Service Experience Diary and Analysis - Case Study Example

SERVICE EXPERIENCE DIARY AND ANALYSIS REPORT TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary DIARY 4 Introduction 4 Pre-Purchase Stage 4 Consumption Stage 4 Post-Consumption Stage 5 ANALYSIS 5 Expectations 6 Perceptions 7 SERVQUAL 8 Discussion 10 RECOMMENDATION 11 CONCLUSION 12 References 13 Executive Summary This review will present a 3 level preliminary model for Tahiti’s Restaurant service performance experience. The model will be based on disconfirmation/confirmation of different perceptions of service performance adjustable and quality that influence customer’s satisfaction. These 3 categories/ levels will be as follows: Level 1 will involve identification of the service quality and performance adjustable while Level 2 will examine the correlations of the adjustable to the perceptions, expectations and disconfirmation/confirmation. Level 3 will be the SERVQUAL which will examine the focus on satisfaction in relation to Tahiti’s Restaurant as an eatery. Perceptions has been considered in the model because of repeat patronages DIARY Introduction The restaurant reviewers is an Arabic male, 20 years of age, a Muslim, vegan and an undergraduate student. Based on faith – Muslim –, it is important that whatever food is served be prepared according to Muslim dictates. As such the reviewer always careful in choosing the restaurant to visit and what meals to take. Pre-Purchase Stage The reviewer learnt ofTahiti’s Restaurant from friends and acquaintances who visited the restaurant and were impressed by the service delivery and food served. The reviewers had never been to the restaurant, prior to the review, but had planned to take a meal there as part of their experience in the town. Given that the restaurant is located approximately 2 kilometres from the reviewer’s residence, he planned to take a taxi to cab the restaurant.He expected to have a memorable meal and experience good services. He made reservations at the restaurant 3 days prior to the restaurant visit. Consumption Stage On 7th June, 2014, the reviewer visited the restaurant to take a meal and evaluate the services offered at the restaurant. He arrived at 12:30 pm. The hostess proceeded to greet him in a friendly manner and open the door for him. The hostess conveyed him to a seat, introduced herself by name and gave him a menu copy to peruse. The hostess was smartly dressed. The server approach the reviewer 4 minutes after the hostess had seated me, introduced himself and asked for my order. Both the server and hostess conveyed the feeling that the reviewer was a valued customer. He informed the server that he was a Muslim and the server suggested vegan dishes; the server appeared to be knowledgeable about the menu items. The reviewer was served 2 minutes after his order was taken, with the server checking up on him within 4 minutes of presenting the appetiser. The server remained attentive throughout the dining experience and cleared the dirty dishes once the reviewer was done. When all the dishes had been cleared, the check was delivered along with the cash out instructions. The cash out check was processed in 3 minutes and then reviewer was thanked for patronising the restaurant, asked to consider visiting the establishment the next time, and was ushered out of the restaurant. Post-Consumption Stage The reviewerwas impressed by the restaurant service performance and considered the prices at the restaurant equitable to the services and meals served, the staff was helpful and smartly attired, and the ambiance enhanced the dining experience. The food quality was equitable to the price charged because even though it was expensive, dining at the restaurant was an experience worth repeating. The food order was correctly, completely and properly prepared and appropriate condiments were served. Drink refills were offered, and the server checked back to ensure that the meal was satisfactory. The restaurant staffs were neat and professional, appeared to be busy and efficient in their work, and interacted well with the guests. The overall dining experience met the reviewer’s expectations, and based on this experience he would consider patronising the establishment in the near future. ANALYSIS Literature on customer behaviour and marketing has conventionally proposed that customer satisfaction observes a comparative model, in which a customer judges their satisfaction in relation to a set standard (Peri 2006, p. 3; Zopiatis & Pribic 2007, p. 766). As such a number of competing theories/models could be applied in explaining my satisfaction with Tahiti’s restaurant. For the purposes of this analysis, the restaurant experience will be discussed on the theories of expectations, perceptions and SERVQUAL. Expectations Expectations are anassessment standard for judging service delivery performance based on perception (Law & Hui 2004, p. 545). Before visiting the restaurant, the reviewer expected that he would be provided with high quality service and food, in a clean environment with good ambiance. The expectations were mainly formed with the aid of reviews presented by acquaintances and friends who had visited the restaurant and gave it a glowing recommendation. In addition, expert review sites were perused, competition and prior experiences with other restaurantsanalysed before developing expectations. Even though there is a consensus that expectations is an assessment standard for judging service delivery as perceived by customers, there exists differences with regards to