Difference of Service Quality in University Kuala Lumpur’s Cafes

Abstract The study was conducted to examine the difference of service quality of the cafes at University Kuala Lumpur (UniKL), Malaysian Institute of Industrial Technology (MITEC) campus using a sample of 29 usable questionnaires gathered from bachelor and diploma students of UniKL MITEC itself. The outcomes of hierarchical regression analysis showed six important findings; the price of the food for both cafes, the foods taste, the cleanliness of the cafes, worker attitude with the customer, the variation of the foods and the time services.This result confirms that perceive value does act as a partial mediating variable in the service quality models of the organizational sample. In addition, implications and limitations, as well as directions for future research are elaborated.

1. 0Introduction Service quality and customer satisfaction are inarguably the two core concepts that are at the crux of the marketing theory and practice (Spreng ; Mackoy, 1996). In today’s world of intense competition, the key to sustainable competitive advantage lies in delivering high quality service will in turn result in satisfied customers (Shemwell et al. 1998).

Therefore, there is not even an iota of doubt concerning the importance of service quality as the ultimate goal of service providers throughout the world (Sureshchandar et al. , 2002). In an era of global competition; many organization have now shifted the paradigm of service quality to customer’s perspective (Parasuraman et al. , 1985). Rely on this paradigm; a customer will judge the quality of service features may increase retention and loyalty (Alexandris et al. , 2002), thus lead to increased organizational competitiveness (Shemwell et al.

, 1998).Service quality has been defined as a form of attitude- along-run overall evaluation (Zeitham, 1998; Parasuramanetal. , 1988). Perceived service quality portray a general; overall appraisal of service, i.

e. a global value judgement on the superiority of the overall services and it could occur at multiple levels in an organization (sureshchandar et al. , 2002). Many scholars such as Parasuraman et al. , (1988), Juwaheer and Ross (2003) and walker et. Al.

, (2006) highlight that reliability, responsiveness; assurance and empathy are the most important service quality characteristics.Reliability is frequently seen as the ability of service provider to implement promised service dependably and accurately (Wong ; Sohal, 2003). Responsiveness is often defined as the willingness of service provider to provide service quickly and accurately (Johnston, 2006). Assurance refers to credibility, competence and security in delivering services (Juwaheer ; Ross, 2003). Empathy is related to caring, attention and understanding the customer needs when providing service.Extant research in this area shows that properly implemented such service quality characteristics have a significant impact on customer satisfaction (Gronroos, 1984; Parasuraman et al.

, 1998; Walker et al. , 2006). In a quality management context, customer satisfaction is often denied as a result of comparison between what one customer expects about services provided by a service provider and what one customer receives actual services provided by a service provider and what one customer receives actual services by a service provider (Caruana et al. 2000; Parasuraman et al.

, 2988; Walker et al. , 2006). Interestingly, a thorough review of such relationship reveals that effect of service quality characteristics on customer satisfaction is indirectly affected by perceive value (Caruana et al. , 2000; Varki ; Colgate, 2001). Perceive value is considered as customer recognition and appreciation the utility of a product that is given by a service provider which may fullfil his/her expectation (Foster, 2004; Heininen, 2004; Walker et al.

2006). In a service management context, the ability of an organization to use reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy in delivering services will increase customer’s perceptions of value; this may lead to higher customer satisfaction (Sureshchandar, 2000; Sureshchandar et al. , 2002). Even though many studies have been done, little is known about the mediating effect of perceive value in service quality models (Caruana et al. , 2000; Eggert ; Ulaga, 2002).Hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate the direct effect of service quality features on student satisfaction and to measure the difference between Selasih cafe and Hadijah Musa Catering ; Enterprise cafe at University Kuala Lumpur (UniKL), Malaysian Institute of Industrial Technology (MITEC) campus.

2. 0Methodology This study used a Questionnaire which allowed the researchers to integrate service quality at UniKL MITEC cafes. This study was conducted at University Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Institute of Industrial Technology cafes in Pasir Gudang, Johor Darul Takzim during lunch hour.At the initial stage of data collection, questionnaire is been passed randomly to the 29 students at UniKL MITEC cafes in order to get the differences the quality service between Selasih cafe and Hadijah Musa cafe. They are selected based on simple random sample which is being selected randomly from the diploma and bachelor students who at the students cafe during the lunch hour.

The survey questionnaire had three parts, A, B and C. Part A is the background of the sample (student) which is the student gender and course.Part B is the evaluation of both cafes based from the criteria of the food price, the taste of food, the cleanliness of the cafe, worker attitude, food varieties and time of services. The student needs to choose which cafe give better quality service first, before they evaluate. For the part C, the student can give their suggestion on how to improve the service quality of the cafes at Universiti Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Institute of Industrial Technology campus.

