Kimes

Noone

Restaurant customers become dissatisfied if they perceive they are being rushed, but they also don't like waiting too long to be seated, served or given the bill, a study from Cornell University's Center for Hospitality Research shows.

While restaurateurs may want to increase customer turnover to boost revenues on a given night, a study of people dining out suggests that strategies aimed at reducing customer dining time can backfire, say researchers Sheryl E. Kimes and Breffni M. Noone, in "Dining Duration and Customer Satisfaction." Theirs is the first study on the perceived dining experience and customer satisfaction.

Kimes is professor and interim dean of Cornell's School of Hotel Administration. Noone is a doctoral graduate and former visiting assistant professor at the Hotel School who is now a faculty member at Pennsylvania State University.

Diners who feel irked because they've been hurried through may tip poorly, not return and even spread the word about their dissatisfaction, the researchers say. Interestingly, it is restaurant patrons' perceptions of being rushed (or being ignored), rather than the actual time spent dining, that shapes their opinions of the dining-out experience, Kimes and Noone find.

"If a perceived wait is longer than what guests expected, their satisfaction is likely to diminish, along with their assessment of their server's abilities and the likelihood diners will return," they write. "By the same token, if a meal proceeds at a tempo much faster than expected, diners will feel rushed and will conclude that their server is not willing or able to attend to their needs."

But the type of restaurant also affects diners' expectations. Patrons of casual and upscale-casual restaurants are more willing to be rushed through than are patrons of fine-dining restaurants, where an appropriate pace is essential to satisfaction, the researchers note.

To ensure customer satisfaction, they advise restaurateurs to view the dining experience in three stages -- pre-process, when guests are ordering drinks and reading the menu; in-process, when they are dining; and post-process, when they are receiving and settling the check -- and to assess the effects on customers of duration-reduction efforts at each stage. They also point out that dining time can be reduced through improved reservation policies, easier-to-read menus and a streamlined service-delivery process.

The researchers created their survey instrument using information they garnered conducting individual interviews with two groups of diners -- those who had experience working in restaurants and those who did not. They then mailed surveys to 580 randomly selected people from a sublist of Cornell parents, a list of employees of a clinical research organization and members of a handicraft association. Providing incentives for completing the surveys, they received 270 useable responses.

To see the report on the study and the survey instrument, go to the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research Web site, at: http://www.chr.cornell.edu (you will first be asked to register, a brief procedure that is free and comes with the guarantee your information will not be shared).