Service Experience Diary: Restaurant Business - Assignment Example

Service Experience Diary Report: Restaurant Business Executive Summary The following paper is a diary entry based analysis of a service experience ofthe researcher. The paper presents a diary entry of the entire dining experience at an upscale restaurant in Manchester city of United Kingdom. The restaurant is new in the business and serves authentic Asian cuisine along with live and traditional entertainment at the venue. The analysis is based on various theories like, the SWOT analysis and the 7P’s, so as to highlight various aspects of restaurant business. These tools also help in identifying strong points of the business as well as areas that need attention of the business owners. Through such an analysis, the researcher provides a list of recommendations for improvement of the business scope and activity for Diner’s Eden. Table of Contents Executive Summary 2 Part 1: Diary 4 Introduction 4 Pre purchase stage 4 Consumption and Visit Experience 4 Post Purchase Stage 5 Part 2: Analysis and recommendations for restaurant businesses 6 Expectation 6 Satisfaction 6 Service Quality 6 7Ps 7 Product 7 Price 7 Promotion 7 Place 8 Packaging 8 Positioning 8 People 8 SWOT Analysis 9 Recommendations 9 Reference List 11 Part 1: Diary Introduction I am a 25 year old man who has had post graduate education. I seek high quality dining experience and am primarily health conscious. I live in Manchester city in United Kingdom, which is renowned for its sporting interests and hence, health consciousness. Pre purchase stage Before eating at the restaurant, I was looking for a fine dining experience and wished to have a continental dinner with authentic cuisine. Although my cuisine preference for the dinner would have been Japanese, I was also willing to look into other Asian preparations. Along with fine dining, I desired for live entertainment at the restaurant, which would help me relax after a long and tiring day at work. Price was not an issue and I was willing to drive for about 60 minutes to arrive at the restaurant of my choice. I looked over the internet and found out that there was a new and upcoming restaurant right in the heart of the city, close to the university area, which was serving Asian preparations. It also had live entertainment facility. Since both my primary objectives had been fulfilled, I chose the restaurant by the name of Diner’s Eden and prepared to visit for the evening. Consumption and Visit Experience As I entered the restaurant, the red interiors were quite relaxing and the aroma of spices was indeed refreshing. Overall opinion regarding first look of the restaurant was indeed impressive. The waiters were uniformed and dressed in traditional Thai, Chinese and Indian attires separately for each section. The interiors were a mix of Indian, Chinese and Thai cultures with decorative and wall arts, depicting the three different nations. The seating arrangements were a little cluttered as they tried to fit in a large number of people at the dining space. However, the live entertainment system was a separate enclosure, which allowed for a good view of the stage and performances. The menu card had dishes from separate countries and each country’s speciality was highlighted. I was delighted to see a section that catered to Japanese food and picked it up as a first preference. The food arrived in copper utensils, giving it an authentic and fresh look. The taste of the spices was as inspiring as the aroma. The Japanese food was quite good on the tongue, but as for the experience with Indian cuisine, I would say I am not the one who could have rather spicy food. The bar menu was limited, but had a lot of interesting cocktails. I ordered two from the menu and liked one; but the other was too sweet for me. Post Purchase Stage On the whole, dining was a satisfactory experience at Diner’s Eden and service quality was smooth, although lacked warmth. The performance on food was good, but the live entertainment proved to be a discomfort and I had to move into the non-entertainment zone. Food hygiene and presentation was quite high. I look for good food and consistency in ambience, while am into a zone of indifference for entertainment facilities and service quality. The gap felt was in terms of entertainment needs of the people at the restaurant and service warmth quality (Weiner, 2000). Part 2: Analysis and recommendations for restaurant businesses Expectation A dining experience at Diner’s Eden was expected to provide a good ambiance associated with great food and both were served. The expectations for the evening also ran high on live entertainment in order to unwind after a long day, where the experience proved to be largely lacking at the restaurant. The food was quite accessible because of the prime location of the food outlet, while the ambience was relaxing and calm. On the flip side, entertainment was quirky and did not suit the mood of the restaurant. The sound systems were set too loud for an evening music. Although the music was authentic Asian tunes, yet they did not appeal to the ear, primarily because of bad sound arrangements and wrong time for loud music. Satisfaction The restaurant was quite crowded for a weekday evening because of its upscale and prime location and new entry into the city. It tried to be novel in its Asian offerings by presenting authentic cuisine from each of the nations mentioned on menu card. The attire of the waiters was traditional for each country among the three that they represented, namely Thai, Chinese and Indian. Each section of the restaurant was dedicated to a country with its authentic interiors. The satisfaction ran very high with the ambience and interiors of the restaurant. Additionally, the food was presented in good utensils and appealed to the eye with its fresh look and great presentation. The Japanese preparations were served hot and were tasty. The aroma was as good as they tasted. Although it is said that Japanese foods are quite simple to taste, the authenticity was maintained with an offer of good accompaniments that only enhanced the taste. Also, the Indian food was well-presented, but proved to be quite filling and hot on the tongue. Since Indian food is expected to be hot and spicy, authenticity of the cuisine was appropriately maintained. The drinks were an interesting mix and quite unique in terms of preparation, but the experience was quite contradictory with the two drinks chosen. One served strong taste, while the other went too strong on its sweetness (Bignéa, Andreua and Gnothb, 2005). Service Quality In terms of service quality, the waiters and janitors were quite swift in their response. The cleaning was done efficiently while the food orders were taken swiftly. The presentation and serving was neat. The bar menu’s were kept at the table for ready reference while the food menu was presented whenever required, so that clutter was removed from the table to largest possible extent. On the other hand, service lacked warmth. The waiters smiled less and appeared to be simply doing their job, rather than managing hospitality. There were no attempts towards asking for opinions on food and judgements on the new restaurant and areas of improvement, apart from a simple questionnaire (Lovelock and Wirtz, 2004). 