Relationship between restaurant management and customer satisfaction

Businesses did not always place customers in the center of their operations. On the contrary, the traditional organizational structure had stakeholders in focus and all operations were done in order to please them. With the appearance of globalization and having many countries taking down their market entry barriers, the level of competition has increased tremendously causing changes in every aspect of businesses’ operations and managerial decisions. As a result, businesses’ looking for sustainability put customers in the center of their operations, following many managerial decisions to shift towards them too. Differently from the product-oriented industries, service-oriented industries are among the biggest in the world, and their growth is not only in terms of volume, but in terms of complexity and sophistication too. Service-oriented businesses by definition are in a direct relation with customers which have immediate influence on the end offer. As such, service-oriented businesses must make meeting customers’ needs and wants a priority, and by doing this, they gain customers’ satisfaction and loyalty, and hence profit increase. Hospitality industry is a people-oriented industry which requires person serving other person, so their service offer has become even more challenging regarding its diversity besides its quality. To further help managers understand their businesses and the industries they are in, researchers have established a classification system for services according to which the restaurants are defined as service-oriented businesses with tangible actions and services are aimed at people. As such, restaurants are facing continuous challenges due to their day-to-day operations in changing markets. Looking closely at restaurants’ operations it is no secret that there isn’t customer who would come back if they had a bad customer service. Although literature review already states the positive relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction in restaurant industry, the goal of this research paper is to look further at customers and test two hypotheses. The first hypothesis states that the restaurant management adds value to the dining experience, and to test it a questionnaire on a representative sample was conducted. The questions included all tangible and intangible factors that add value to the customer such as food quality, service quality, location, uniqueness of menu, restaurant interior and ambient, value for money, service time, customer privacy and entertainment, word-of-mouth recommendation etc. The second hypothesis states that the restaurant management has a positive influence on the customers’ perception, for which also a questionnaire on a representative sample was conducted. To test this hypothesis, more questions of the intangible factors were included such as good value, restaurant cleanness, tasty food, employees’ knowledge of the menu, new or seasonal changes to the menu etc. Clearly there is a combination of factors, both tangible and intangible, that affect customer’s perception on restaurant management and their dining experience. Not all factors have to be satisfied for a customer to return to the restaurant. There are factors that add more value to their experience and perception than others, but more of them are related to it. As a result, the findings of this research are presented in the paper pointing out what factors have great influence on customers. Furthermore, there are recommendations pointed out that the restaurant management can rely on in order to offer a better customer service, add value to them, and hence gain their loyalty and satisfaction. All this results with business and sales growth, and sustainability on the market