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SERVQUAL in Restaurant Industry PDF
SERVQUAL in Restaurant Industry PDF
Executive Summary................................................................................................................................. 1
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 2
Restaurant Industry in India.................................................................................................................... 2
Service Quality (Literature review) ......................................................................................................... 3
Factors influencing Restaurant Services ................................................................................................. 7
Methodology........................................................................................................................................... 8
Results ..................................................................................................................................................... 8
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 11
References ............................................................................................................................................ 12
Executive Summary
The purpose of this study was to find out service quality dimensions which customers expect
in the restaurant industry. The study examines the expectations that customers have towards
restaurants which in turn influences their decision in selecting a restaurant for dining. The five
service quality dimensions were initially broken down into factors. An online survey was
conducted to rank these factors on the basis of importance. The results of the survey were
again built into service dimensions to analyse the findings. Based on the analysis, Assurance
and Reliability dimensions emerged as the two most expected service parameter. Further
Food Freshness and Safe transaction were the two most important parameter under
Assurance dimension. The findings are expected to help the restaurant owners to address
the expectation and improve satisfaction level of their customers.
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Introduction
One of the most popular instrument to ascertain service quality is SERQUAL. As SERVQUAL is
the most utilized model in service quality research and applications, it is important to analyze
how well the SERVQUAL structure can be applied to restaurant services. Originated in 1988
basic perceived service quality is the difference between perceived service and expected
service.
Five dimensions of service quality are tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance,
empathy. Tangibles will include things like physical facility neatness or visually appealing.
Reliability will include time delay, interest and error free. Assurance will include behavior of
employee, employee knowledge. Empathy will include attention given to individual customer,
attention to specific need etc.
Purpose of this study is basically investigating service quality dimensions in restaurants and
factors that will affect customer satisfaction. Fundamental factors contributing to the
customer satisfaction in restaurants include food quality, hygiene, healthiness, physical
provision, layout, furnishing, cleanliness, atmosphere, comfort, service received, speed,
friendliness, and care during the dining experience.
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Restaurant Indusrty
50
40
30
20
10
0
Bangkok
Organised Sector
Jakarta
Mumbai
Series 1
Unorganised Sector
Indians dine much less than population in other countries. Whereas individuals in Mumbai
dines around 6 times in a week there peers in Bangkok, Jakarta dined from 14 to 44 times a
month. India spent $12 annually on dining out compared to $64 in china and around $1868
by Americans. So low per capita spend create tremendous growth opportunity.
Page 3 of 13
Page 4 of 13
their customer. This can be done in many ways that are repeatedly seen by customers as
follow:
By communicating their skills, knowledge and attributes; the providers can help manage
customer expectations and influence their service quality assessment in advance.
EMPATHY (Care about Customers as much as the Service)
Customers may not feel provider employees care about them during delivery of the service
and thus it hurts customer assessments of providers service quality. Providers service
delivery can be as important as how it was done. Provider employees should be trained how
to interact with customers and their end-users by proving interpersonal trainings. Even a brief
session during initial orientation helps. Anything to help them understand their impact on
customers assessment of service quality.
TANGIBLES (Making intangibles into tangible)
Even though this is the least important dimension, appearance and ambience matters.
Service providers will still want to make certain their employees appearance, uniforms,
cleanliness, areas on-site (closets, service offices, etc.) equipment look good. The danger is
for providers to make everything look sharp, and then fall short on reliability or
responsiveness.
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Factors
Description
Physical Environment
Cleanliness
Quick service
Privacy
Price
Location of restaurants
Preferential treatment
S.no
10
11
12
Menu
13
Lady/Gents waitresses
14
Page 7 of 13
Methodology
The purpose of this study is to examine the level of expectations that customers have
regarding the restaurant service. Based on this, an online questionnaire is developed to
collect the data from the students of IIM Kashipur. The survey comprises of different sections
measuring the service quality expectations for attributes such as food quality, restaurant
display, staff behaviour, menu, and level of service. These attributes represent the five
dimensions of service quality: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy.
The sample survey form can be seen in Exhibit 1. Some modifications are made to the service
quality dimensions in order to gauge the expectations of customers in an indirect way. The
modified survey consisted of 27 different factors instead of 22 statements. The 27 service
quality factors are measured on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 = Not Important
At All to 5 = Absolutely Essential. For example, how important is the cleanliness factor in
selection of a restaurant, the respondent has to rank this factor on individual basis.
