New staff sought after complaints
A barrage of complaints from disappointed KFC diners has finally forced the fast food chain’s head office to take action, installing a new area manager and recruiting new staff at the Tahunanui restaurant.
KFC Nelson logged more than 120 negative comments on the national KFC Facebook page and Nelson Weekly has received close to a dozen requests over the past two months from readers, urging the paper to do a story about the state of the restaurant.
Complaints were posted on the Facebook page, describing how slow the service was, that staff didn’t care and chicken was served either uncooked or cold.
A KFC national spokesperson said via a statement to Nelson Weekly that they were aware of the complaints and were working to rectify the situation. “KFC is aware of issues at its Nelson store affecting service levels. We are currently working to address these issues including the recruitment of new staff.”
The statement went on to say that a new area manager will work closely with staff in-store and they are confident that service levels will be “back on track” once they have “filled staffing requirements for the store”. A new store manager was employed six months ago.
Many of those commenting say they prefer to drive to the Motueka store for their KFC fix. “The queues are so long and soooo sloooow we just don’t bother going to KFC Tahuna. Never see staff wiping tables! Had hoped when the new building was opened things would improve but nope,” wrote Pauline Bishell.
Brent Marshall wrote: “The place is disgraceful… several times now we’ve spent more than 20 minutes in the drive thru often to find they are trying to operate out of one window. New Year’s Eve was the best though… a hand scribbled sign on the door said ‘closed cos it’s New Year’s’, and this was at 8.30 in the evening. Crap management and bone idle lazy, rude staff. Mot[ueka] blows them away with good kiwi locals serving.”
KFC says it encourages customer feedback to its area manager to help the store “in achieving the expected levels of customer satisfaction”.
“We would like to thank our Nelson customers for their concern regarding the current situation, and look forward to repaying their support and encouragement.”
