Determinants of Consumer Perceptions of Service Quality in Restaurants

Abstract

Abstract Service quality has been an issue of importance to managers and academic researchers in a variety of service industries. Most approaches to this topic have utilized a variety of multiitem questionnaires (for example, SERVQUAL) to measure consumer perceptions of service quality. Such approaches have some weaknesses including: A common set of items are assumed to apply to all settings; and, all items are assumed to be equally important in influencing consumers' evaluations of quality. Conjoint analysis is used to overcome these limitations. Using a set of attributes derived from consumers and using consumers' measures of the relative importance of these attributes it is found that consumers do show a differential ranking of the different attributes of restaurants. Those wishing to measure consumer preferences of service industries, such as restaurants, need to understand how consumers evaluate service variables before making changes in existing service mixes. Key Words: Restaurant qualitycustomer service