Consumer Rewards and their Role in Customer's Orientation: An Empirical Study on the Fast-Food Restaurants in Amman

Dr. Ahmad Zamil

King Saud University, Riyadh Community College, Faculty of Administrative Science, P.O.Box 28095,Riyadh 11437, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Tel: 966 543718710, Email: drahmad764@yahoo.com,azamil@ksu.edu.sa

Abstract:
This study aims to identify the kinds of rewards offered by the fast food restaurants in Amman to the customers. Study will focus on what fast food restaurants offer as incentives and rewards to attract more customers and increase sales volume. Primary data was collected by using a questionnaire distributed on the respondents, in order to ranking of their preferences to the rewards granted by the fast food restaurant. The main results are that rewards, especially '' gifts for children'' play a significant role in customer orientation.

Keywords: Consumer Rewards, Customer Orientation, Fast-Food

1- Introduction:
There were many reasons that led to the increased demand for Jordan's population to eat through fast food restaurant especially in the capital Amman. One of the most important reasons is the diversity of the population of the community in the capital, where there are a large number of Iraqis living in Amman because of the war in Iraq. And there are hundreds of thousands of Egyptians working in various sectors , in addition to a number , not a few, of Arab students , especially from Gulf Countries receiving study in Jordanian universities , which are concentrated mostly in Amman . Due to the lack of knowledge of some of these as how to prepare food at home, and the lack of sufficient time to prepare food especially in the category of students, there is increased demand of the consumption of fast food. It should be noted here that the number of tourist restaurants in the kingdom of 159 restaurants, including 80

restaurants to fast food (Alghad, 2010). one of the reasons that led to spread of fast food restaurants, and the growing demand for meals, is the change in lifestyle, and increased working hours, and a few hours to rest, and exit of women to work, so children did not find the chance to eat, but in these restaurants .in addition to advertising and promotional campaigns in various advertising media. This study will focus on what fast food restaurants offer as incentives and rewards to attract more customers and increase sales volume.

2- Problem Statement and Questions:

Since customer orientation means, the completely focus on customers wants and needs only (Copell, 2007), the problem of this study was formulated as follows: "Consumer reward system, can be a driver for customer orientation" This problem will be discussed according to the following questions: 1- Which kind of rewards motivates the customer to buy fast food? 2- In what occasions, do the fast food restaurants operating in Amman to announce the offering of rewards to the customers? 3- What is the impact of announcement of rewards by fast food restaurants operating in Amman on customer demand?

3- Importance of the Study:

retailers in their promotion campaigns rely on presentation encouraging for consumer, in order to achieve a number of immediate goals in the short-term, such as increasing the volume of sales, and attracting new customers, to be followed to achieve strategic goals in the long-run, such as survival in the market, increased market share and keep the name of the retailer store and products in the mind of the consumer. the importance of this study lies in it's looking at the impact of rewards offered to

customers, as one of the major presentations to convince the customer that organization focuses on customer orientation.

4- Objectives of the Study:

This study aims to achieve the following objectives: 1- to identify the kinds of rewards offered by the fast food restaurants in Amman to the customers. 2- To assess the degree of the impact of rewards on consumer demand for the purchase of fast food. 3- to propose new types of rewards not offered by fast food restaurants in Amman.

5- Hypotheses of the Study:

Since customer orientation means to satisfy customers need through the products themselves or their associated benefits, including rewards, so the hypotheses of this study will tests the type of rewards, which indicate on the orientation of the fast food restaurants in Amman for the customer, more than any other of rewards from the viewpoint of customers. So the hypotheses will tests three types of reward offered to customers, to identify which of them is the greater indicator of the customer orientation. HA1: Customers with card for six months pay a price much lower than the customers without a card for the meals, is evidence of the customer orientation. HA2: Buying a meal and getting a small one for free, indicates to customer orientation. HA3: Providing gifts and games for children, shows that the restaurant follows the strategy of customer orientation.

6- The study model

Figure 1 shows the independent variables and dependent variable of the study. Figure 1: Study independent variables and dependent variable Independent variables - Card for low prices - Providing small meals for free - Gifts and games for children Dependent variables Customer orientation

Procedural definition of terms. Cards for lower prices: some restaurants distribute marketers out of the door, to
visit institutions and homes to sell coupons of up to six months in most cases, to get the coupon holder to a cash discount of the prices of the meal, not getting by customers who do not hold these coupons.

Getting a small meal for free: a lot of fast food restaurants, announce that it
provide a smaller meal that the main meal for free with every meal purchased.

