Problems Analysis and Solutions for Akiko Sushi Bar - Case Study Example

Problem Analysis and Solution for Akiko Sushi Bar. Table of Contents Executive Summary. 2 I.Parameters of the report. 3 II.Description of the problem 3 III.Methodology 3 IV.Summary of findings and conclusions 4 V.Recommendations 5 2.Introduction/Background. 5 3.Statement of Problem/Research Project 6 4.Methodology 7 5.Finding 9 6.Conclusion 11 7.Recommendation 12 8.References 14 9.Appendices 15 1. Executive Summary. I. Parameters of the report. The research project objective is to analysis the problems that Akiko Sushi bar is facing and offer possible solutions. The Akiko Sushi bar is located on Mason Street in San Francisco and faces a lot of competition especially from Mikaku restaurant that is located nearby. The aim of the project is to help the Akiko Sushi bar to compete effectively with Mikaku restaurant. The aim will be achieved by analyzing the strength and the weakness of the bar. The analysis will show the bar the areas that it can take advantage and invest into make it more competitive. Given the high competition in the food industry, it is important that the bar implement the best practices in the industry. II. Description of the problem Akiko Sushi bar is small eatery, with one waitress and a chef. The main problem facing the bar is the quality of its services. The bar has about three tables and a few seats and hence the customers that visit the bar expect personalized service. However, contrary to their expectation, the services are not personalized, and this has left many of them dissatisfied with the quality of the service. Some of the customers have opted never to visit the bar again. The project attempts to understand why there are poor services in the bar, and how to improve the services. In particular, the research project will look at how the staff can handle the customers professionally, and how to reduce the time that lapses before a customer is served. The project will be of great benefit to the bar, as its recommendation will enable the bar to compete with other eateries in the area. III. Methodology The bar is facing a problem of the poor services. Data from the customers is required to enable the research understand why the bar services are poor and how to improve them. The research project needed to analysis the customers’ experiences when they visit the bar and look at how customers rate the services. The research project used data from the Yelp website (www.yelp.com). The yelp website offers a customer the ability to write a review of a business services and rate them. The customer can rate the services on a scale of one to five, with five being the best rating. Moreover, the rating and reviews can be done by elite members, and this improves the credibility of the data provided by the website. The data was grouped into two; i.e., the rating and reviews. The rating was from 304 people, which gave a good sample for the research. The reviews offered insight on why the customers regarded the services to be poor. The customers explained what they experienced in the bar. The reviews enabled the researcher to categorize the poor services and understand which posed a great threat to the bar survival. IV. Summary of findings and conclusions The analysis of the data from the Yelp website found that 44% of the customer regarded the food or the services of the Akiko bar as of low quality. On further analysis of the customers’ reviews, it was clear the major factors that contributed to poor quality services were as follow. First, the customers’ orders take too long and second; the waitress was rude and unwelcoming. V. Recommendations It is recommended that the bar should employ another waitress and train the existing one how to handle customers in a professional way. 2. Introduction/Background. Akiko Sushi bar is a small Chinese-owned food outlet that specializes in offering raw fish served with hot dishes like udon noodles and teriyaki. It was established in 1998 and is located at Mason Street in San Francisco, California. The place is tiny and has about three tables and two chairs, and hence is not capable of accommodating a lot of people. The bar has one chef and a waitress and aims to offer high-quality food coupled with the best-personalized services (“Akiko’s Sushi Bar,” 2015). There is a great competition in the food industry, and the only way for small business to survive is to offer high quality personalized services. The large restaurants are unable to offer very personalized service due to size and hence this becomes an advantage to the small scale business. The biggest challenges facing Akiko bar is the quality of their service. The customers complain that they are the orders takes too long, the bar is traditional, and the services are not personalized. One waitress serves the customers and the time that it takes to serve a customer depends on the number of customers. The situation is even made worse by the fact that the bar has one chef. The employees have a lot of work whenever there are a lot of customers, and this can contribute to poor services. The poor services have turned away many customers and this trend, in the long run, will lead to a reduction in sales. In the digital age, customers can share their experience with a service to a wider community. It is important that the bar reverse the poor rating and reviews by the customers. The closest competitor to Akiko Sushi Bar is Mikaku restaurant, and it has more space and more resources compared to Akiko Sushi Bar. Thus, they have better facilities and can attract more customers through advertising. Moreover, since Akiko Bar is tiny, couples and groups favors Mikaku, as it can be able to accommodate them. It is also likely that a customer will miss a space in Akiko bar if they do not reserve a space. Most eateries are keenly looking at customer service and hence it is vital for the Akiko to follow the market trend. Failure to act upon these problems may lead to loss of customers. 