how the conceptual definitions of expectations are presented as a construct. The assessment standard refers to referent applied by customers in evaluating the performance of services and forming satisfaction and disconfirmation judgements. Predictions about a service performance are a pre-consumption standard, carried out before the restaurant is visited (Pitta 2010, p. 131; van Pham 2006, p. 32). Expectation is the primary perception of the probability of occurrence and an assessment of whether that occurrence is favourable or unfavourable. There are four aspects of expectations – ideal, expected, minimum tolerable and desired. Ideal aspect of expectations refer to what the service performance could best be. It is the aspired standard and refers to the best service. Expected aspect of expectation refers to the service performance as presented by reviews from those who have experienced the service. Minimum tolerable aspect of expectation refers to what the service performance must be to become acceptable. Desired aspect of expectation refers to what the service performance should have been (Qin & Prybutok 2008, p. 35; Tlapa, Miller & Washington 2010, pp. 23-24). Based on these four aspects: the ideal service performance was attentive restaurant staff, good ambiance, clean environment and high quality food; the expected service performance was attentive restaurant staff, good ambiance, clean restaurant environment and high quality food; the minimum tolerable service performance was high quality food and good ambience and clean environment; and the desired service performance was attentive restaurant staff, good ambiance, clean restaurant environment and high quality food. Perceptions Perception is the process by which customers receive and process services delivered to determine whether they form a coherent and meaningful interpretation (Onyeason & Adalikwu 2008, p. 53). It is a customer’s judgement of the service performance. They are a cumulative construct that is updated each time the customer accesses the services. They are influenced by expectations of the service. The reviewer expected that he would be provided with high quality service and food, in a clean environment with good ambiance. In perceiving the services he received at the restaurant, he determined that the service was of high quality, food was good, the environment was clean and had good ambiance. The reviewer’s perceptions of the restaurant services may have, however, been influenced by previous experiences with other restaurants. Qin and Prybutok (2008, p. 35) conducted analysis of perceptions in service outcomes to determine whether the length of service deliver would influence perception. The tests determined that the length of service determined the perception outcome. The implication is that if two different customers who have experienced different service qualities visit the same restaurant and experience the same service, they would each present different perception (Qin & Prybutok 2008, pp. 47-48). The same argument could be applied to service expectations. If two customers visited the same restaurant at the same time and experience identical services then as long as they had different expectations they would present different perceptions. Perceptions of post consumption service performance are assessments and feelings on a chosen alternative to the service provider, and customers would react to then either subjectively – feelings and emotions – or objectively – the service performance based on their expectations. As such cultural background and differences could be determined to influence perception (van Pham 2006, pp. 33-34). When the reviewer informed the server that he was a vegan and then proceeded to ask for suggestions on what he could order, the server was very helpful and suggested dishes that turnout out to be quiet enjoyable and equitable to their prices. Perception is a three-tier process of selecting, organising and interpreting service performance. As such, gender, environmental settings, and cultural background could play a part in the assessment. The implication is that the reviewer’s gender – male –, religion and culture – Muslim –, and age – 20 years – may have played a part in perception assessment. In essence, perception assessment of a service performance can only be conducted after experiencing the service as before that there are only limited tangible pre-choice prompts. SERVQUAL In developing a SERVQUAL model for the restaurant’s service performance, the reviewers deemed post-consumption satisfaction as a function of the initial choice decision, expectations and perceptions. The focus was on satisfaction in relation to Tahiti’s Restaurant as an eatery. Perceptions has been considered in the model because of repeat patronages. A satisfied customer will repeatedly visit the restaurant as much as they can manage, provide positive reviews and recommend the restaurant to their acquaintances. Restaurants are facing the challenge of rising customer expectations of value for money and quality service, and the need to increase satisfaction levels of their customers to retain and improve their numbers. Post consumption evaluations aid the restaurants in identifying genuine customer concerns regarding the performance of restaurant services, and to develop strategic responses through measures that satisfy the exact needs of customers (Pitta 2010, p. 133). In modelling the determinants of post consumption evaluations, the reviewer has drawn on the tenet that confirmation, perceived service performance and pre-choice expectations influence post consumption evaluations. The reviewers has presented a 3 level preliminary model for Tahiti’s Restaurant service performance experience in figure 1. The model is based on disconfirmation/confirmation of perceptions of service quality and performance adjustable that influence satisfaction of customers. Level 1 involved identification of the service quality and performance adjustable. Level 2 examined the correlations of the adjustable to the expectations, perceptions and disconfirmation/confirmation (see figure 1). Figure 1. 