Comparative Study on Consumer Satisfaction towards Select Branded Quick Service Retail Outlets with Special Reference to Chennai City

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1 Volume-6, Issue-6, November-December 2016 International Journal of Engineering and Management Research Page Number: Comparative Study on Consumer Satisfaction towards Select Branded Quick Service Retail Outlets with Special Reference to Chennai City K.S Usman Mohideen 1, Dr. R.Suresh 2 1 Assistant Professor, Department of Management Studies, Sri Sai Ram Engineering College, Tambaram, Chennai, INDIA 2 Associate Professor, Department of Management Studies, Sri Sai Ram Engineering College, Tambaram, Chennai, INDIA ABSTRACT In today s competitive world, consumer satisfaction has become one of the most strategic tools for measuring the success of the firm. This paper aims at exploring the factors influencing consumer s satisfaction towards branded fast food outlets in Chennai city.the factors includes Variety of product, Quality of product, accuracy of service, delivery time, Store location, Staff courtesy, ambient conditions and overall satisfaction.it also aims at comparing selected quick service retail outlets. Descriptive research is adopted for this study. Structured questionnaire was used to collect data. The universe of population includes respondents from Chennai city who are the customers of KFC, Dominos, Subway, Pizza Hut and Mc Donald s. The samples were identified using convenience sampling. The total sample size is 253. The responses are analysed using SPSS and results were presented using percentage distribution, cross tabulation, mean and standard deviation, chi square and ANOVA. The major findings of the study are quality of product is more important and there is an association between branded retail outlets and overall satisfaction. Keywords-- Consumer s Satisfaction,Fast food Industry,Branded Quick Service Outlets, Chennai City I. INTRODUCTION Fast food outlets are also called as Quick Service Retail outlets that provides limited menu, limited service and often self-serve counters. Branded fast food retail outlets and consumption in fast food outlets are drastically increased in last few years. Both have a high positive correlation. Thus fast food outlets has become common and this trend has penetrated in cities of India. Chennai City is no exception to this percolation. The huge increase can be contributed to rise of nuclear family, exposure to western culture, dual income family and rapid urbanization. Fast food outlets not only changed the lifestyle of consumers but also resulted in unbalanced diets and altered tradition of cooking at home. Successful quick service outlets in Chennai are Kentucky Fried Chicken, Dominos, Pizza Hut, Subway, Mc Donald s and Burger King. All these popular outlets are facing challenges due to customer s taste and concern towards nutritional values, this resulted in expanding product range at competitive prices. The advantages of fast food are accessibility, readily available food and image etc. Disadvantages of fast food items are high calories, fat, salt and other unethical additives. Despite of all these cons total food fast food production in India may likely to double in forthcoming decade and there is an opportunity for large investment in fast food. Fast food service decreases the distance covered by the customer to reach for eatables. This attracts all classes of people in the society. Customer satisfaction is actually how customer evaluates performance and ability of a service provider to create a high degree of satisfaction to maintain strong relationship with customers. Because of these reasons company should consider customer satisfaction as the key parameter while devising their competitive advantage. American Marketing Association defines brand as a name, term, symbol, or design or a combination of them, intended to identify one seller and to differentiate them from competitors Kotler (2009) According to Philip Kotler, Services is defined as an any act or performances, which is transferred from one party to another, essentially intangible and does not result in ownership II. OVERVIEW OF QUICK SERVICE INDUSTRY The history of quick service industry aka fast food industry evolved right from bread stands in Rome and noodle bars from Asia. During medieval period pastries, pies and cakes were sold in cities like London and Paris. Coffee shop started in western countries are used as gathering place and fun time place. In countries like United Kingdom, Europe and Australia, the culture of fast food services started with fried fish available in beaches and river side. Industrial revolution leads to rapid development of fast food industry as the products have increased and number of players as well as outlets increased drastically. According to Economist Intelligence Unit India s fast food industry is expected to double from 2013 to The quick service restaurant industry is still in the beginning and there is a huge scope for more and more brands and outlets. The growth in nuclear families, urbanization, exposure to media and westernized culture have impact on eating out trends. McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut and Subway are the major players in Indian market. 81 Copyright Vandana Publications. All Rights Reserved.