Gifts and games for children: because children and teenagers are fond of eating
fast food, restaurants have become offers for this category of customers, some free gifts

when buying a meal or give them the chance to play free on the playing machines located in the yard of the restaurant .

7- Literature Review and Theoretical Background 7-1 Customer Orientation

Customer oriented concept means, that the organization's focusing on customer needs and customer service, and this requires from the organization to engage in creating market information , and dissemination , and response for them (Brady and Cornin,2001) , in the marketing literature, some authors had defined three basics help implementing customer orientation . Kennedy et al (2003) pointed out that customer orientation theory has considered that these three pillars are: senior leadership, interfunctional coordination, and market intelligence.

7-2 senior leadership: as the researchers expected they found that the role of the
senior leadership in transformation to a customer orientation is a motivator role, in this case, senior leaders, become district's officials communicated their commitment, to the transformation, and implemented processes for leading the changes in the entire organization.

7-3 Interfunctional coordination: the literature of customer orientation

discussed the need to focus the efforts of the organization to customer satisfaction while meeting organization objectives, through adding value to the final customer.

7-4 Market intelligence simply means the use of market data in decision making
process, in order to take right decision that meets effectively the market demands. To compare between trained employees and untrained employees in their understanding of customer orientation (Forst, 1999) has conducted a survey with a focus group of 70 individuals, and the data were collected from 564 trained employees and 345 untrained municipal employees. The survey aimed at assessing perceptions related to change and the organizational climate which impede or facilitate the employee's use of total quality training. The results showed that employees who were not allowed to transfer and applying training recorded significantly less customer orientation, than, those who untrained. In this regard (Huang and Yuh-Liu, 2009) reported that customer orientation can be created through multiple sales channels. Organizations can create the desired customer experience, and the emergence of strategic intentions to manage customer relationship by relying on customer orientation approaches. And rewarding management beside customer orientation, encouraging 4

information sharing helps in resources coordination. According to (Zinkhan,2002) some organizations offer products services to the customer which include an incentive or reward through issuing a credit card, and to ensure the repeated use of the credit card by declaring the credit card and user may earn for example a box of chocolates which form an added value to the customer.

7-5 Fast food: from promotional perspective

Fast food meal can be defined as a meal containing the instant foods, such as shawarma, sandwiches, burgers and falafel, pastries, pizza and fried chicken pieces, with soft drink or cup of juice, sliced of fried potatoes. And the most important thing that distinguishes it does not contain the fruit or salads, and it eaten in hurry. Children and teenagers are the most popular people on eating junk food (www.6abib.com) Features of fast food including, speed of preparation, and get it. it s also an alternative to cooking at home , which has become rare these days, due to changes in lifestyle. Fast food means big business in this area historically, hamburgers and pizzas were the leaders in this way, but these two European dishes had not considered from fast food, until Richard and Maurice McDonald opened the world's first fast food restaurant in San Bernadino, California, in 1948. Fast food is the term given to several items that can be prepared and served quickly. Fast food indicates to food sold in restaurants or stores, which is quickly prepared and delivered to the customer in packaged form for take out or as in the American culture '' take away' .Fast food phenomenon evolved from drive-in restaurants that established in southern California in early 1940. And because the restaurants wanted to take advantage of the rise of the number of cars in the region, they have designed restaurants that allow a person to request a meal and eaten, without leaving his car (www.famouswhy.com). For Amman, as a big city there are about 24 fast food restaurants located in different areas of the city (www.visitjordan.com). These restaurants promote their products through different advertising means, such as newspapers, advertising brochures, roads advertisements and posters on public transport, in addition to providing different kinds of rewards in the form of free meals, add-ons free of charge for a meal , such as soft drinks, and gifts for kids , as are some, provides rewards through the provision of coupons to customers, so the price of the meal is less than the price without coupons, but the restaurant ensures repeat the customer to purchase throughout the period covered by these coupons, which is usually six months. In this regard, (Brant, 2008) has

conducted a survey to evaluate the impact of rewards programs on customer behavior in the retail sector. The sample consisted from 1000 U.S consumers. Respondents who completed the survey totaled 500, with only 46 respondents and 46 of respondents have completed the survey about fast food rewards. The researcher has listed, the components of, the fast food rewards program, ranking as their importance from the sample perspective, as shown in the Table 1 below.

