Decoding Visitors’ Perceptions towards Service Quality At a Smart Restaurant in Bhubaneswar, Odisha

Authors

  • Lalat Indu Misra, Ansuman Samal, Bibhuti Bhusan Pradhan, Jyotirmoyee Jena

Abstract

In today’s hyper-competitive marketplace, the quality of products and services have become the core differentiator between the companies when it comes to gaining and sustaining competitive advantage over others. Within this ambit of services sector, the hospitality industry has become dominant as it contributes towards the generation of revenues at one hand and also supports a nation by creating job opportunities through its various segments and operational facets. Due to such importance of the sector, we need to carefully design, assess, and if require take various precautionary measures to ensure a seamless high quality service delivery network. In this regard, a study was conducted at a robotic restaurant known as ‘Robochef” at Bhubaneswar, in the state of Odisha, India where they have employed two indigenously developed humanoids to serve the customers.This robot restaurant is believed to be the first operational robot operated eatery in the whole eastern part of the nation which makes it a very distinctive experience for the visitors and currently attracting many customers. As it’s a unique & emerging concept, it definitely calls for further deliberations because it’s a general notion that machines cannot replace the humans in terms of emotional connections. A total of 128 visitors were interviewed by using the famous SERVQUAL scale.In our study,we have tried to capture their general demographic profiles,visit intentions,perception&expectation scores regarding the different variables, price sensitivity, satisfaction scores, behavioural aspects, and suggestions for further improvementsetc. Some recommendations are made for improving the current state of operations based on the findings and the suggestions of the customers.

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Published

2020-05-18

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Section

Articles