2 III. STATEMENT OF PROBLEM Consumer tastes and preferences are ever changing, this implies that every brand should concentrate on ways to stay fresh in order to remain updated in the market. The fast food industry is no longer divided into clear-cut segments since the services overlap sometimes. Therefore the way and manner in which services provided are critical to gain unique advantage. Consumer satisfaction is formed by prior encounters. So it is necessary to understand the consumer satisfaction based on demographic factors of the same. In this regard different factors have been considered to understand consumer satisfaction. This will help the branded outlets to attract new customer and retain existing customers. IV. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY To evaluate the impact of demographic factors on consumer s behaviour pattern towards select branded retail fast food services. To identify the relative importance of factors influencing consumer satisfaction towards branded quick service outlet. V. LITERATURE REVIEW Kinnarry Thakkar and Mrunmayee R.Thatte (2014), in their study they selected two food franchise, MC Donald s and Kentucky Fried Chicken. The factors like variety, quality etc are considered and found that price of the items affect frequency of visit to maximum extent. Micuda and Dinculescu (2010), states that quality can be categorized into two different cues. They are intrinsic which includes flavour, size etc and other one is extrinsic which are not product specific but serves as a general quality indicators for all products. Agnes et al. (2004), this study reveals that the waiting time, staff attitude, food quality affect customer satisfaction. Mona et al. (1998), they found that food type and quality are the key factors in determining the customer loyalty and satisfaction towards particular restaurant. They also states that meal experience is increased by tangible things in the restaurants. Goyal& Singh (2007), They expressed few factors influences consumption in fast food they are age, gender, variety, price, delivery, convenience, location, cleanliness, nutritional value, quality, taste, service and seating capacity. YildizTiryaki and AykutGul (2007), the result of this study expressed that age, income, education and other factors influences fast food consumption. Tabassum and Rahman (2012), they found that consumer attitude was favourable for Pizza Hut because of its quality and environment and KFC at second position due to price and its quick service. Huda and Hossain (2009), they stated that consumer prefer fast food more than regular food because of food quality, atmosphere, proximity, pricing and variety in menu. Ibrahim and Vignal (2005), they found that demographic factors such as age, income, education and gender highly influence consumer behaviour towards fast food restaurants. Singh Chib (2012), he focused on two variables namely customer satisfaction and service quality, he found that KFC provided much customer satisfaction than MC Donald s. Ajobo (2012), he stated that customer prefers quality food, cleanliness, consistency and staff attitude and states to gain more trust they should provide nutritional value meal. 82 Copyright Vandana Publications. All Rights Reserved. VI. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Descriptive research design is adopted to achieve the purpose of the study. This aims to understand the underlying factors which influences consumer s satisfaction towardsquick service outlet mostly visited. In this study outlet means frequently visited outlet by the respondents. The study is based on primary data collected from consumers directly using a structured questionnaire with multiple choice questions soliciting demographic information and five point rating scale statements to discover consumer satisfaction. Demographic details of the respondent s includes Age, Gender, Family total income per month, Marital Status, Family type, Family Size, Frequency of Visit per month and Average amount spent on single visit. The Five point rating scale ranges from Strongly Agree 5 to Strongly Disagree 1. The questionnaire was framed in simple English to ease the process of understanding by consumers and further interpretations by researcher. The samples were selected using convenience sampling. The questionnaire was circulated to many number of respondents and finally got completely filled questionnaire from 253 respondents. Sending the questionnaire through gives more freedom to responses and their convenience is given priority. VII. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION PERCENTAGE ANALYSIS FOR DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE OF THE RESPONDENTS Table 1: Respondents distribution towards Outlet, Age and Income Table 2: Respondents distribution towards Gender, Marital Status and Family Type

3 Table 3: Respondents distribution towards Family Size, Frequency of Visit and Average Amount spent per visit Table 7: Respondent s Monthly Income distribution over Outlets BIVARIATE TABULATION Table 4: Gender wise Distribution over Outlet Table 8: Respondent s Family Type over Outlets Table 5: Age wise distribution over Outlet Table 9: Respondent s Family Size over Outlets Table 6: Respondent s Marital Status distribution over Outlet Table 10: Average Frequency of Visit per month and Age 83 Copyright Vandana Publications. All Rights Reserved.

