Assessment of Consumers' Perception of Service Quality of Cafes in Arada Sub-city
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Date
2011-04
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This research study is made considering the basic marketing philosophy that
supports the necessity of giving prior considerations for consumers in any
marketing activities. The study assessed consumers' perception of the quality of
Cafe service delivery in the Arada sub-city. The specific objectives behind
conducting the study were to assess consumers perception of service quality
using reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and tangibles service
quality dimensions; to indicate gaps between consumers perception and
expectations; and to assess consumers overall satisfaction. Convenience
sampling method was used to collected data from sample respondents via the
distribution of questionnaires developed taking the SERVQUAL model of
measuring service quality. The findings of the research indicated that consumers'
have a little more than average perception as to the dependability, courtesy, and
attractiveness of the physical facilities of the service provision they received. The
willingness of the service providers on helping customers and providing prompt
service and the individualized attention they give to customers is perceived as
being poor. Consumers were found to experience a negative gap in getting a
quality Cafe service provision that meets their expectations. Service providers
were found to lag behind reaching the point of being perceived as excellent in
providing quality service. The existence of consumers who have a positive
perception as to the overall quality of service they had experienced despite the
discrepancies they indicate in their perception-expectation gap score was also of
the major findings of the research. Respondents have also communicated the
relative importance of the service quality dimensions in affecting their level of
satisfaction from which reliability and responsiveness in services were found to
have a stronger effect. Stepping from the research findings, it is concluded that
the quality of Cafe service provision in the study area is in short of getting
consumers best perceptions compared with that of their expectations. For a better
quality service provision that can win consumers better perception, the Cafe
service providers are recommended to make improvements in all service quality
dimensions with a special attention to be given for reliability and responsiveness
in services. The creation of a customer oriented mentality by all personnel and
the conduction of continuous assessment on consumers' perception and
expectations that can change from time to time are recommended to be made by
the side of the service providers. These helps to further enhance the current level
of customers' satisfaction.
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Perception of Service Quality of Cafes