Results
The results are better than they were expected. A total of 72 responses are collected from
the students of IIM Kashipur. Since all the students fall under the 20-29 age group, the results
can be assumed to be biased i.e. the results from this survey will relate to the expectations of
the youth generation. The results may vary according to different age groups. But since our
respondents lie in 20-29 age category, we will limit the discussion to this category only.
The survey consisted of 27 factors of service quality which indirectly reflect the service quality
dimensions. Since these factors are not complete statements, hence it is difficult to interpret
the expectations of customers by simply studying the results. The results can be seen in Table
1. In order to relate the factors to the service dimensions, we have converted them or in a
way linked them to the items/statements that are considered within those dimensions. For
example the neatness factor is converted into the statement Employees are neat
appearing which fall under the tangible dimension of service quality. Similarly the other
statements have been built around factors mentioned in survey.
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S.No.
Score
Cleanliness
Ambiance
Comfort
Seating arrangement
Food variety
Operating hours
4.44
3.83
4.03
3.46
4.28
3.61
How will you rate the following factors expected from the restaurant
staff?
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Neat-appearing
Responsive
Knowledgeable about the menu items
Gives personal attention
Courteous attitude
Quick in service delivery
Understands customer needs and wants
Handles special requests
4.08
4.38
4.15
3.88
4.07
4.26
3.97
3.86
How will you rate the following factors based on services expected?
15
16
17
18
19
20
4.13
4.31
4.13
4.19
4.57
4.35
How important are the below criteria for desired food quality?
21
22
23
Freshness
Presentation
Taste
4.65
3.82
4.79
Attractive
Readable
Neat and clean
Info about ingredients, method of preparation
3.36
4.15
4.11
3.26
After converting all the factors into the statements, we can now relate them to service quality
dimensions. The results are been shown in Table 2. Some of the modifications that have been
made to obtain the SERVQUAL dimensions are
Some factors are combined into a single statement. For example, Physical facilities
are appealing is built by averaging cleanliness and comfort factor.
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Statement are indirectly related to the factor. For example records are error-free
relate to error- free factor for the service expected.
This exercise of converting factors to dimension statement was totally different. At the start
it was difficult to relate the factors, but soon it was noted that these factors represent
dimensions altogether.
S.No.
Dimensions
Score
3.46
4.10
4.08
3.88
4.31
4.57
4.19
4.13
4.13
4.35
4.13
4.38
3.86
4.65
4.57
4.07
4.15
Page 10 of 13
4.19
3.88
3.97
3.88
3.61
Conclusion
The main objective of this study was to identify the key service quality dimensions that
customers expect from the restaurant industry. There were many limitations to this study.
First of all, the sample size could have been more varied in terms of age group as it only
presented the expectations of younger generation. Secondly, the expectations could have
been matched with the perceptions of the customers by conducting surveys in different
restaurants. But due to lack of good restaurants in Kashipur, the perception part could not be
found. It would have led to gap identification between the expected and perceived service
quality in terms of four different gaps could be analysed. But none the less the results for
expected service quality are also of great use.
This study used a different approach to find out the customers expectations. The dimensions
were factored and those factors are used to form the results. After observing the results, it is
found that Assurance is the strongest dimension that customers expect in this industry.
After assurance, Reliability emerged as the second most expected dimension and the other
factors in the order of expectation are Responsiveness, Empathy, and Tangibles. The
average score for dimensions is mentioned in table 3.
Table 3. Service Quality Dimensions
Dimensions
Average Score
Tangibles
Reliability
Responsiveness
Assurance
3.88
4.26
4.18
4.36
Empathy
3.91
Studying further, it is found that, the most expected parameter among the dimensions is the
Freshness of the food. It is the most rated dimension that means customers had high
expectations for food quality. After that, safe transactions and Employee responsiveness are
the next most expected concern of the customers. These parameters fall under the
Assurance dimension of service quality.
It is important for restaurants operators to pay more attention to providing friendly services
that makes customer feel valued and assured for. This would certainly improve the perception
of customers towards that restaurant and will help in achieving customer satisfaction.
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References
1. Services Marketing - Integrating Customer Focus across the Firm by Valarie A
Zeithami, Mary Jo Bitner, Dwayne D Gremler, Ajay Pandit
2. Perceived service quality in restaurant services: Evidence from Mauritius, Prabha
Ramseook-Munhurrun, University of Technology, Mauritius
3. Measuring service quality in city restaurant settings using DINESERV scale, Suzana
Markovic, Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Management in Opatija, University of
Riijeka, Croatia
4. Applicability of SERVQUAL in restaurants: an exploratory study in a Portuguese
resort, Vera Patricio
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