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A local fastfood chain is shifting its business thrust on the increasing trend of families with bigger budgets to spend for eating in restaurants or for food delivered at home, a trend brought about by urbanization of Cebu City.
Steve Kokseng, marketing manager of Harbour City Dimsum House Co. Inc., said the rise in trend of people ordering and having their food delivered at home or in the office made them decide to invest in its own delivery contact center.
Kokseng, who declined to give fixed investment figures, said that in 2006, the National Statistics Office study on Family Income and Expenditures Survey showed an increasing trend in the families' budget and spending in eating in a restaurant or having food delivered at home.
?Yes we see other national companies offering deliveries already for a long time already but we didn't realize the need to invest so much on it until we felt that the number of calls we receive were increasing,? Kokseng said.
He said a factor that may have great influence on the trend relative to urbanization is the ever growing role of women in the work place.
?Women are more empowered now even handling top positions in the company which means more time spent at the office than at home. This will lead to a different home management schemes like preparing meals by order and just have it delivered at home,? he said.
Kokseng said that in 2005 they offered delivery service in six of their 12 outlets which included their fastfood chain Dimsum Break, Ding Qua Qua, and Harbour City Dimsum House. They did not invest in common contact numbers.
?What we did before is each of the outlets has their own delivery contact numbers which was inconvenient for our customers. And so we decided to invest and try to have one common number which can easily be remembered,? he said.
Kokseng said they initially outsourced the service to do away with the cost of buying computers and hiring new staff.
Unfortunately, he said, the endeavor turned out more costly than having an in-house crew dedicated to coordinate calls for delivery.
?We found a local software development company that has the module already so we started the project and hire three people,? he said.
Kokseng said that 80 percent of their callers are new customers since they soft launched in November of last year. ?On the average my people can take around 40 to 50 calls per day each or a total of 120 to 150 calls everyday.?
Kokseng said they plan also to launch new products and open their 10th Dimsum Break branch at the Parkmall in Mandaue City in the second quarter of the year.
Harbour City Dimsum House Co., Inc. has 12 food chain outlets around the city.
