drops in customer-satisfaction report.

By Christine Lafave, Associate Editor -- Restaurants & Institutions, 5/15/2007

It may brand itself as having “America’s Favorite Pizza,” but Dallas-based Pizza Hut is no overall customer favorite, according to new consumer research. The company’s customer-satisfaction score dropped 5.3% from the first quarter of 2006 to the first quarter of 2007, according to a just-released American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) report. Among 10 limited-service restaurant chains studied, Pizza Hut was the only one to register a significant change in customer satisfaction.

An analysis accompanying the index, which is produced by the University of Michigan, speculates that Pizza Hut parent company Yum! Brands of Louisville, Ky., bears at least some responsibility for the decline in customer satisfaction. “It looks like the co-branding of Pizza Hut with other Yum! Restaurants—especially Taco Bell—might be eroding the Pizza Hut brand in the sense that it is becoming less a dine-in and more a traditional fast-food restaurant,” the analysis states.

In R&I’s annual Consumers’ Choice in Chains survey, Pizza Hut placed fifth overall among eight major pizza chains in 2005 and 2006. Additionally, customers ranked it No. 7 for value last year, down from No. 6 in 2005, placing it above only Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza of Irving, Texas. The chain’s overall score in the R&I survey dropped 3.2% from 2005 to 2006.

Pizza Hut fared better in Zagat’s 2007 Fast Food Chains survey. It garnered third place in the overall ranking of mega-chains (chains that have at least 5,000 outlets). Overall ratings were calculated as the average of a chain’s ratings for food, facilities and service. Wendy’s International Inc. of Dublin, Ohio, took first place overall among mega-chains and was rated Most Popular Mega-Chain; among all chains, Richmond Heights, Mo.-based Panera Bread Co. received top overall honors and the Most Popular title.

American Customer Satisfaction Index highlights:

• Starbucks Corp. of Seattle and Wendy’s International Inc. of Dublin, Ohio, topped the limited-service restaurants list with a customer-satisfaction score of 78. Oak Brook, Ill.-based McDonald’s landed at the bottom (as it has every year since 1994, the first year the index was compiled) with a score of 64.
• Full-service restaurant chains make their first appearance in the ACSI this year. Scores ranged from 75 for Dallas-based Chili’s Inc. to 80 for Orlando, Fla.-based Olive Garden.