7Ps Product The product was food, which ranked quite high on the experience and satisfaction scale. The presentation, taste, aroma and experience were great with the cuisines. They were authentic and well worked over. The second product was entertainment, which needs to be worked upon as the music and styles are good and maintain their authenticity serving the needs of those who come to a restaurant for an experience, but does not help in unwinding after the long hard day people have at different jobs. Price The prices were set at industry standards and were high, given the fine dining experience served by Diner’s Eden. The high price is justified for the diverse items they offer, including ambience, food, entertainment and service. Also, the location is prime and upscale, which further justifies the high price. Promotion The promotion for the restaurant was done as an Asian one, which served different dishes from the continent. However, when one enters the restaurant, the promotion seems to be presenting only three different cuisines, namely Chinese, Indian and Thai. The menu card speaks of a different set of countries altogether, apart from these three countries (Mortimer, 2002). Place The place appeared quite cluttered for dining. There were too many seating arrangements and apparently, the restaurant tried to put excessive seats in a limited space. The restaurant has to compromise on its seating capacity and reorganise the space to facilitate proper arrangements for seats. The ambience and interiors were well set and followed a good concept. The separation of enclosures for entertainment and interiors based on country experiences was indeed a very appealing idea. The red tones helped in relaxing and were considered ideal for dinner table conversations or for relaxation. Packaging The food maintained authentic flavours, which acted as a plus point for the restaurant because people in Manchester have been seeking unadulterated authentic food for a very long. The menu card also displayed the health benefits associated with each preparation, alongside the price list. Being a highly health conscious city and famous for its sporting activities, the menu foregrounds health benefits of the cuisine. This adds quite a surprise factor for the Diner’s. It might also act as a unique selling point of the restaurant company. The presentation of food was quite impressive and is able to stimulate taste buds of the diner who looks forward to taste, simply by the look of the food and its aroma. The neat and clean presentation adds to perfect packaging of the food experience at Diner’s Eden. Positioning The positioning as an Asian restaurant is not too unique in Manchester city as there are quite a few Asian restaurants in the city. Nonetheless, provider of authentic food and live entertainment can serve as a motivating factor and shall drive the crowd towards it. People The people include restaurant managers and the staff. All of them have shown exceptional promptness in service, but need to enhance their hospitality and keenness to improve through proper sourcing of client feedback (CIM, n.d.). SWOT Analysis Strengths Weaknesses 1. Good food with authenticity in preparation is expected to drive customers looking for traditional preparations. 2. Great and relaxing interiors shall make people wish to stay longer and enjoy the ambience. The unique interiors do not allow diners to get bored and also initiate topics of discussion, facilitating a great dining experience altogether. 1. Lack of hospitality among the staff members of the restaurant might reduce scope for improvement. Managers must consider obtaining more views on restaurant improvement by collecting opinions of their clients. 2. Entertainment schedules and systems are outdated and the music selection is very weak and needs improvement in their choices Opportunities Threats 1. The restaurant can obtain higher opportunities to draw weekday crowd regularly through live performances and theme based dinners. 2. The upscale area can be tapped by providing opportunities to hold parties in the wee hours. 1. Lack of space and high congestion in seating might drive away customers who look for privacy in dining experiences. 2. Positioning as a restaurant serving Asian cuisines is not sufficient. Competition from other Asian cuisine providers might drive out business (Mortimer, 2002). Recommendations The whole experience and its analysis present the following recommendations for Diner’s Eden restaurant. 1. The restaurant needs to highlight on its speciality in providing authentic cuisines in order to retain customer interest as positioning as an Asian food provider might invite competition from other Asian cuisine restaurants. Furthermore, people are looking for authentic cuisine in Manchester city. 2. The staff and managers need training on hospitality management. Such training shall be required more in terms of enhancement in behavioural and presentation skills. The manager has to be trained on the importance of client reviews and working on client opinions so as to enhance services and business activity of the restaurant. 3. The entertainment division needs serious rework. The music selection team needs to work on the music mix for different times and periods of the day. The sound systems need to be fixed or updated so that the right amount of sound is maintained. Live music must be refreshing as well as bright, but focus should be on maintaining genuineness. 4. The restaurant needs to compromise on seating capacity and rearrange the seating arrangement to reduce congestion and clutter, thereby enhancing the fine dining experience. Reference List Bignéa, J. E., Andreua, L and Gnothb, J., 2005. The theme park experience: An analysis of pleasure, arousal and satisfaction. Tourism Management, 26(6), pp. 833–844. CIM, n.d. Marketing and the 7 Ps: A brief summary of marketing and how it works. [pdf]. The Chartered Institute of Marketing. Available at: [Accessed 18 June 2014]. Lovelock, C. and Wirtz, J., 2004. Services Marketing: People, Technology, Strategy 5/e. London: Prentice Hall. Mortimer, K., 2002. Integrating advertising theories with conceptual models of services advertising. Journal of Services Marketing, 16(5), pp.460 – 468. Weiner, B., 2000. Attributional Thoughts about Consumer Behavior. Journal of Consumer Research, 27(3), pp. 382-387. Read More