Table 1. Fast food reward program

Ranks 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Preferred rewards ( from most to least preferred) Free merchandise or upgrade Immediate rewards /discounts and the point of sale Coupons for discounts on total purchase Cash back Discount prices Special member-only benefits Coupons for discounts on specific items Points or miles redeemable for merchandise or upgrades Discounts or rebates on gas Prepaid /gift cards Money added to a prepaid /gift card Percent rewards 67% 11% 22% 7% 15% 15% 48% 17% 2% 11% 2% receiving

N=46 The results of the survey also showed the following: Only 6% of consumers belong to rewards programs, and consumers who are

members of the fast food rewards programs, and 48% of the members are loyal to fast food stores. The rewards provided by fast food stores, do not always match the members

preferences.

8- Research methodology:
This research has been completed in accordance with the descriptive analytical approach to assessing the impact of rewards programs offered by fast food restaurants to the customers, in the implementation of customer orientation.

8-1 The Study Population and Sample:

The study population consists of the attendees fast food restaurants located in the University Of Jordan Street, and in Shmeisani area in Amman. And in order to obtain a representative sample, the time between 2PM-4 PM was chosen, where a sample of 100 consumers was chosen of both sexes and different ages.

8-2 Data Collection:

secondary data was collected from the literature and the internet, while primary data was collected by using a questionnaire distributed on the respondents, in order to ranking of their preferences to the rewards granted by the fast food restaurant.

8-3 Data Analysis and Findings.

Table 2 below shows the distribution of the sample by age:

Table 2
The sample distribution by age
Ages Less than 20 20-less than 25 25- less than 35 35- less than 45 45 and older Total Frequency 42 31 18 8 1 100 Percentage 42% 31% 18% 8% 1% 100%

We can see that the majority of respondents are young people who did not exceed twenty years (42 respondents), while the lowest number of respondents, is one of the categories 45 and older.

Table. 3
The sample distribution by sex
Sex Male Female Total Frequency 69 31 100 Percentage 69% 31% 100%

We note that the majority of the sample is males.

Table.4
Distribution of the sample as the most preferred rewards.
Rewards Cards (coupons) for lower prices Small meal for free Gifts and games for children Total Frequency 17 35 48 100 Percentage 17% 35% 48% 100%

We conclude that 48% of the sample is buying fast food because the restaurant is distributed gifts to children. And only 17% for coupons programs.

Table. 5
The distribution of preferred rewards by age and its impact on customer orientation
Rewards Age Less than 20 20->25 25-> 35 35->45 45 and older Total ----7 6 3 1 17 ---18 10 7 --35 42 6 ------48 Coupons Free meal Gifts for children Chi-Square test (P) 0.003* 0.012* 0.020* 0.028* 0.003* 0.000*

From the above results, young people prefer gifts more than other rewards for feeling more satisfied. All Chi-square results show significant differences due to the age variable in preferring fast food rewards.

9-

Conclusion:

Through the questionnaire, which consisted of three questions, which covered three types pf rewards used in this research, in addition to demographic characteristics of the participants, was reached to the following results: a. What drive young people to buy fast food from particular restaurants is the gift

distributed by the restaurants. b. The main results are that rewards, especially '' gifts for children'' play a

significant role in customer orientation. 10- Recommendations: Researcher offers the following recommendations for the fast food restaurants: 1Given what is said that fast food is unhealthy, restaurants must be provided with There is a kind of rewards- I did not see it working as a researcher which is:

meal of some vegetables, or fruit in their reward programs. 2-

buy three meals, and get the fourth free.

11- References:
[1] Copell, Patrick (2007). What does customer oriented mean? [2] Brady, Michael and Cronin, Joseph, J (2001). Customer orientation, effects on customer service perceptions and outcome behaviors. [3] Journal of Service Research , Volume 3, NO.3, February 2001.PP.241-251

[4] Kennedy, Karen et al (2003). Implementing a customer orientation: extension of theory and application. Journal of marketing, Vol.67 (October, 2003). PP 67-81. [5] Forst, Jamie et al (1999). Change, transfer climate and customer orientation. Institute of behavioral research. [6] Huang, Shan- Yan and Yuh Liu, Han (2009). A perspective of two dimensions process integration customer relationship management, Driven Business Model. ICIS 2009, November 24-26, 2009 Seoul, Korea. [7] Zinkhan George (2002). Relationship marketing: theory and implementation. Journal of market focus management, 5, 83-89(2002). [8] www.6abib,com [9] www.visitjordan.com [10] Brant, Sharon (2008). Fast Food (QSR) rewards programs consumer insight. [11] Alghad Newspaper, 17.10.2010