Baba Buyo

OC13086

Quick Service Restaurant Success Factors

Kevin Mason, Arkansas Tech University Stephen Jones, Arkansas Tech University Mike Benefield, Arkansas Tech University Jim Walton, Arkansas Tech University

Acknowledgements: The authors express appreciation to Brent Armstrong, Hannah Goetz and Elliott Brown, undergraduate students, who collected the data and provided analysis support for this project.

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Quick Service Restaurant Success Factors
Abstract: The quick service (aka, fast food) restaurant industry is significant and growing aspect of the overall restaurant industry. For long-term success quick service restaurants must be perceived as offering sufficient value for consumers. To do this, restaurants must first determine what consumers’ value in a quick service restaurant experience. As such, this research study explores consumers’ service quality preferences in the quick service restaurant industry. Results of this research highlight critical factors which help to determine the expectations that consumers have about the quick service restaurant industry and their perceptions of service quality from a dining experience. Based upon university students’ quick service experiences the results found in this study indicated that consumers are highly price sensitive, but also place high importance on speed of service, location, quality of food, and cleanliness. A discussion is provided for how these results can be used to develop effective marketing strategies for quick service restaurants.

Keywords: Consumer Perceptions, Fast Food, Quick Service Restaurants

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Quick Service Restaurant Success Factors
Introduction The quick service industry was chosen as the focus of this research because of its significance in the American economy. In both 2002 and 2007, the U.S. Census Bureau (2007) reported that quick service (fast food) restaurants accounted for about 35% of all restaurant sales in the United States and that sales grew

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