Chipotle is offering free burritos to prove that their food is safe and E. coli free. They announced last Wednesday their second attempt to reward their customers with free coupons to their selective outlets.
The company says 5.3 million people tried to download their mobile coupons for the free food offer that day as a "rain check." The Chipotle chain in Denver made a huge impact when they offer freebies last February 8, when they closed the stores nationwide for their employees to attend the food safety meeting after an E. coli outbreak brings a downfall on their sales, according to The Gazette.
According to Mark Crumpacker, chief creative and development officer of Chipotle said, "That was our first test to see how much people really wanted to come back to Chipotle." Crumpacker announced it last Wednesday at Retail Tech Conference and the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Consumer.
Since then, the company starts mailing people's houses free coupons to encourage them to eat there. Crumpacker said that Chipotle might change their offer from free coupons to "Buy One, Get One" offers or offer free meals via mobile application in selected regions this summer.
Crumpacker said that it seem like a desperate measure as he sees the strategy in the future. Chipotle executives are worried about how the customers view when they saw empty restaurants.
According to IBTimes, Chipotle has calculated a quarterly net loss after the sales went down by 21.1 percent in February. That decline was improved than in January, when it went down into 34.4 percent.
Ashley McCown, a crisis communication expert and the president of Solomon McCown & Co said "Chipotle needs months and months of clean bills of health before they put this in their rearview mirror." The company have last encountered the problem last week, when one of their workers had E. coli.
Joe Fersedi, an ITG investment research analyst said after the Massachusetts incident "We have to wait to see if management turns on the 'promotion spigot' again."
