Breakdown On Cracker Barrel's Social Media (Tik Tok and Instagram)

    In this blog post I will be taking a look at cracker barrel.  I believe it would have some interesting customer-PR interactions. 

    Cracker Barrel's value proposition is a "friendly home-away-from-home" old American style restaurant "all at a fair price".  Their mission statement is "pleasing people" and they provide people with home-style food and shopping from clothes to furniture.  

    I spent around 15 minutes each looking through the posts and comments on both instagram and Tik Tok and actually had a hard time finding negative comments, except for one... A user on Tik Tok by the name of @Shark1833 had commented on a Cracker Barrel Tik Tok about their fried items they serve stating that "I never was seated to experience this".  Cracker Barrel followed that comment up with a check in saying "We're sorry to hear that. We'd like to know more about your experience.  Please click the link in our bio to reach our guest relations team."  This is the most baseline response to a unhappy customer and honestly I think its rather weak of them.  Rerouting the customer to another channel definitely makes the process of expressing their issue more challenging and less rewarding.  Other than this very weak but not unreasonable response to an unhappy customer I have only found positive comments.  Such as Tik Tok User @kylie_hop3 who said "been eating here since I was 2 years old and have a my birthday dinner here almost every birthday (with a heart emoji at the end)".  This was followed up by Cracker Barrel with a reply saying "we love being part of your special days (birthday cake emoji)". This is a very positive comment and hows the customer relation that Cracker Barrel has because of their "home-style" marketing which makes them feel like a family favorite.  The response from cracker Barrel is also a very positive reply and works well with the comment to make them feel relatable and not just a large corporate restaurant.  The final comment I found was a positive comment on a Cracker Barrel Instagram post about their classic Fried pickle appetizer.  Instagram user @joan_from_ohio says "love the dill pickle dipping sauce that is served with them" to which Cracker Barrel replies "we agree they pair well! We are glad that you love it (yellow heart emoji)".  This is another positive connection between Cracker barrel and a customer, I think that the way Cracker Barrel makes use of simple words like "love" they are driving more into that "home-away-from-home" family feeling that they provide in their value proposition.  While cracker Barrel does advertise their none food items it is rare to find a post involving them, instead opting to advertise their unique home-style food such as the fried pickles I mentioned earlier.  

    Cracker Barrel are attempting to expand sales while also building brand recognition (which they do already have) but I feel like they aren't succeeding in getting their name out there as much as they are just rerouting their image to people who are already longtime customers.  While Cracker Barrel advertises as a national brand their chain actually isn't that well spread with a majority of their restaurant being located in the south east of America.  I feel as though while they are trying to expand sales they aren't reaching a wider base of customers because of their lack of extra stores and their brand name already being recognizable but not active in the large home-style food industry.  A restaurant I would compare Cracker Barrel to is Applebees, which doesn't have the same "home-style" southern love of cracker barrel which would explain why while Applebee's is worth 0.52 billion, Cracker Barrel is worth 0.92 billion.  

    I think in terms of responding to customers Cracker Barrel has done a good job working towards positive relations and a good brand image.  They responded to positive comments properly but really don't go the extra mile responding to negative comments (though they do respond to them and do apologize as seen in the one negative comment I could find).  I would say Cracker Barrel handles their social media fairly well but aren't doing anything unique in terms of content to really create larger growth, instead opting to stick with their family style and consistent food content.