Santa Fe Grill Restaurant - Report Example

Report – Santa Fe Grill Restaurant Introduction In restaurants, although the taste and quality of the food has to be optimal, other aspects also have to fall in place and work effectively. In addition, restaurants are offering specialized foods or country-specific or region-specific foods to entice more customers. Santa Fe Grill Mexican Restaurant is one such specialized restaurant that offers authentic Mexican food, even while actualizing good ambience and service to create friendly atmosphere for its customers. This restaurant is established and run by two graduates, with one majoring in Finance and the other individual in Management. They achieved success good success in the first 6 months but after that they observed that revenues, customer flow, and sales were on the downward trend. Add to that, they had only minimal information about their customers and their characteristics. As both of them were deficient in marketing expertise, they approached a marketing research firm to gather some primary data regarding the dining habits or patterns of people in not only in Santa Fe Grill Restaurant but also that of its competitor, Jose’s Southwestern Café. So, the collected data will be analyzed using appropriate statistical techniques, with the report providing a comparison of Santa Fe Grill and Jose’s Southwestern Café, followed by identification of Santa Fe Grills competitive advantages, and finally ending with the recommendations for improvement. Literature Review Restaurants are few businesses which involves both product and service categories. In other words, they are providing or selling a product of food thereby servicing their customers while providing that product (Kurtus 2008). Restaurants have to carry out many of its processes in an optimal manner to entice their customers, hold them, facilitate them to provide positive feedbacks to other prospective customers, and others (Schlosser 2005). So, restaurant has to provide optimum satisfaction to its customers. There are many parameters that reflect customers’ satisfaction towards food and that includes taste of the food, interior ambience, service, price, and many more. All these aspects have to be provided in a quality manner and so optimal quality has to “flow” throughout the restaurant. This perspective is pointed out by Parpal (2015) who stated that when customers enter the restaurant’s doors, they would naturally expect quality in every part of the restaurant and would be looking for a value in all the aspects they view, taste, as well as touch, and when both these perspective are fulfilled they will certainly have good taste. Food’s quality is not only associated with the taste of the food, but also how hygienically it is prepared and its nutritional value as well. Namkung and Jang (2007) support this fact by stating that food quality based on its preparation and nutritional value seems to be accepted as an essential component to satisfy customers, but at the same time, it has been often overlooked in restaurant service quality and satisfaction studies. Apart from this basic component of food, when a customer enters a restaurant, its interior ambience has to make the first impression and they should feel that they are special as well as comfortable place” (Parpal 2015). Then, quality has to be exhibited in the form of memorable service. So, Parpal (2015) adds to the above perspective by stating that perhaps even more crucial than the quality of food is the need for providing exceptional service to the customers from the moment they go into the restaurant until the moment they walk out. Ha and Jang (2010) adds to this perspective by stating how good employee service can be more effective for increasing the satisfaction and loyalty of customers. Towards the end of the service, it is crucial to elicit feedback from the clients through customer comment cards (Parpal 2015). Comparison between Santa Fe Grill and Jose’s Southwestern Café Using independent t-test available in SPSS, we compare these two restaurants in a more precise manner, particularly comparing the customers’ satisfaction levels with both the restaurants, comparing the customer’s likelihood of returning to the restaurant, and likelihood of recommending it to others. Comparison of satisfaction levels Table 1: Group Statistics Variables Mexican Restaurant Most Recently Eaten At N Mean SD SE(Mean) X22 -- Satisfaction Joses Southwestern Café 167 5.31 1.145 0.089 Santa Fe Grill 283 4.53 1.001 0.060 Table 1A: Independent Samples Test Variable Levenes Test for Equality of Variances t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference SE (diff) 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference F Sig. X22 -- Satisfaction 4.805 0.029 