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Naila Aaijaz* et al. / (IJAEBM) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS MANAGEMENT Vol No. 2, Issue No.

1, 073 - 076

Fast Food Outlets: Consumer Expectations and Perception from Kelantan,Malaysia


Faculty of Business and Entrepreneurship, University Malaysia Kelantan Kota Bharu, Kelantan, Malaysia naila@umk.edu.my
Abstract Objective Using the data from a

Naila Aaijaz 1,

Mohamed Dahlan b Ibrahim 2

Faculty of Business and Entrepreneurship, University Malaysia Kelantan, Kota Bharu, Kelantan, Malaysia

consumer survey, this study aims to investigate the relationship between consumers fast food outlet loyalty (in years) and the attitude of young consumers living in Kota Bharu city. The study also investigates the importance of quality of the product that are offered to the customer. It also studies the importance of facility location and layout which bring convenience to the customer and increase efficiency at the outlets. One step further we also walkthrough the service delivery process and service package offered when dealing with customers by fast food outlets. Design/methodology/approach This study was conducted via undergraduate business course students of University Malaysia Kelantan (UMK) who as young customers filled a self-administered brief questionnaire on their visits to various fast food outlets in Kota Bharu, Kelantan State of Malaysia. Findings The results indicate that food quality, overall cleanliness of the outlet, service efficiency and facility layout provided by the outlet influences the fast food brand loyalty of young customers. Purchases were mainly due to the four factors perception of customers on food quality, cleanliness, facility layout, efficiency in service delivery. Research Limitations/Implications The research was conducted with students, and while these represent a key target market, any further research should target a more diverse public base. Despite research suggesting a general lack of food quality technical knowledge, results from this 168 person sample indicated familiarity with general likeable quality in food served at fast food outlets by young consumers, general clean conditions maintained in the outlets and facilities provided to attract more customers.

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ISSN: 2230-7826

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@ 2011 http://www.ijaebm.iserp.org. All rights Reserved.

Practical implications There are important implications for global fast-food companies in terms of protecting and developing their brand value; they need to respond to the wider food-related debates in society, in particular those concerning food quality, cleanliness and fast food service package offerings. This will ensure their consistency with brand loyalty and customer retention initiatives. The value of this paper lies in its consumer value in the Malaysian fast food industry as it explores the same through the perceptions and expectations of young consumers of fast food. Keywords- consumer perception, fast food quality, facility layout, outlet cleanliness, Kelantan,, Malaysia

I. INTRODUCTION Malaysians were first introduced to fast foods when A&W established its first restaurant in 1963. Since then, consumers' acceptance of fast foods has been on the upward trend. This is manifested by the proliferation of fast food outlets in Petaling Jaya and Kuala Lumpur, such as McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), Grandy's, Pizza Hut and Shakey's Pizza, especially during the past ten years. These restaurants are franchised outlets that serve standardised western style menus, prepared according to strict specifications and charge fixed prices. Kelantan is one of the 9 states in Malaysia. It is known as the cradle of Malaysian culture. Its capital, Kota Bharu also known as the East Coast city, is a small town with a couple of shopping malls like Tesco, KB Mall and Pantai Timur harbouring most of the fast food outlets. We can find the popular ones like the 24-hour KFC and McDonald's and there are also plenty of Malay and Chinese coffee shops serving yummy local dishes. Although some chains (London Fishtales) which was first launched in Kota Bharu in Tesco have failed, others (McDonald's, KFC) have been very successful. Due to the high costs of setting up and operating a fast food restaurant,

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Naila Aaijaz* et al. / (IJAEBM) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS MANAGEMENT Vol No. 2, Issue No. 1, 073 - 076

financial strength stands out as an important factor for the longterm survival of these ventures.

questionnaire for, only 138 questionnaires were completed and usable, yielding a response rate of 82%. The fast food outlets visited were A&W, KFC, McDonalds, Pizza Hut and Marry Brown. All are located in Kota Bharu. The sample size was determined by ungrouped one stage random likelihood sampling method based on households (Collins, 1986): n = t2 [1 + (0.02) (b-1)]* pq/E2 (1)

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1.96 * (0.9 * 0.1) (0.05)
2 2

II. LITERATURE REVIEW Fast foods have been defined by Bender and Bender (1993) as a general term used for a limited menu of foods that lend themselves to production-line techniques; suppliers tend to specialize in products such as burgers, pizzas, chicken or sandwiches (Davies & Smith, 2004). What distinguishes fast food from other types of food away from home is that it is indeed fast-near immediate service , providing a consistent and popular product. Because of the standardized menu and consistent quality, only minimal time need to be spent obtaining product information (Jekanowsky, Binkley, & Eales, 2001) Law, Hui, and Zhao (2004) showed that staff attitude, food quality and variety and environment significantly effect customer satisfaction in fast food outlets. Pettijohn, Pettijohn and Luke (1997) found that quality, cleanliness and value to be three most important attributes in fast food restaurants, while atmosphere and menu variety were unimportant. These researches, however, do not specifically consider the impact of service and facility layout provided by the fast-food outlet on the consumers brand loyalty. This research, therefore, builds on previous work and attempts to identify and compare Malaysian consumers (special reference to young consumers in Kota Bharu city, Kelantan State of Malaysia) fast food brand loyalty based on food quality and other attributes. We have to note here that the young students studying Kelantan are a mixed crowd belonging to various other states in Malaysia. So a feel of consumers view other than Kelantanese consumers is also there.