3. Statement of Problem/Research Project The services offered by the Akiko Sushi Bar have been termed traditional, and they are not personalized. Moreover, the eatery accommodates few people but the ordering of food in the sushi bar takes too long. Given the small space the restaurant has, it expected that the waitress should be courteous and friendly. But, on the contrary, this is not the case. The waitress sometimes forgets the orders made by the customer, but the customers charged for the same services. The place has one chef and that help to explain the long wait the customers has to endure before they are served. Quite often, the bar does not have enough supplies, and this lowers the quality of their services (“Akiko’s Sushi Bar,” 2015). Apart from the customers order taking too long before being filled, the online opening schedule is not correct, and this has disappointed many customers. Customers are not allowed to enter the bar if it is not already open. Furthermore, this is not done in courteous way and has turned away many potential customers. The bar has also been termed as traditional. The bar states on its website that it accepts credits card but which is wrong since it mostly demand the customers to pay in cash. The means of payment has caused a lot of its customer’s pain as they are forced to withdraw cash before getting into the bar. The problems outlined affect the core function of the business. The bar strengths lie in its services to the customer. The bar can offer great user experience since it only attends to a small number of customer. The bar must create a pool of regular customers who visit the bar even in low seasons. But the services currently offered cannot attract such a pool, and hence the bar faces the risk of slowing down in low seasons. Therefore, it is crucial for the bar to address these problems, before their derail its operation. It is crucial to note that the problems that are facing the bar are turning the customer away to their competitors even though the bar has high-quality food. The most important sales to a business are the recurring sales i.e. a customer who regularly buys from the business. And, therefore, it is important that the bar create such a pool of customers. The challenges are grave, and they are driving customers to Mikaku restaurant. The research will help the business to find a way of improving their services and hence retain customers. 4. Methodology The research project required data on the experience of the customer who have visited the Akiko bar. Data on such issues requires a survey of the customers of the bar, but contacting such customers is expensive and very hard. Therefore, the most efficient way to collect the data is to use customer reviews. Customer reviews are credible and an easy way to measure the quality of the services offered by the bar. The reviews are mostly done by customers who have already visited the bar and hence can give an objective review without bias. Moreover, the reviews have a rating function that enables the customer to rate the quality of the services offered. Therefore, the data collected was rich and helped the researcher to make an informed decision on the services offered by the bar. The project collected data from customer reviews in the Yelp (www.yelp.com/biz/akikos-sushi-bar-san-francisco) and analyzed it. The Yelp offers customers a way of rating a company services and products and write short reviews about their experience. The reviews are about 5- 15 sentences but offer very deep insight into the bar services. They are written by customer who has visited the bar and who had first-hand experience with the service. On the Yelp website, the Akiko bar has 304 reviews, with an average rating of 3.5 (“Akiko’s Sushi Bar,” 2015). The rating was broken down into different levels, i.e. one star to five stars. The one stars showed that the customers regarded the services to be of low quality while five stars indicated the services were of high quality. The reviews were read and sorted to positive and negative reviews. Some of the customers’ reviews were too long, and some of the information was irrelevant and thus was discarded. The negative reviews were further analyzed, to ascertain the nature of the complaint. The researcher wanted to understand what contribute to the poor services. Hence, the negative reviews were sorted to those that complained about the quality of food and those that complained about the quality of service. 5. Finding The finding from the customer reviews and rating supported the hypothesis that the services of the Akiko bar were below par and needed to improve. The Mikaku restaurant services were not great too, but they were better off compared to those of Akiko bar (“Mikaku Restaurant,” 2015b). Akiko’s Sushi Bar had rating from three hundred and four customers who had visited the bar and tasted the food. The majority considered the food to be of high quality but there was complain about the quality of the services offered. Of the three hundred and four customers who reviewed the Akiko bar, seventy-seven gave the bar five stars that indicate the bar had high-quality food and services. Ninety-three of the customers gave the bar four stars, sixty-six gave three stars, thirty-six gave two stars, and thirty-two gave one star (“Akiko’s Sushi Bar,” 2015). The most popular rating was four stars indicating that most people considered the food and services to be of high quality. Fifty six percent (56%) of the customer considered the services to be of high quality while forty four percent (44%) considered it to be average or below average. Therefore, for every ten customer who visited the bar, four customers considered the services or the food offered average or below average. As the appendix 1 shows, thirty-two customers gave the bar the lowest rating of one. The customers constitute eleven percent (11%) of the total customers that rated the bar. For every ten customers that visited the bar, one customer was not satisfied with the service or the food offered. The analysis of the customers’ reviews shows that the bar offers high-quality food, but the services are of low quality. The services explain why eleven percent of the customers rated the bar poorly. For example, Erika commented, "Service was very rushed, but food was good!”