However I did come across a limitation as to secondary research, where as there weren’t many books or articles based on my particular subject so most of my proposal is based on primary research.
Also another limitation to the project I have come across is the human element limitation, where it was difficult to get people to respond to the questionnaire and complete it.
However it must be remembered that this research project is limited: a greater depth of understanding and evaluation can only occur with utilization of the system and customer feedback from using the system. Only after this process can a full appreciation of the company’s current situation and possible future occur.
- BUSINESS CASE
In this section of the report I will explain what was the research project for and explain what the system and how it is used. I will also show the findings results in chart formats and analyse to what they represent. I will also show the risk analysis of the system implementation and financial forecasts.
The system is designed by A.Z technologies and the purpose of this system is to reduce waiting time for the customers in restaurant and public houses and improve the customer service they receive.
Imagine you are in restaurant having a meal and during the meal you require a waiter so you instantly raise your hand to get the attention of a waiter. As in many cases you don’t always get the attention and you have to wait till the waiter sees you or you have to get up from your table and look for one. Well with AZ technologies this no longer is a issue.
How the system works it’s pretty easy, each table in the restaurant or some tables have a button installed so every time you require a waiter/es all a customer has to do is press the button. Each waiter working will wear a wrist watch which vibrates every time a customer presses the button their table. On the wrist watch will display which tables has required assistance. In order for this to work each table must be numbered and organized. Also there will be a 19 inch TV screen installed behind the bar and this shows which table has required assistance. A customer can benefit from this in many ways; one being that watitng time is reduced, they have the privacy of gaining the waiter/es attention without having to lift their hand and calling them.
An organisation can benefit from this system as well, as it improves customer service they provide to their customers, and it’s a known fact an satisfied customer will always come back. It’s very simple to use and all the installation and initial training is done by a member of A.Z Technologies. There is a basic charge of £500 pounds for the initial set up and this means that 5 tables in your premises have the button installed. For each extra table there is a charge of £100.
- Research Findings
As I mentioned before my findings were based on primary research such as questionnaires for customers and interviewing management from different outlets.
Each questionnaire had thirteen questions and the questions were chosen to help me get the results I need for this project. Throughout this section of the report I will show different question and customer’s opinion on those questions. I will also show opinions from managers interviewed throughout the process of this research project.
I will show the results to the most relevant questions regarding this report, I will show them in graph chart formats and discuss each result as to what they mean.
The first finding of this report was based on the question from interviewing the managers in different outlets and results are obtained from fifteen managers.
The question asked was as follows; Are you satisfied with the service your provide your customers?
As we can see from this table in the previous page nine of the managers answered that they were happy with the service they provide to their customers, two managers were not satisfied and four managers thought that the service was sometimes sufficient.
From this table we can see that as a manager of restaurant you have a perception of thing that are going well and your customers are happy with the service. From my next table I will show the customers opinion on what they think whether they receive sufficient customer service.
Question asked; Are you happy with customer service you receive from restaurants and public houses you visit?
From this we can see the contrast of what people think oppse to what managers think, out of sixty people asked fifteen were happy with the service, twenty six people were not happy with service and nineteen thought sometimes the service was sufficent. Based on the sometimes result this could mean on different resaturants they visit.
As A.Z technologies aims to reduce waiting time for customers in restaurants and bars there was a question asked for this to see what the customers opinion was. The question was as follows; Are you happy with the waiting time it takes waiter/es to attend to you?
Out of sixty people asked we can see that 52% of those were not happy with the waiting time, 33% were happy and 15% said that they were happy sometimes depending on where they dine and drink. From this we can see that majority of customers asked were not happy with the waiting time, and what I mean by waiting time is the time they have to waiting for a memebr of staff to attend to the customer.
In order to get the relevent results for my research project I had to make sure I was asking the right people. In order to do this one of my questions was; How often do you eat at a restaurant?
Based on the findings we can se that the people asked majority of them went to a restaurant at least once a week and experience customer service from different restaurants they go to. The above findings were again based on sixty people.
As I have mentioned before this system is not only for restaurnts but for public houses as well such as bars, pubs and night clubs. We are aware that some of these public houses offer table service and customers are obliged to keep to the minimum spend on such services. So if a customer goes and spends the required amount set by bars and nightclubs I am sure that they would like satisfactory customer service and not wait an hour for their drinks or bottles to arrive.
In order to find the relevent data for public houses I asked the question as to how often one attends a public house.
The findings show that majority of the people go to a bar at least once a week and from my research I found ot that the majority of these people were between the ages 25- 33 and professionals. Another result that I found out is that people also tend to go to a bar once a month and the reason for this is that living costs in london are so expenseive that they can only afford to go once a month.
In order to find out whether AZ technologies would be a success I had to find out whether people were comfortable using the system and whether oragnisations were willing on implementing it on the premises.
Implementing such a system it would cost and organisation money and this could mean that they may have to put their prices up. So in order to find out whether customers would be happy to pay more for such a service I asked the following question; Would you be willing to pay more for a better service and improved efficiency of waiter/es?
What we can see from here is that majority of people asked would pay more for a better service and this is encouriging for oraganisations to know as they would feel more comfortable to implement the system in their premises.
In order for any business to succeed I have to see if there is a demand for the system and I found out this by asking managers in bars and restaurants with the following question; Would your organisation be willing to spend money on improving the service offered to customers?
From the findings in the previous page it is clear that oragnisations are willing to spend money on improving the quality of service they provide and making sure that their customers are happy with service they are getting.
In order to find out whether customers were comfortable using the system I used the following question; Would you feel comfortable to use a device installed on the tables, which alerts staff that you are waiting in restaurants and public house and improves customer service and shortness the waiting time?
We can see that 70% of the people aske would feel comfortable using the device in restaurants and bars.
As a business organisation deciding to introduce a new system for restaurants I will have also have to do a SWOT & PEST analysis, financial analysis and risk analysis for my project. All these analysis can be found in the apendecies.
- Timeline
In order to complete the research project one has to set a time line, the techniques I used were a gantt chart and action plan. All of these can be found in appendices.
5.0 Evaluation
In doing the research for this project I had to be specific in what questions were asked and make sure the quality of questions was relevant to what my findings were. The quality of the questionnaires helped me obtain the correct data needed and this was done by drafting the questionnaires and showing it to the tutor, which he approved. Once the questionnaires were approved I went ahead with my research.
The quality control in secondary research was not sufficient enough for me to use as there wasn’t that many sources available for my research so most of this report is based on primary research.
In this project it’s important to identify the stakeholders and understand their feedbacks. Primary stakeholders related to this project are the customers and managers and other members of staff in the organizations.
The feedback from my research is pretty clear to see that majority of people are asked are not satisfied with customer service from restaurants and they would like to see an reduction of waiting time.
The feedback from the management and other member of staff shows that they are willing to implement the system in their restaurants and are willing to spend money on improving customer service.
From the feedeback from stakeholders and from my findings I have decide that my future strategies would be to introduce the system in other major cities of the UK and eventually go into the European market.
Another strategy would be to introduce the system to hotel and other sectors of the hospitality industry, in order to do this I would have to see what the feedback is from the restaurants and bars.
Appendix
Fig 1.
Fig.2
RISK ANALYSIS FOR A.Z TECHNOLOGIES
Fig 3, SWOT ANALYSIS
fig 4 PEST analysis