3 level preliminary model of restaurant service performance experience Discussion A restaurant setting is comprised of a range of service inputs that produce the entire restaurant service experience. The ability of restaurant customers to form pre-experience comparison standards for an unfamiliar and complex restaurant service experience that contains different sources of satisfaction – such as reception, seating, setting, ambiance, environment, food, and presentation – can vary among different customers dependent on their gender, age and cultural background (Tlapa, Miller & Washington 2010, p. 16). Given that the reviewer is a unique individual, it is probable that theanalysis of Tahiti’s Restaurant service performance may have differed from those of other customers to the restaurant. Therefore, the probability of differences in rating and importance attached to individual adjustable and subsequently on the level of restaurant service satisfaction may be high. At that time when a customer determines that a restaurant is living up to the customer’s expectations and the restaurant’s promises is the ‘moment of truth’. Such ‘moments of truth’ occur even before the customer has decided to visit the restaurant, usually when they access reviews on the restaurant. They transpire as the customer navigates the restaurant’s criticisms, as they call to book a table and even as they enter the restaurant and are received by the hostess. In actual fact, every single happenstance along the customer’s service experience conduit is a distinctive occasion for the restaurant to inspire assurance or put an end to customer faith in them (Onyeason & Adalikwu 2008, p. 67). To today’s perceptive and knowledge customers, restaurant reviews that promise high quality service performance exceed pretty words; they are anassurance of what to anticipate. Restaurants that receive positive reviews must live up to the reviews during each and every ‘moment of truth’.The privilegedrestaurants are those whose customers openly inform them their reviews and reasons for specific scores in the reviews. In such circumstances where the customers provide reviews to the restaurants, the restaurants have an occasion to apply thereview to shift their service delivery strategy to match customer expectations. This is, however, not always the case as customers rarely inform restaurants of their review. More probably, the customers silently refrain from patronising the restaurant if their expectations are not met. This is particularly true of the customer never even orders a meal even after booking a table and getting into the restaurant, due to unmet expectations at a ‘moment of truth’ (Onyeason&Adalikwu2008, pp. 67-69). RECOMMENDATION The gap between customers’ expectations and their perception of delivered service has become the principal indicator for determining and assessing service quality of particular service provider. Based on the analysis, it is recommended that Tahiti’s Restaurant maintain, if not improve, their level of service deliver. They have the right approach to service deliver and with their current approach customers will be satisfied. The restaurant management needs to explore the concept of mystery shopping as part of their corporate strategy. The judgement of dissatisfaction or satisfaction is resultant of the process of disconfirming or confirming prior expectations. CONCLUSION Restaurant dining anticipations have changed over the years due to changing cultural influences, healthy dieting awareness, development of culinary culture, better education and social environment. Sooner or later, restaurant customers will be more refined in their dining choices mainly for the reason that they are keen to increase their dining perspectives and try novel experiences. Customers will search for new dining practices that will placate their ever evolving restaurant anticipations. In conclusion, it is imperative for restaurant management to discern, appreciate, comprehend and meet customers’ service anticipations. Anticipations are defined as opinions about service practice and form the norms against which definite services performance will be evaluated. References Coyles, S & Timothy G 2005, ‘Customer retention is not enough,’ Journal of Consumer Marketing, vol. 22. no. 2, pp. 101-105. Law, A & Hui, Y 2004, ‘Modelling repurchase frequency and customer satisfaction for fast food outlets,’ International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, vol. 21. no. 4/5, pp. 545-563. Onyeason, G &Adalikwu, C2008, ‘An empirical test of customer retention-perceived quality link: strategic management implications,’ Journal of Business Strategies, vol. 25. no. 1, pp. 53-71. Peri, C 2006, ‘The universe of food quality.’ Food Quality and Preference, vol. 17. no. 1-2, pp. 3-8. Pitta, D 2010, ‘Product strategy in harsh economic times: subway,’ Journal of Product and Brand Management, vol. 19. no. 2, pp. 131-134. 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