4 Table 11: Average Amount spent per visit and Age Table 15: Average Amount spent per visit and Income Table 12: Average Frequency of Visit per month and Gender of the Respondents Table 16: Average Frequency of Visit per month and Marital Status of the Respondents Table 13: Average Amount spent per visit and Gender Table 17: Average Amount spent per visit and Marital Status Table 14: Average Frequency of Visit per month and Income of the Respondents Table 18: Average Frequency of Visit per month and Family of the Respondents Table 19: Average Amount spent per visit and Family Type 84 Copyright Vandana Publications. All Rights Reserved.

5 Table 20: Average Frequency of Visit per month and Family Size of the Respondents Since calculated value is less than 0.05, H0 is rejected and thus there is an association between brands of retails outlets and Overall Satisfaction. IX. ANOVA Table 21: Average Amount spent per visit and Family Size ANOVA test between demographic profile of customers and overall satisfaction. Null Hypothesis (Ho): There is no significant difference between demographic factors and overall satisfaction. Alternate Hypothesis (Ha): There is a significant difference between factors influencing customer satisfaction and overall satisfaction. Table 24: ANOVA test for between demographic factors and overall satisfaction VIII. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS Mean and Standard Deviation for parameters influencing Customer Satisfaction Table 22: Mean and Standard Deviation for parameters influencing customer satisfaction INFERENCE The P value is which is less than So, Ho is rejected. It infers that there is a significant difference between respondent s age and employeesatisfaction about the remote PC monitoring. X. CONCLUSION From the above table it is found that Quality of product contributes more to customer satisfaction and then followed by Staff courtesy, Ambience of the store, Variety of product in the same order. Chi Square Ho: There is no significant association between branded retail outlets and Overall Satisfaction Table 23: Significance Value for Chi Square test The quick service retail industry has a tremendous potential and growing one third of its own every year. The brands like KFC, Domino s, Pizza Hut, McDonald s and Subway. The study helps to understand the importance of factors influencing customer satisfaction towards the store. The important parameters that influences customer satisfaction are Ambience of store, staff courtesy, Quality of product, variety of product. It can also be concluded that overall satisfaction differs from outlets to outlets. The study can be further expanded by studying in detail about parameters of each retail outlets using different research design and increasing sampling size in each brands. REFERENCES [1] Ayesha, Tabassum and Rahman, Tasnuva. (2012). Differences in Consumer Attitude towards Selective Fast Food Restaurants in Bangladesh: An Implication of Multi-attribute Attitude Model. World Review of Business Research, 2: (3). [2] Goyal, A., & Singh, N. P. (2007). Consumer perception about fast food in India: an exploratory study. British Food Journal, 109(2), Copyright Vandana Publications. All Rights Reserved.

6 [3] Ibrahim, Yasser and Vignali, Claudio. (2005). Predicting Consumer Patronage Behavior in the Egyptian Fast Food Business. Innovative Marketing, 1: (2). [4]Kinnarry Thakkar and MrunmayeeR.Thatte (2014), Consumer Perceptions of Food Franchise: A Study of McDonald s and KFC, International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 4, Issue 3, March 2014, Pp 1 5. [5] Micuda D I and Dinculescu E S (2010), Service Quality Attributes in Retail Banking Faculty of Management Marketing [6] Muzakkeerul, Huda, and Hossain, Tamima. (2009). Consumer Attitude towards Restaurants in Dhaka City: An Empirical study. ASA University Review, 3: (2). [7]Salami, C.G.E. and Ajobo, R.T. (2012). Consumer perception about fast food restaurants in Asaba.Global Journal of Management and Business Research, 12: (1). [8]Singh Chib, Sandeep. (2012). Relationship matrix between customer satisfaction and service quality in fast food industry - A comparative study of KFC and McDonalds. International Journal of Retailing & Rural Business Perspectives, 1: (1). [9] Thakkar, Kinnarry and Thatte, R. Mrunmayee. (2014). Consumer Perceptions of Food Franchise: A Study of McDonald s and KFC. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, 4: (3). 86 Copyright Vandana Publications. All Rights Reserved.