Page 523 - MARSIUM'21 COMP OF PAPER

FINAL YEAR PROJECT

AHIBS UTM SKUDAI JAN 2022

FACTORS INFLUENCING CUSTOMER SATISFACTION: CASE STUDY OF
WARUNG MAK MAH

Muhammad Kadir Bin Ghazali, Dr Mazilah Binti Abdullah

Azman Hashim International Business School, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru

*Corresponding author: m.kadir@graduate.utm.my , mazilah@utm.my
Abstract
Covid-19 has become a new challenger for Malaysia's food and beverage industry, where all restaurants have a limited time to do business. Prior to the
COVID-19 pandemic, the key reasons driving the food and beverage industry's growth were the increase in on-the-go consumers and the rising use of ready-
to-eat meals. Additionally, the food & beverage industry's expansion was aided by continually expanding population, per capita income, and changing
lifestyles. Hence, this study is about to research customer satisfaction towards Warung Mak Mah. Customer satisfaction is the important thing in every
business to benefit customers. This research examines the relationship between customer satisfaction with food quality, service quality, customer perceived
value, and physical environment. This research also uses the questionnaire to collect Warung Mak Mah's customers via Whatsapp. The research uses several
multiple regressions to measure the customer satisfaction of Warung Mak Mah with its antecedents. The findings from 118 respondents of purposive sampling
through multiple regression analysis indicated that all hypotheses were supported, including food quality, service quality, physical environment, and perceived
value towards customer satisfaction.

Keywords: Food Quality, Service Quality, Physical Environment, Customer Value, Customer Satisfaction.

■ 1.0 INTRODUCTION

The rapid rise of the urban high-income population and timescales for food preparation have helped to the success of the food-
based service industry in Malaysia, which has been the priority. According to Euromonitor (2015), because of the emphasis in the urban
areas and growth of income in most of Malaysian homes, customers kept eating outside on weekdays or even on weekends and holidays
instead of dine at home. The restaurant sector is expected to generate $659 billion in sales in 2020, after an original forecast of $899 billion.
A total of $240 billion was lost because of the pandemic. (Restaurant Dive, 2020). Although the Goods and Services Tax (GST) was
somewhat impacted in 2015, medium- to high-income customers never limit and still decide to dine out for delicious cuisine and good
atmosphere, in which they may relax and release tension in their everyday lives.

The definition of a good restaurant is excellent food, focusing on visual presentations, a wonderful taste of foods, and the quality
of the preparation ingredients (Harr, 2008). In the food industry, the competition between good restaurants and other types of food services
is high. Customer satisfaction should be an important goal for achieving loyal customers and repurchase intention in the industry (Sulek &
Hensley, 2004). Restaurant industries nowadays face a significant issue to deliver quality food that is enticing customers and more
competitive for business people.

Customer satisfaction is one of the corporate goals crucial to building a repeated client (Sulek & Hensley, 2004). Maintaining
positive client relations is critical to the sustainability of hospitality organisations, all the more so when it costs up to five times as much to
gain new customers as it does to retain existing ones. Customer satisfaction is crucial for increasing a customer's likelihood of returning and
for expanding the company's profitability (Tussyadiah, 2016).

■ 1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE PROBLEM

Warung Mak Mah Nasi Ayam Port Dickson is a restaurant that is selling various types of village dishes. The business has
already run for almost seven years at Kampung Bahasa Kapor, 71000 Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan. The owner of this restaurant is Mr
Fadzil. Besides the restaurant, he also provides other services, catering and renting the catering's equipment. Furthermore, he also owned
two canteens in Politeknik. He is taking the seafood sources from port places. The opening time of Warung Mak Mah is 6 am – 12 am and
have two shifts of working time which are morning and evening, for 12 staff. The restaurant's motto is "Your satisfaction is our goal", which
shows Warung Mak Mah's important symbol.

This restaurant is suitable for the lower and middle class because the food price is fair for the customer to pay. Mr Fadzil has a
plan to open a new branch of Warung Mak Mah in the future. But, since the pandemic of Covid-19, he needs to hold his plan because the
pandemic made his company's sales decline. Because of that, he takes another alternative to collaborate with e-hailing services to deliver

502