Service Quality and Student Satisfaction

This chapter covers the background and rationale, statement of the opportunity, purpose, research questions, nature of the study, definition of key terms, the significance of the study, assumptions, and limitations. It also covers the scope, worldview and theoretical foundation depicting the logical path of the research study.

This article is well written with good general flow of thought and easy for the reader to follow. Survey methodology is employed to capture data for quantitative analysis.1

Food is a basic need for everyone. Although many people prefer eating at home, many others will look for new places to dine in for a change. It is usually hard to find a table in famous restaurants unless you have a previous reservation. Famous restaurants owners enjoy a deluxe existence by having a better chance to meet important customers. The success of a restaurant depends on providing quality food and friendly atmosphere. Once customers like a certain restaurant they will usually revisit. Customers’ satisfaction is also an important element of success. Therefore, responding to customers’ needs could lead to outstanding results. Consequently, an efficient managerial approach could help a restaurant to provide both the high quality of food

This study sought to answer three research questions. Although the questions have been presented in previous chapters, they are worth presenting again.

The framework suggested by Walker and Avant was used for the analysis described in this research. The method of research included:

Perceptive: Under the current food contract, students, faculty and staff have limited options about who provides the food they consume on campus. Currently, all the residential college dining areas, as well as most of the small food service outlets on campus, are operated by …………………………………

This study used a quantitative methodology of data collecting to answer the research questions. The specific research questions studied included the following:

The purpose of this summary is to show what was researched after completing and analyzing the results from the McDonalds Edwardsville, Il location. Most of the results showed satisfaction in our store. However, one of the five surveys taken showed a dissatisfaction in the location. This may seem alarming, being only that this individual showed dissatisfaction can mean they may not think highly of McDonald’s in the first place. Others relatively showed the same satisfaction towards the quality of service and entrées. Three out of the five individuals showed they would visit the location again. This may show they are regulars and they would still continue to come to this location, or they were completely satisfied to return again. For the two other dissatisfied customers will be an area of focus on improving this location. We will look into this as in cleanliness of the store, employee presence and helpfulness to customers. One individual who decided not to provide anymore information could have been a visiting customer who we can take into consideration. We may see regulars as not noticing the flaws in the location because they are constantly coming in and ignoring details. We also noticed cleanliness was all relatively the same through all individuals. Analyzing the results, cleanliness and customer satisfaction will be our main focus on improvements. Customers who would visit the location showed interest in returning to this location which can mean steady

As most college students arrive on campus, they are surrounded by all types of different foods and such as fast food, Chinese, soul food, etc.

This struggle is even more prevalent in the population of college students who lack the funds and/or knowledge to make smart decisions when grocery shopping or searching for food on campus. Food marts on college campuses are typically found offering foods that are not only convenient, but also have long shelf lives. Both of these characteristics do not apply to fresh fruits and vegetables, which is why the University of Arizona provides mostly fast food and quick and unhealthy but affordable snacks. The UMart in the Student Union, however, offers various prepackaged salads, sandwiches, sushi, wraps, and other on-the-go snacks that are made freshly daily. By incorporating fresh and healthy prepackaged foods, the UMart attempts to eliminate students’ habits of grabbing fast food out of pure convenience. The University of Arizona should eliminate some of the fast food restaurants around campus and replace them with markets that will offer fresh produce and healthy prepackaged

Research for the revisions to Ravenhill Dining Hall began with secondary research into alternative models and dining services trends. This research gave us a foundation to build upon in the Philadelphia University community. Looking at professional journals such as Food Management, we found specific trends in the dining services as well as the driving forces behind them. These trends included students wanting flexibility, hub-like dining, and take-out or delivery (Watkins). The average Philadelphia University student is part of Generation Y, which means their relationship with food is different than previous generations. They grew up with food network’s celebrity chefs, are well traveled for their age, and “engage and connect with their food,” (UCI). These findings informed the models that we chose to go forward with; as we wanted to make sure that they fit these trends.

Source : Adapted from A. Parasuraman, Valerie Zeithaml, and Leonard Berry, “A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and Its Implications for Future Research,” Journal of Marketing, 49 (Fall 1985)

Mani, N. K., & Srivalli, P. (2014). A study on factors influencing Service Quality in Restaurants'. Annamalai International Journal Of Business Studies & Research, 6(1), 1-9.

Service is important in the food and beverage industries, that customer always have a high expectation and needs while dining in the restaurant. To find out how well the service provided, quality is a main element to every service. According to Haksever et al (2000), “Quality is ‘the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bears on its ability to satisfy given needs’”. Therefore, service quality is one of the main point in every restaurants to allow them improve and upgrade their level of image and reputation. In this report, Bella Italia was chosen to have an overview of its service quality. It will be find out how well the service practice was made and which part of service can be improve within the restaurant by using the service quality analysis, service recovery, customer feedback mechanism and benchmarking.

Jain et al., (2011) proposed that like the corporate, academic institutions also need to continuously innovate, diversify their structure and find new ways of delivering their services more effectively to their customers. To obtain a sustainable competitive advantage, it is imperative to understand the importance of customer satisfaction and perceptions of services quality offered and received. In education services, it is the student who is bearing all the expenditure to obtain the services as perceived. Thus they deserve the best education, therefore, quality has become a competitive weapon for the institutions to serve and attract their primary customers i.e. students (Senthilkumar and Arulraj, 2010). The present study is an attempt to develop a conceptual framework that helps the education institutions to understand the concept of service quality in higher education so that it can help them to improve their education quality. Improving service quality within a higher education context is often mentioned as an internal goal without any explicit references to what is meant by service quality in higher education (Sultan & Wong, 201*2).