Question 1) Services that contributes to the restaurants cost of quality Santa Cruz, a Mexican Restaurant is dedicated to provide quality

services to their customers and they want to improve their quality to such an extent that will force customers to visit the restaurant again and again. In customer survey results, it is found that customers liked the quality of drink, quality of food, presentation and staff service in this restaurant. The restaurant has been focusing on other area of services such as speed of service and ambience of the restaurant because it has caused total downgrade in overall satisfaction level of the employees. In restaurant business, the cost of quality can be described below: a) Prevention Costs: These costs are associated with all those activities that are incurred to prevent poor quality in services. In restaurant business, the prevention cost is the cost that is incurred to improve the quality services by the waiter & host/hostess, ensuring the quality ingredients in foods, providing the nice ambience and supply of good quality raw material (vegetables, non-vegetables, spices etc). In this case, Santa Cruz invests on training of waiters & host/hostess because they represent the restaurant and they should be well mannered and well trained while delivering services to the customers. Lack of services may cause loss of customers in future. b) Appraisal Costs: These costs are associated with measurement, evaluation or auditing of the services to ensure the required quality standard and performance. In restaurant business, the appraisal costs is associated with inspection cost incurred to check the quality of raw material, the service speed, the cooking instruments and the processing period. In this case, Santa Cruz invest on cooking instruments as they believe that food is the ultimate thing that each customer look out for in a restaurant so the cooking instruments should also be at standard level. c) Internal Failure Costs: The failure cost is incurred when company is failed to meet the customers needs and requirements in terms of services and quality. The internal failure cost incurs before the service is been provided to the customers. In restaurant business, the internal failure cost is associated with failing to provide tasty & quality food, lack of staff services, unable to provide the pleasant ambience and lack of presentation. In this case, Santa Cruz has internal failure costs on speed of services and unable to provide

right ambience to the customers. These two factors have caused the restaurant to get unsatisfactory customer response. d) External Failure Costs: The external failure costs incurs after the service is been provided to the customers. In restaurant business, the external failure cost is wrong delivery of meals to the customers, processing the customer issues and complaints and customer returns. In this case, Santa Cruz has external failure cost on processing the customer issues and complaints through customer care executive. The overall customer satisfaction of the restaurant is already demoralizing which is contributed by customer complaints and customer return on various issues. Question 2) Relevant Procedures Followed by Employees Waiter (Jimmy Changa) A waiter fulfills different tasks in a restaurant but the ideal procedure that waiter (waiter Jimmy Changa in case study) has to follow when a potential diner comes to restaurant: 1) Greeting Customers: The waiter should greet their customers when they are taken to the seat by the host/hostess. In some cases, the host/hostess greets their customers and takes them to their respective seats. 2) Offering and Serving Appetizers and Beverages: Once the potential diner arrives and take their respective seats, the waiter should offer and serve the appetizers and beverages. The waiter should have appropriate knowledge about the wines and soft drinks along with the appetizers and other beverages on the menu card. Once the waiter takes the order, it delivers the appetizers and drinks to the diner. 3) Taking Meal Orders and Serve: The main duty of waiter is to take meal order and serve the order foods to the customers. The waiter should politely discuss about the restaurants regular menu and daily special menu items with the customers. The waiter should have ample knowledge with the menu items and other side dishes. 4) Continued the Service: After serving meals to customers, the waiter should pay attention to get any further needs from the customer. The waiter should take away the soiled dishes, refilling drinks and offering other amenities or napkins.

5) Accepting the payment: Once waiter finish will all deliveries, he providers the payment receipt to the customers and accepts forms of payment. If waiter is offered tip (whatever it may be), s/he graciously accepts it. Hostess (Phyllis Stein) When potential customers/diners arrive in a restaurant, they are first interacted with Hostess, so the role of hostess is very important before and after delivering the meals to them. The ideal procedure that hostess (Phyllis Stein) should follow in the restaurant is: 1) Greet Customers: Hostess should politely and graciously greet to the customers. After greeting them, customers should taken to their reserved seats or vacant seat or waiting seat. The hostess should ensure that she should be dress well as guests/customers get impressed by good and elegant attires first. 2) Perform Preparatory Work: The hostess should perform the preparatory work before the dinner services can be started. For example, planning the seating arrangements and taking phone reservations etc. The hostess should also coordinate with restaurant manager in arrangement of private parties and its schedules. 3) Customer Service: The hostess should take/show patrons to their tables or waiting place. The hostess answers the queries asked by the guests about the dinner specials, the price list or the restaurants specialty. Once the seats are captured by the customers, they are informed about the waiter name who is basically assigned for the table. The hostess listen the queries and complaints rose by the guests and tries to solve it as soon as possible. 4) After Dinner Duties: Once the customers are finished with their dinner, the hostess makes sure that customers had nice time in restaurant and greet them with say good bye.