where n is the sample size, t is the significance level (assumed to be 95%), b is the stage of sampling and p is the probability of the situation being searched (for this study it is assumed to be 90%), q is the probability of the situation not being searched (1-p), and E is the accepted error (assumed to be 5%). If b is equal to 1, the Equation (1) is transformed to the following equation. n = (t2 * pq) / E2 (2) (3)

n = --------------------- = 138

III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY To test the hypothesis about how a consumers fast food consumption is affected by fast food outlets characteristics such as food quality, cleanliness, service efficiency and process layout, a questionnaire survey of a sample of consumers was conducted. Kota Bharu was selected as the focus of study because it is the capital city and its relatively greater affluence and population density compared to other parts of the state of Kelantan in Malaysia, and the fact that it forms the centre of the fast food industry in Kelantan like any other capital city in Malaysia and other parts of the world. Field interviews were conducted from March to April 2009. Due to time and cost constraints, the survey covered only Kota Bharu city area. Pengkalan Chepa happened to be a major concentration as the fast food outlets in this area have a close proximity to University Malaysia Kelantans (UMKs) location. Customers (mostly students of UMK) were the customers, so the age group of all respondents ranged from 22-25 years. The outlets were selected randomly by the students depending mainly on their choice. In cases of non-response from a selected respondent, the no. of students responded to question have been noted. Of 168 respondents who attempted the

Data was collected from the respondents at the outlets in order to encourage an on-the-spot opinion about quality of food, cleanliness, service efficiency and facility layout provided by a particular fast food outlet. The questionnaire used to collect responses was structured in two sections and contained straightforward questions. In the first section, the interviewers collected data on respondents attitude towards fast-food outlets - food quality attributes, service quality attributes and facility layout attributes. Consumers were asked to record their responses on a Likert scale as follows: 1. Excellent, 2. Very Good, 3. Good, 4. Fair, 5. Poor and 6. Not Applicable. The second section contained the consumers brand loyalty for fast food outlets. Participants were asked to rate the no. of years they have been visiting a particular brand of fast food outlet. Like less than 1 year, 1 to 3 years, 3 to 5 years, 5 to 10 years and 10 years and more. The definitions of the food quality and service variables and consumer brand loyalty variables and descriptive statistics of the sample are presented in Table 1. A total of 138 observations, all with complete information on the variables included were analyzed. Descriptive statistics was used to identify quality, service and process layout characteristics and attitude of customers (Table 1). We performed two analyses to achieve the objectives of this study; Chi-square contingency test and ordered probit model. In the first analysis, Chi-square contingency test was used to determine if fast food outlet brand loyalty are independent of the respondents attitude towards food quality, food service and process layout. The Statistical program, Statistical package for Social Science (SPSS for Windows, version 11.5, 2004, SPSS Inc., Chicago, Illinois) was used to transform where necessary, tabulate and analyze the data. Due to space constraint (5 pages only) we have deliberately omitted our discussion on the method of performing the ordered probit model. It can be added in this paper later for full length research paper publication purpose.

IJ
ISSN: 2230-7826

@ 2011 http://www.ijaebm.iserp.org. All rights Reserved.

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Naila Aaijaz* et al. / (IJAEBM) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS MANAGEMENT Vol No. 2, Issue No. 1, 073 - 076

IV.
TABLE I

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION


Std. Deviation .495 .000 .750 1.089 1.250 1.194 1.203 1.249 1.342 1.287 .757

TABLE II

PERCEPTION OF CONSUMERS ON FAST FOOD LAYOUT.

DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS OF THE SAMPLE


N 138 138 138 138 138 138 138 138 138 138 138 138 138 138 138 138 138 Mean 1.58 1.00 1.81 2.77 2.37 2.30 2.45 2.64 2.90 2.60 2.10 2.41 2.86 2.62 2.40 2.70

OUTLET, PRODUCT, SERVICE QUALITY AND FACILITY

Descriptive Statistics Males or Females Age of customers Belong to which race Fast Food Joint Product quality - Colour Product quality - Taste Product quality - Presentation Product Quality - Overall Cleanliness Service Quality - Efficiency - Speed of Service Service Quality - Garbage Bins/Trash cleaned regularly or not Facility Layout - Entrance / Approach to the Outlet Facility Layout- Parking Area - Clean / available space Facility Layout - Sitting Arrangement Facility layout - Cleanliness maintained at the washing area Customer Satisfaction Level - Re-visit & Re-purchase Customer Satisfaction Level - Years been a customer at the outlet Valid N (listwise)

