According to the World Trade Organization (2019), the services sector like the

hospitality industry occupies a prominent position in the world economy, which has

altered the national economies on a massive scale. In order to survive in the market,

entrepreneurs must not only excel at the quality of their products and services, but they

also need to provide their customers with a great experience and high levels of

satisfaction. Given that every person has different expectations and that quality is

perceived in accordance with their needs, customers nowadays are becoming more

demanding and relying on social media and websites for information. Recently, a new

way of dealing with customers has been introduced to the food and beverage industry,

and that is the usage of self-service kiosks (SSK). SSKs are common in other continents,

such as Europe and America, while there are only several fast-food restaurants in the

Philippines that use this technology, as it was only introduced in the country by

McDonald’s in 2018.

While it could be inferred that the human aspect is still very important in every

service delivery, technology is continuously reshaping the customer experience. The use

of self-service kiosks, for example, has gradually impacted the service cycle of each

restaurant that has this kind of technology because, based on the recent study by

Algawari and Khan (2021), a self-service kiosk is regarded as one of several

technological forms of self-service technologies (SST). It is an invention that moves

technologies that improve services into a new era of rapid social development.

Furthermore, Geetha and Yang (2019) stated that a self-service kiosk is a self-contained

touch-screen machine that allows customers to generate a service without the

involvement of an employee.
 However, even if self-service kiosks are said to improve efficiency, it still has

problems. In the Philippines, these devices are rarely seen in fast-food restaurants. If

fast-food consumers in other parts of the world like using it, the same could not be said

for the people who live in Manila, after all, every country has different beliefs and

cultures which affect the perception of its people.

 To prove this problem, Redyref, a kiosk company, claimed that self-service kiosks

also have disadvantages when it comes to customer satisfaction, as the devices do not

require interaction with employees, there will be no personal touch. Although useful,

kiosks cannot handle all the problems that may occur. In addition, Galdolage (2018),

stated that some customers typically look for human interaction with the service provider.

The main cause of the problem is that customer satisfaction is difficult to achieve

because people have different perceptions about the use of technology in fast-food

service. Also, self-service kiosks have not been utilized in the country for ample time to

know their effects on customer satisfaction. The effect of these problems is that they can

limit the capability of fast-food restaurants, especially in service.

The effects of self-service kiosks on customer satisfaction of the selected fast-

food restaurant in Manila must be known, hence the reason why the research is crucial.

In order to help the industry, the researchers concluded that a quality analysis of the said

technology is needed so that they can create a basis for an improvement plan for fast-food

service.