Faculty of Commerce, Administration and Law

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Browsing Faculty of Commerce, Administration and Law by Subject "Black consumers"

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    Customer satisfaction amongst black customers in the fast food restaurant industry
    (2011) Forjoe jnr, Paul; Contogiannis, E.; Williams, A.J.
    The purpose of this study was to validate the five dimensions (tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy) of service quality contained in the DINESERV Instrument (Stevens, Knuston, and Patton, 1995), in a fast food restaurant and explore the differences in perceived service quality for customers. The study focused on black consumers as they are the majority race group in South Africa and also considered an important client group to many fast food enterprises. Chicken is the most popular fast food item in South Africa (Euromonitor International, 2005: 1, 6). With KFC being the dominant global player in fast food in South Africa, it was the restaurant of focus where information was collected from. A questionnaire containing the modified DINESERV instrument was distributed to staff and students of the University of Zululand. The questionnaire was provided in both English and Zulu. Cronbach Coefficient Alpha was used to test construct reliability of the DINESRV instrument. ANOVA was used to determine the difference of dimension scores in the five service dimensions. Correlation analysis was used to determine the relationship between customers‟ perceived service quality and characteristics such as gender, age, and education achieved. The results of the questionnaire revealed both the DINSERV instrument and service dimension to be reliable. Responsiveness was regarded the most important dimension of service quality with Assurance being the least. Empathy was shown to be the most important dimension of the dining experience. Black consumers in the Umhlathuzi Municipality believe that empathy is the dimension that fast food restaurants are least successful in achieving when compared to the other dimensions. Also it was found that black customers of the Umhlathuzi Municipality visit chicken restaurants because of the taste that chicken restaurants create, variety of menu and value for money. The author recommends that chicken fast food restaurants consider expanding their number of outlets as well as offering both grilled and fried chicken to increase service quality and choice. Programs can also be designed using elements in DINESERV to improve the empathy dimension in fast food restaurants. Further research must however be done to explore the reasons why fast food restaurants are less successful in achieving empathy and also why people choose restaurants.
University of Zululand