Fast Food Joint

Excellent % 19.6 17.4

Very Good % 31.9 26.1

Good % 23.9 22.5

Fair % 13.8 17.4

Poor % 10.9 6.7

Overall Cleanliness Service Quality Efficiency Speed Product Quality Taste

34.8

21.7

25.4

14.5

3.6

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Facility Layout Sitting Arrangement 16.7 20.3
1.098 1.169 1.245 1.223 1.497

29.7

27.5

5.8

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ISSN: 2230-7826

Descriptive statistics was used to identify the fast food outlet attributes (characteristics) like quality, cleanliness, service and process layout and customers brand perception and loyalty (Table 1). Looking at the mean and small standard deviation which do not vary much, it shows that pattern of respondents attitude is quite similar with one another. However we find that Service quality (std deviation is the highest) approx 1.3 compared to all other attributes of a fast food outlet. Also Customer Satisfaction level is the highest 1.49 (approx. 1.5). This shows that service quality (efficiency speed of service) has been an important factor in deciding a re-purchase / re-visit to the fast food outlets for most of the young consumers. This demographic data and behaviour data provide the background of our research respondents, now let us look at their perception towards service quality provided by the fast food outlet.

In terms of Fast Food JointOverall Cleanliness, we find that 27 respondents (19.6%) are of the opinion that excellent cleanliness was found, 44 (31.9%) and 33 (23.9%) respondents claim that the outlets cleanliness were in a very good and good condition respectively. On the other hand a small number of respondents 15 (10.9%) say that outlets they went were in poor condition in terms of cleanliness. Overall we can say close to 90% of the respondents find that fast food outlets overall cleanliness was appreciable. Refer Table-2. So and so forth, we find that about 94% consumers rated Service Quality as excellent to fair. Only 6.7% found it poor. In terms of Product Quality i.e. food quality we see that about 97% population of respondents found it ranging from excellent to fair but only 3.6% found quality of food poor. Further facility layout was rated excellent to fair by almost 94% of the respondents and only 5.8% found facilities provided unacceptable (poor facilities). We performed the Chi Square contingency test. To interpret the chi-square test we look at the Pearson Chi-square. Of the four service quality items of the fast food outlets found the product quality having the highest ChiSquare value. See Table 3.

@ 2011 http://www.ijaebm.iserp.org. All rights Reserved.

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Naila Aaijaz* et al. / (IJAEBM) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS MANAGEMENT Vol No. 2, Issue No. 1, 073 - 076

TABLE III : CHI-SQUARE TESTS PRODUCT QUALITY (TASTE) and RE-PURCHASE / RE-VISIT BY CUSTOMER

Value Pearson ChiSquare Likelihood Ratio Linear-byLinear Association N of Valid Cases 135.200(a) 155.320 71.216

df 16 16 1

Significance (2-sided) .000 .000 .000

groupings to enhance customers' beliefs of these attributes. For example, improving the quality of fast food (mainly taste, presentation) by providing a good tasty food with a good balance of vitamins and minerals and by reducing oils and saturated fats (cholesterol) would encourage more customers to fast foods. It may then be justified as a good meal. VI. [1] REFERENCES

F.M. Bass, and W.W. Talarzyk, "An Attitude Model for the Study of Brand Preference", Journal of Marketing Research , Vol . 9, February 1972.

138

[2] [3]

D.L. James, et.al., "The Use of a Multi-attribute Attitude Model in a Store Image Study", Journal of Retailing, Vol. 52, No. 2, Summer 1976.

a ) 12 cells (48.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is .14. This one has 12 cells (48%) having expected count less than 5. The Chi-square of this factor (product quality) is 135.2, its significant level p=.000, less than the 0.05 probability level. Similarly Chi-square test for Overall Cleanliness is 111.1 and again p=.000. Service Efficiencys chi Square is 113.25, and p=.000. Facility Layout Chi-square is 122.6, and p=.000. Hence we conclude that the most important factor for consumers in re-visit or re-purchase is the product or food quality followed by facility layout, then Service Efficiency and last Overall Cleanliness. Refer Table 3. V. CONCULSIONS

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ISSN: 2230-7826 @ 2011 http://www.ijaebm.iserp.org. All rights Reserved. Page 76

Customers attach great importance to quality of food, facility layout, service quality speed and cleanliness. Any other factor trails after these factors. Hence, for a fast food chain to do well, great attention should be paid to the first two

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1987.

A.H. Mohd. Tahir, "Franchising in Malaysia: A Formula with a Future", Journal Productivity No. 9, December 1990. Singapore Business, July

[4]

M. Jekanowski, J.K. Binkley & J. Eales, (2001). Convenience, acceptability, and the demand for fast food. Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 26(1), 58-74

[5]

L.S. Pettijohn, C.E. Pettijohn & R.H. Luke (1997). An evaluation of fast food restaurant satisfaction : Determinants, competitive comparisons and impact on future patronage. Journal of Restaurant and Food Service Marketing , 2(3), 3-20.

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