P REGUNTAS DE R ESPUESTA O RAL

Q. How do your expectations alter regarding the following aspects when eating at an inexpensive restaurant?

Not Important Extremely Important

1 2 3 4 5

Good service by well-trained/experienced staff Good atmosphere and décor

Cost

Good quality food

Provision made for children, friends/groups The location of the restaurant is convenient Cleanliness of restaurant and staff

Menu provides a good range of choices Good quality beverages

You are recognised or made to feel special/valued Reliability/consistency of good food and experience Food not standardised

Looking at customer expectations relating to dining out, in what the respondent considered to be an inexpensive establishment, the service was rated most highly (34.7%) at the neutral point (3) and then 27% said it was important (4) and 20.1% considered the service to be extremely important on their list of expectations. The remaining 16.6% who answered the question thought service was at an expectation level of less important, or not important.

The most frequent level of expected atmosphere was neutral (3) by a reasonable amount (41.7%) with the next figure being 25.2% for it being an important consideration but, unlike with service, the next most popular option was a lower expectation of less important at 15.5%. The next category (13.6%) considered atmosphere to be extremely important and then finally 2.4% of those asked did not think atmosphere was important at all.

When eating at an inexpensive restaurant it appears cost is extremely important and the responses to this question (with only 1.9% not answering) rated cost as an extremely important expectation at 28.9% and then worked backwards from extremely important to not important: 26.5%, 25%, 13.6% and 4.3% respectively.

Despite the question relating to inexpensive restaurants, food quality is still very important to customers. Only 9.3% rated food quality as less important, or unimportant and the rest of respondents said food quality was neutral (34.7%), important (30.9%), or extremely important (23%).

The level of customer concern for restaurants making provision for children and

next highest category above neutral at (important) 22.5%. However, after this the next most popular opinion drops to less important at 16.8% and then there is a reasonable even split between the two remaining categories with 12.1% of respondents rating children and groups as extremely important and 11.2% rating their expectation as not important.

Where the location of the restaurant is does not appear to be an issue as the most frequent response for the location of an inexpensive restaurant was neutral (36.8%). This was closely followed by it being important at 30.7% and extremely important was next at 16.8%. Potentially, this could be convenience related as only 14% said location was not important to them.

Cleanliness is an important issue even when customers consider dining at an

inexpensive restaurant and the response rates to this question run in order from extremely important to not important (45.3%, 29.1%, 19.5%, 3.6% and 0.8% respectively). This is only one of two questions in the section, where the most important category is the most popular, the other being cost.

The menu providing a good range of choices at an inexpensive restaurant is considered to be neutral by the majority of respondents (37.7%). However, when combined more than the neutral percentage think that menu choice is more crucial (44.9%) with 28.7% choosing the important category and 16.2% opting for the extremely important category. Only 15.5% think that menu choice is less important.

Although, beverages may not always be considered central next to food, in fact this expectation received a neutral response as the most highly chosen option (41%). This is

higher than the neutral category for food itself, although there was a higher percentage overall for rating of food than for beverages. Nevertheless, 80.6% still consider good quality beverages as neutral, important, or extremely important (41%, 26.8% and 12.8% respectively).

Being recognised and made to feel special does not appear to be overly important, as although the highest category was neutral at 33.8%, there is a near equal percentage either side of this, so 22.4% rate this aspect as important, or extremely important but 21.7% think it is less important than neutral. With 7.1% considering the aspect to be not important and 13.1% rating being recognised as extremely important there almost seems to be no trend to what respondents think.

The reliability/consistency of good food and experience does rate highly with respondents. The most popular categories are those above neutral (34.3%) with 86.2% in total, thinking that this aspect is neutral, or above. Only 11.6% think that reliability is lower than neutral.

Although many inexpensive restaurants might be considered to be chains, or high street style restaurants with a consistent format, it would appear that even in this category of restaurants, the food not being standardised is a consideration for customers with 73.3% thinking that this aspect is neutral, or higher (40.8%, 22.1% and 11.9% respectively). 18.6% thought food being standardised was less important than neutral and only 6% considered it as not important.

Only 9.3% of respondents’ rate reputation being less than neutral as acceptable, this is one of the lowest amounts for the two categories below neutral for all of the questions

in the section. 34.3% of respondents’ think reputation is neutral but this is closely followed at 32.6% for important and 22% for extremely important. From this it can be seen that reputation is certainly a consideration for customers.

Taking an overview of expectations of the inexpensive dining out category; firstly, there were only three sections to question 5a that were rated either extremely important, or important (as seen in Table 4-11). These are: cost (extremely important), cleanliness of staff and the restaurant (extremely important) and reliability/consistency of good food

and experience (important). However, looking at all of the sections together and seeing which had the highest score brings about another set of key aspects for customers and these are: 1] cleanliness of restaurant and staff (45.3%), 2] good atmosphere and décor (41.7%), 3] good quality beverages (41%) and 4] food not being standardised (39.9%).

Not Important

Less

Important Neutral Important

Extremely Important Service 3.2% 13.7% 35.2% 27.5% 20.4% Atmosphere 2.4% 15.8% 42.4% 25.6% 13.8% Cost 4.3% 13.8% 25.5% 27.0% 29.4% Food quality 1.3% 8.1% 35.5% 31.6% 23.5%

Children and groups 11.4% 17.2% 36.0% 23.0% 12.4%

Location 3.2% 11.1% 37.5% 31.2% 17.1% Cleanliness .8% 3.7% 19.8% 29.6% 46.1% Choice range 1.7% 14.1% 38.4% 29.2% 16.5% Beverage quality 3.0% 14.7% 41.9% 27.4% 13.0% Recognised 7.2% 22.1% 34.4% 22.9% 13.3% Consistency rating 1.6% 10.3% 30.0% 35.0% 23.1% Non-standardised 6.1% 19.0% 40.8% 22.1% 11.9% Reputation 1.4% 8.1% 34.9% 33.2% 22.4%

Table 4-11: Customer Ratings of Expectations within an Inexpensive Restaurant

Overall the following are the most important expectations that need to be met by an inexpensive restaurant when a customer is dining out:

 Cleanliness of restaurant and staff  Cost

 Good atmosphere and décor  Good quality beverages  Food not being standardised