The unit of analysis for this study is the workers who have worked in the cafes at UniKL MITEC campus.In the first step of data collection procedure, the researcher met the owner of the cafe itself to get the information about their cafe. The two set of data is been choose, Selasih Cafe and Hadijah Musa Cafe. Selasih Cafe is owned by Mrs. Nor Anita bt Mohd Saleh.

The business hour is from 8 am till midnight every day except for Sunday. Selasih Cafe serves the ala carte menu like fried rice and fried noodle and also ‘nasi campur’ during lunch. Students love to order the ala carte menu during dinner. For Hadijah Musa Cafe, that owned by Mrs.Hadijah bt Musa is operated from 7am till late serves the breakfast, lunch and also dinner dishes. The specialty of Hadijah Musa cafe is their ‘nasi campur’.

Students love to have their lunch there because of the taste of the foods especially their ‘ayam masak kicap’ dishes. Both of the cafes is officially operated on 6 January 2011, same as the UniKL MITEC new campus operated. 3. 0Result and Discussion 3.

1Table of the data The table below shown the result of the quality service based from the criteria given.The data is collected from the questionnaires that been provided to the 29 UniKL MITEC students. From the 29 students, 17 of them were chosen Hadijah Musa Cafe give the better quality service while the other 12 choose Selasih cafe. Based from the number of the students, we use the evaluation to find the mean for each of the criteria. As we can see, students prefer Hadijah Musa Cafe give the reasonable price of the food compare to Selasih Cafe. Students also says that the taste of the food at Hadijah Musa Cafe is much tasty than Selasih cafe.

For the cleanliness of the cafe, both of them are average. For the worker attitude and the time the worker to serves the food, the students state that Hadijah Musa Cafe worker are more good compare to Selasih Cafe worker. For the food varieties, Selasih Cafe serves more varieties food compare to the Hadijah Musa Cafe. Criteria| Selasih Cafe| Hadijah Musa Cafe| i.

Price of the food| 3. 2| 3. 7| ii. The food taste| 3.

3| 3. 7| iii. Cleanliness of the cafe| 2. 8| 3| iv.

Worker attitude| 2. 8| 3. 3| v. Foods varieties| 3. 3| 3.

2| vi. Time of services| 2. | 3| Table 1. 0: table of the service quality of the cafe in UniKL MITEC 3. 2Graph and Chart of the Data 3. 2.

1Bar Chart Graph 1: The bar chart of the difference between cafes at UniKL MITEC campus based on quality service criteria 3. 2. 2Graph-Area Graph 2: criteria of the quality service against the mean, x,of the cafes at UniKL MITEC 3. 2. 3Pareto chart Graph 3: The Pareto diagram of Selasih Cafe ; Hadijah Musa Cafe by the service quality criteria From this Pareto diagram we can see, the different of the service quality from the both cafes.

The strongest service quality of the Selasih cafe is their food taste and also the varieties of the foods. While, for the Hadijah Musa cafe is on their price of the foods and also its taste. The weak point to be measure for the both cafe is the time of services, which is both of the cafes are the same. They need to improve more on their service time.

3. 2. 3Pie chart Graph 4: percentage of the sample by gender The Chart 1. 0 shows the percentage of the sample gender. From the 29 students, 15 of it was a female student (52%) while 14 others are male students (48%).

Graph 5: percentage of the sample by courses The Chart 2. 0 shows the percentage of the sample students according to their courses while studying at Universiti Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Institute of Industrial Technology. From 29 students, majorities are from Diploma in Industrial Logistics student which is 11 students (38%). For Diploma in Quality Engineering there are 8 students, Bachelor in Industrial Logistics just 7 students and only 3 students from Bachelor in Quality Engineering are involved on this survey. Graph 6: percentage of the cafe that give better quality serviceFrom the pie chart above, we can see that 59% which is 17 students from 29 samples of the students at UniKL MITEC are prefers that Hadijah Musa Cafe give the better quality service compare to Selasih cafe. 3.

3Mean, variance and standard deviation of the data 3. 3. 1Mean ( x ) Criteria| Selasih Cafe (x? )| Hadijah Musa Cafe (x? )| i. Price of the food| 3.

2| 3. 7| ii. The food taste| 3. 3| 3. 7| iii.

Cleanliness of the cafe| 2. 8| 3| iv. Worker attitude| 2. 8| 3. 3| v. Foods varieties| 3.

3| 3. 2| vi. Time of services| 2. 4| 3| | x ? = 2.

97| x ? = 3. 32| 3. 3. 2Standard Deviation (s)Standard Deviation formula for sample: ------------------------------------------------- s= (x-x)2n-1 i. Selasih cafe x? | x? -x? | (x? -x? )2| 3. 2| 0.

23| 0. 0529| 3. 3| 0. 33| 0.

1089| 2. 8| -0. 17| 0. 0289| 2. 8| -0.