(“Akiko’s Sushi Bar,” 2015) David A R said that the food was good, but he expected a little "more interest and engagement” from the staff since the bar had a small number of customers. In particular, of the 40 reviews in page one in Yelp website sorted by date, seventeen cited the services to be slow or the waitress being rude. One waitress serves the customers, and hence there is a high likelihood of delay when customers enter the bar at the same time. Moreover, the bar has one chef and thus it takes more time to serve more than one customer. There are other minor problems that the bar needs to address. For example, the customer complained the bar accepted cash only, it is important that the bar start using credit card as a means of payment. The mode of payment also needs to be checked. Some customers commented that they were charged for food that they ordered but was never served. Other customers complained that the information given on the website is wrong and has made them incur costs. The information especially regards the opening hour and the days the bar is usually closed. Also, the price list needs to be updated. The bar needs to improve its service delivery and quality if it stands any chance of competing with Mikaku restaurant. As the shown in the appendix 2, Mikaku restaurant is not perform very well also, as indicated by its customer rating. 12% of the Mikaku restaurant customers consider the services or the food offered to be of low quality. Moreover, 48% of the customers of Mikaku consider the services to be average or below average (“Mikaku Restaurant,” 2015b). The findings can be explained by the number of customers that Mikaku handles per day (“Mikaku Restaurant,” 2015a). Hence, the Akiko bar can use the shortcoming of the Mikaku restaurant to attract more customers. Akiko Sushi bar needs to train their waitress on how to handle customers professionally. The waitress can undergo training to improve the interpersonal skills (Hoque, 2013). The skills will enable the waitress to handle and relate to the customers in good way. Customers need a waitress who is warm and welcoming and ready to serve them. It will be important that the bar address the customers’ grievances by replying to the customers reviews in the Yelp website. Such replies show that the bar cares about the services they offer to their customers(Robinson Jr, 2014). It is also important the bar to start accepting credit cards since it improves the customer experience. Lastly, the finding showed that the process of ordering food is rather slow and needs to be improved. It will be important for the bar to consider hiring another waitress who can help during peak hours. Hiring a new waitress will be a good solution to the problem of slow service delivery in two ways. Firstly, the waitress will inject new energy in the bar. Some customers have complained that the bar is not Japanese as such, and hence a new waitress of Japanese descent will greatly improve the bar public picture. Secondly, the new employee will be easy to train how to handle customers (Arduser, 2003). On the hand, accepting credit cards will improve the efficiency of the cashier and reduce the risk of fraud and wrongly charging the customer. The alternatives will help the bar to be strategically positioned to take advantage of the opportunity in the area. 6. Conclusion In conclusion, the biggest challenge facing Akiko Sushi bar is the poor services. Customers have complained that the staffs of the bar are slow and the food ordered takes too long before being served. Also, the waitress is not courteous and sometimes does not serve what has been ordered. The finding has shown that the customers are not satisfied with the services offered, with ten percent rating the bar very poorly. Moreover, the finding shows that the bar offer high-quality food but it should improve their services to the customers. The finding has shown that the bar does not do follow up on their customers. There is no reply to the customers’ grievances in the Yelp website, though more than three hundred customers have reviewed the bar. The finding clearly shows that improvement in the services offered will enable the bar to be more competitive in the industry. The bar can be able to attract more customers who are loyal; as it can offer personalized services as opposed to Mikaku, its main competitor. 7. Recommendation After the analysis of the data from the customer’s reviews and rating, the following recommendations should be implemented. The recommendation will enable the Akiko Sushi bar overcome the stiff competition for customers from Mikaku restaurant. Also, the recommendation will help the Akiko bar to be strategically positioned in the market to take advantage of the opportunity in the food industry. i. The bar should employ another waitress. Another waitress will enable the bar to reduce the time that elapses between the time that a customer places an order and before being served. ii. The current employees should be trained how to handle customers. The employee should learn how to interact with customers professionally. The waitress should be welcoming and warm to the customers. iii. The bar should check the customers’ reviews on the Yelp and reply to those who are complaining about the services. The reply helps the customer understand that the bar cares for its customers. iv. Lastly, the bar should start accepting credit cards. The trends in the market show that must business are accepting credit cards as means of payment. The bar doing them same will enable it has the best practices. The following recommendation will greatly improve the services offered by the bar and hence enable the bar to attract and retain its customers. The recommendation helps the Akiko bar to exploit its strength and the weakness of its competitor 8. References Akiko’s Sushi Bar. (2015, May). [Text]. Retrieved May 14, 2015, from http://www.yelp.com/biz/akikos-sushi-bar-san-francisco Arduser, L. (2003). Waiter & Waitress Training: How to Develop Your Staff for Maximum Service & Profit. Atlantic Publishing Company. Hoque, K. (2013). Human Resource Management in the Hotel Industry: Strategy, Innovation and Performance. Routledge. Mikaku Restaurant. (2015a, May). [Text]. Retrieved May 14, 2015, from http://m.mainstreethub.com/mikakurestaurant Mikaku Restaurant. (2015b, May 14). [Text]. Retrieved May 14, 2015, from http://www.yelp.com/biz/mikaku-restaurant-san-francisco Robinson Jr, L. (2014). Marketing Dynamism & Sustainability: Things Change, Things Stay the Same...: Proceedings of the 2012 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference. Springer. 9. Appendices Appendix 1: Akiko Sushi bar. From: http://www.yelp.com/biz/akikos-sushi-bar-san-francisco Appendix 2: Mikaku Restaurant. From: http://www.yelp.com/biz/mikaku-restaurant-san-francisco Read More