Dineserv: A Tool for Measuring Service Quality in Restaurants

Abstract

Dining consumers determine which restaurants meet their quality and value standards. Restaurateurs who fail to measure up will soon see declining customer counts as guests switch to competing restaurants. “Dineserv” is proposed as a reliable, relatively simple tool for determining how consumers view a restaurant's quality. The 29-item Dineserv questionnaire comprises service-quality standards that fall into five categories: assurance, empathy, reliability, responsiveness, and tangibles. By administering the Dineserv questionnaire to guests, a restaurant operator can get a reading on how customers view the restaurant's quality, identify where problems are, and get an inkling of how to resolve them. Dineserv also provides restaurateurs with a quantified measure of what consumers expect in a restaurant. Those expectations are important, because unfulfilled expectations drive guests away.