Question 3) Meaningful standards of service for the restaurant When a customer enters into the restaurant, he expects the quality of services at each aspect. Customers like to be treated with care and an exceptional ambience where they can enjoy their meal. Service standard makes people to come back to restaurant again and again because having meal is just an excuse to spend time and be again in such restaurant. a) Offering good quality food: The biggest indicator of restaurant service is the food quality. Food quality is the major factor that makes positive impression of the customer in overall restaurant experience. The restaurant should ensure that the quality of beverages and the food is not compromised. The restaurant could not be the best in quality food but it should ensure that food is prepared cleanly and safely. b) Quality Atmosphere and Ambience: Ambience and quality atmosphere is another major factor that makes a restaurant distinguished from other restaurants. When customers enter in restaurant premise, they should feel comfortable and special about themselves. Some of the factors that restaurant should be kept into mind while developing nice ambience: The choice of attractive lighting: Lighting and its combination is something that attracts people to come enjoy the atmosphere in restaurant. There should be deliberate choice of lights that set the tone in the atmosphere and guests like to stay with such ambience for longer period of time. The lighting combinations should be changed on regular basis so that customers keep their interest with restaurant and they come again and again. Choose deliberate music: Music is something that should be chosen carefully because it has the power to give soothing feeling to the customers. The volume should be audible rather making distraction for the guests. Music creates the ambience and guests can enjoy their meal. Appropriately decorate the surroundings: Restaurant should be decorated with special and unique theme that can attract the attention of guests. Making the restaurant spotless Maintain the room temperature to a comfortable level.

c) Well mannered Staff: The staff members such as hostess and waiters should behave politely and respectfully with the customers. The staff should treat customers like they are the only customers or very special customers for the restaurant. The host should ask customer for their each requirements and should always be ready to assist them in any issue. While the waiters should treat customers in well mannered way; waiter should ensure that customers are given beverages and meals as per their order and serve them gracefully. d) Speed of service: This factor counts in standard of service by most of the restaurants. Customers dont like to wait for their food for long time and if they are forced to do so, it directly impacts the restaurant business. e) Offering Customer Feedback Card: Once customer are done with their meals and payment, they may be asked to write on the service level offered by the restaurant because this helps the restaurant to work on the weak area and improve the service level so that customers can have good experience with the restaurant.

Question 4) Recommendations to improve the overall customer experience at the Restaurant Providing good customer satisfaction doesnt just happen suddenly. It takes lot of efforts and investment by the restaurant. The customer satisfaction can be achieved only when they are provided what they value and what they like. There are basically five steps that restaurants should adopt: 1) Know the Needs and Priorities of Customers: Many restaurants assume that they know the liking and priorities of customers or sometime they follow the same customer experience survey conducted long back ago even in present time. It is essential to conduct customer survey on regular basis because the liking and priorities of customers change with time and so as their expectations from the restaurants. Customers like to experience new things and restaurants should bring new changes in service level of restaurants such as interior look, food items, ambience and ways of guest reception. 2) Understand the performance benchmark: The restaurants should use customer satisfaction surveys very carefully and should not interpret the result mistakenly. For

example, the results are sometimes assumed that it is a comparison with other business player in the industry. The customer experience is influenced with their experience in other restaurants. The customer satisfaction survey should perform a comparative analysis with other restaurants from the customers so that they can understand what makes customers to like other restaurants. The comparative report will give broader picture to understand the performance benchmark. This process will help restaurant to improve the performance level in their weak area. 3) Track the performance level regularly: The restaurant should track the offered customer services, the food items and customer feedback on regular basis because this will help them to understand the gap between ideal service offerings with the actual service offering. The identification of this gap will help management of restaurants to take necessary measures in future. For example, same lighting and music arrangement might not be liked by the most of the customers which can be tracked by the management and can make changes in that on regular basis. 4) Developing good relation between Managers and Staff: External environment can be bright only when the internal working environment is bright; it means good customer experience is only possible when staff members are happy with the work environment and they have good relationship with the managers. When the staff members are respected and value only then the customers can feel the great level of customer experience in the restaurants. It is highly required to keep motivate the staff members and influence them to provide better customer services. 5) Provide customer feedback opportunities: Customers in the restaurants like to share their thoughts and opinions with the restaurant whether they like the customer services and whether they had nice experience in the restaurant or not. The restaurant should provide customer feedback card to each customer so that they can respond on level of the experience they had in restaurants; they can share their likings and their expectations from the restaurant in future. All these feedbacks can be collected and management of the restaurant should start to work on so that most of the customers can have nice experience in the restaurant and they like to come again and again.