7.352 312 0.000 0.785 0.107 0.575 0.995 Interpretation From the above tables, it is clear that there is a significant difference in the mean satisfaction levels between Jose’s Southwestern Café and Santa Fe Grill. The Jose’s Southwestern Café has more satisfaction level than the Santa Fe Grill, almost 1 satisfaction level above that of Santa Fe Grill (mean difference 0.785 and statistically significant). So people will definitely prefer Jose’s Southwestern Café to Santa Fe Grill. So, Santa Fe Grill has to find out which factors causes this lower satisfaction level. Comparison of likely to return Table 2: Group Statistics X23 -- Likely to Return Joses Southwestern Café 167 4.95 1.284 0.099 Santa Fe Grill 283 4.16 0.860 0.051 Table 2A: Independent Samples Test Variable Levenes Test for Equality of Variances t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference Std. Error Difference 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference X23 -- Likely to Return Equal variances not assumed 83.393 0.000 7.067 255 0.000 0.790 0.112 0.570 1.010 Interpretation: From the above tables, it is clear that there is a significant difference in the mean likely to return scores levels between Jose’s Southwestern Café and Santa Fe Grill. The Jose’s Southwestern Café has mean likely to return scores than the Santa Fe Grill almost 1 point above that of Santa Fe Grill (mean difference 0.79 and statistically significant). So people will definitely prefer Jose’s Southwestern Café to Santa Fe Grill. So Santa Fe Grill has to find out which factors causes this likely to return. Comparison of likely to recommend Table 3 X24 -- Likely to Recommend Joses Southwestern Cafe 167 4.07 1.477 .114 Santa Fe Grill 283 3.61 .973 .058 Table 3A: Independent Samples Test Levenes Test for Equality of Variances t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference Std. Error Difference 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference X24 -- Likely to Recommend Equal variances not assumed 40.655 0.000 3.520 252 0.001 0.451 0.128 0.199 0.703 Interpretation: From the above tables, it is clear that there is a significant difference in the mean likely to recommend scores levels between Jose’s Southwestern Café and Santa Fe Grill. The Jose’s Southwestern Café has mean likely to recommend scores than the Santa Fe Grill above that of Santa Fe Grill (mean difference 0.45 and statistically significant). So people will definitely prefer Jose’s Southwestern Café to Santa Fe Grill. So, Santa Fe Grill has to find out which factors causes this likely to recommend. From the above analysis of these three key factors, it is evident that Jose’s Southwestern Café scores over Santa Fe Grill necessitating the later to focus strongly on its current strategies and improve the faulty ones. Before delving into the discussion or recommendations regarding what Santa Fe Grill needs to do, the next section will discuss about what Santa Fe Grill is effectively doing. The section will first focus on how Santa Fe Grill can overcome the above-discussed three negative aspects by finding more important and positive correlations regarding satisfaction levels, likelihood of return, and likelihood of recommending to others. Santa Fe Grill’s competitive advantage over Jose’s Southewestern Café Number of Customers who visited both the restaurants First of all let us form a frequency tables to know how many customers most recently visited Santa Fe Grills restaurant. The table is given below: (The output is generated from SPSS Frequency options). The frequency table is given below: Table 4: Table showing the Mexican Restaurant Most Recently Eaten At . . . Restaurants Frequency of visits % of visits Joses Southwestern Cafe 167 37.1 Santa Fe Grill 283 62.9 Total 450 100 Interpretation: From the above table it is found that out of 450 customers, 167 (37.1%) of the customers recently eaten at Jose’s Southwestern Café and 283 (62.9%) of the customers recently eaten at Santa Fe Grill. Hence, majority (62.9%) of the customers most recently had eaten at Santa Fe Grill, which is a favorable factor for Santa Fe Grill. Table 5: Table showing the association between Mexican Restaurant Most Recently Eaten At. . . Vs X22 & Satisfaction X22 – Satisfaction Total 3 4 5 6 7 = Highly Satisfied Mexican Restaurant Most Recently Eaten At . . . Joses Southwestern Cafe 7 39 47 43 31 167 Santa Fe Grill 37 126 57 60 3 283 Total 44 165 104 103 34 450 Table 5A: Chi-Square Tests Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) Pearson Chi-Square 67.753a 4 .000 Likelihood Ratio 71.096 4 .000 Linear-by-Linear Association 51.410 1 .000 N of Valid Cases 450 Interpretation: From the above table, since the Pearsonian Chi square is 67.753 with probability of significance 0.000 ( Read More