17| 0. 0289| 3. 3| 0. 33| 0. 1089| 2.

4| -0. 57| 0. 3249| | | (x? -x? )2 = 0. 6534| s? = (x? -x? )2n? -1 s? = 0. 65346-1 s? =0.

36 ii. Hadijah Musa cafe x? | x? -x? | (x? -x? )2| 3. 7| 0. 38| 0. 1444| 3.

7| 0. 38| 0. 1444| 3. 0| -0.

32| 0. 1024| 3. 3| -0. 02| 0. 0004| 3.

2| -0. 12| 0. 0144| 3. 0| -0.

32| 0. 1024| | | (x? -x? )2 = 0. 5085| s? = (x? -x? )2n? -1 s? = 0. 50856-1 s? =0. 32 . 3.

3Variance (s2) Variance formula for sample ------------------------------------------------- s2= (x-x)2n-1 i. Selasih Cafe s? = (x? -x? )2n? -1 s? 2=(x? -x? )2n? -1 s? 2= 0. 65346-1 s? 2=0. 13 ii. Hadijah Musa Cafe s? = (x? -x? )2n? -1 s? 2=(x? -x? )2n? -1 s? 2= 0.

50856-1 s? 2=0. 10 3. 4Testing the difference between Two Means We want to compares the quality services of the two cafes between Selasih cafe and Hadijah Musa cafe in Universiti Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Institute of Industrial Technology campus Pasir Gudang, Johore to see if there is a difference. The results of the study are shown.

Is there enough evidence to reject the claim that the quality service for both cafes is the same? Use ?=0. 05 | Selasih Cafe| Hadijah Musa Cafe| Mean, x| 2. 97| 3. 32| Variance, s2| 0.

13| 0. 10| Standard deviation, s| 0. 36| 0. 32| Sample size, n| 6| 6| Step 1: H0 : ? 1 = ? 2 H1 : ? 1 ? ?2 (claim) Step 2: ?=0. 05 degree of freedom d. f= 5 Critical value of t=2.

571 -2. 571 2. 571 Step 3: t=(x? -x? ) – (? 1 -? 2) S? 2n? + S? 2n? t=(2. 97-3.

32)0. 1326+ 0. 1026 t= -0. 350.

067 t= -5. 23 t= -5. 23 Step 4: Reject the null hypothesis because -5. 23 are in the critical region.

Step 5:There is enough evidence to support the claim that there is a different in service quality at UniKL MITEC cafes between Selasih Cafe and Hadijah Musa Cafe. 4. 0Conclusion and Recommendations 4. 1Conclusion In conclusion, the findings of this study confirm that there are the difference between the service quality between Selasih Cafe and Hadijah Musa Cafe.

Majorities of the students prefer Hadijah Musa Cafe give the better quality services compare to Selasih Cafe. We can see the different between the food price, taste, cafe cleanliness, worker attitude, food varieties and time of services from both cafes.May be the price of food at Hadijah Musa Cafe is much reasonable and the taste of foods is goods compare to Selasih Cafe. The cleanliness of the both cafe is in the average condition, students need the better environment while having their meal.

For the worker attitude, Selasih Cafe worker are not so good compare Hadijah Musa Cafe worker. Students always complain about the time of services of the worker to prepare the dishes, it took almost an hour to servers the foods. The workers of the cafe need to be more generous to the customer. Thus, the service qualities for the both cafes can be improve and maintain.

. 2Recommendation There are several parts that need to improve to make sure the cafes at Universiti Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Institute of Industrial Technology can guarantee the better quality service for the students. From the feedback that we get, the students always complain about food variation, which is ever day serve the same dishes. To solve that problem, the cafes need to serves more varieties of food or change the menu at least once a week to fulfill the requirement of the students.

The cafe workers always need to be more generous with the students or customer.The cafe workers also need to improve their time on serving the foods to the students. The cafe owner can hire more workers to solve the problem. The price of foods also needs to maintain hence, not many student are from wealthy background. The cafe also can introduce the economic or budget menu that affordable to the students who has the financing problem.

As we know, UniKL MITEC campus has only two cafes and it not possible for the university management to provide another cafe on the other time to ensure the better quality services and can develop the healthy competitor. 5. References i. Navidi, William Cyrus (2011). Statistics for engineers and scientists – third edition: McGraw-Hill companies, Inc. ii.

Stan Giblisco (2004). Statistics Demystified, a self teaching guide; McGraw-Hill companies, Inc. iii. Nek Kamal Yeop Yunus, Azman Ismail, Zubrina Ranee Juga, Salomawati Ishak (2009). Service Quality dimensions, Perceive value and customer satisfaction: ABC relationship model testing; IBEJ Vol.

2 issue No. 1 (2009)01-18 iv. http://en. wikipedia.

org/wiki/Service_quality, Service Quality ------------------------------------------------- ABSTRACT