Question 5) Customer Survey Card

1) How often do you dine in our restaurant? a) First Time, b) Daily, c) Weekly, d) Monthly, e) Once in three months, f) Other

1) Was the host/hostess or waiter available or attentive when you needed them? a) Yes, b) No, c) No comments

2) Was the host/hostess or waiter able to answer your questions or knowledgeable about the food and beverages? a) Yes, b) No, c) No comments

3) Give the ratings to the taste of your meal a) Excellent, b) Good, c) Average, d) Below Average, e) Poor 4) The temperature of the served food a) Excellent, b) Good, c) Average, d) Below Average, e) Poor 5) Please give rating on your visit to restaurant in terms of value for the money a) Excellent, b) Good, c) Average, d) Below Average, e) Poor 6) Give rating to the speed of service a) Excellent, b) Good, c) Average, d) Below Average, e) Poor 7) Give rating to ambience and surrounding environment a) Excellent, b) Good, c) Average, d) Below Average, e) Poor 8) Give rating to the way of presentation by host/hostess or waiter a) Excellent, b) Good, c) Average, d) Below Average, e) Poor 9) Would you like to refer this restaurant to any of your friend or relatives

a) Excellent, b) Good, c) Average, d) Below Average, e) Poor

Question 6) Presentation Successful Restaurant A successful restaurant is one that can meet the customers expectation in terms of quality food, good presentation, good ambience, good service quality and customer friendly. Factors that Influence the Customers Quality and Tasty Food Good Presentation by Host/Hostess Good Speed of Service Good Ambience/Environment Friendliness of Staff Good responsiveness to Customer Problems

The Standard Procedures to be followed by. Waiter Greeting Customers: The waiter should greet their customers when they are taken to the seat by the host/hostess. Offering and Serving Appetizers and Beverages: Serving the appetizers and drinks (beverages) before serving the dinner. Taking Meal Orders and Serve: taking orders about the dinner items and dishes from the customers, politely discussion about the restaurants regular menu and daily special menu items, ample knowledge with the menu items and other side dishes. Continuing the service: Paying attention to get any further needs from the customer Accepting the payment

Hostess

Greet Customers: Politely and graciously greet to the customers Perform Preparatory Work: Perform the preparatory work before the dinner services Customer Service: Listening the queries and complaints, answers the queries asked by the guests After Dinner Duties: Say good bye

Meaningful Standard of Services for the Restaurant Offering good quality food: major factor that makes positive impression of the customer in overall restaurant experience, the quality of beverages and the food is not compromised, preparing the food cleanly and safely Quality Atmosphere and Ambience: The choice of attractive lighting; Choose deliberate music; Appropriately decorate the surroundings; Making the restaurant spotless; Maintain the room temperature to a comfortable level Well mannered Staff: behave politely and respectfully with the customers; treat customers like special customer Speed of Service: Customers dont like to wait for their food for long time; directly impacts the restaurant business. Offering Customer Feedback Card: Ask customers to write on the service level offered by the restaurant; helps to improve the service level

Recommendations to improve the overall customer experience at the Restaurant.... Know the Needs and Priorities of Customers: know the liking and priorities of customers; liking and priorities of customers change with time; Customers like to experience new things Understand the performance benchmark: Carefully use customer satisfaction surveys; Influence of experience in other restaurants on customer expectation; Need to perform competitive analysis; helps to improve the performance level of restaurant

Track the performance level regularly: Take customer feedback on regular basis; understand the gap between ideal service offerings with the actual service offering Developing good relation between Managers and Staff: Need to keep internal employees and staff happy; Direct influence of internal working environment on customer service; need to value and respect the internal employees; Need to keep motivate the staff members and influence them to provide better customer services.

Provide customer feedback opportunities: Need to take views and opinions of customers; need to capture the expectations of customers from any restaurant; collection of feedback helps management to take necessary actions