Marketing Research - Santa Fe Grill

This market study was conducted mainly for the startup restaurant, Santa Fe Grill, which is owned by two business people. The restaurant focusses on providing Mexican food to the targeted customers. A half-year after the business had been operational, various issues, for example, other competitive restaurants, resulted in a reduction in sales and profitability rate was experienced. This was because the owners of Santa Fe Grill did not take into account knowing the needs of its targeted customers in depth (Hair et al. 2017). Generally, knowing the needs of your customers and providing them with unique services and products that satisfy their specific needs is the main factor that most organizations implement to build and maintain their competitive advantage against other organizations in the market. On this account, due to lack of a stable competitive advantage against its main competitors (Jose's Southwestern cafe), Santa Fe Grill has to discover and implement new ways to reach out to its targeted customers and increase its sales (Hair et al. 2017). Thus, conducting a market survey.

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The above issue frames the base for the reference point for this market overview. Our advantage is to gauge the degree of customer loyalty and satisfaction between the two restaurants- Santa Fe Grill and Jose's Southwestern cafe. To gain in-depth information about the business, this report provides an analysis of data collected from the customers about how Santa Fe Grill can meet their need for maximum satisfaction (Hair et al. 2017). The variables studied include the demographics, types of foods customers like or do not like, the kind of services provided to them by employees, among others. All these variables will help the owners understand which target market to focus on, what their needs are, and which services to provide to them. In general, the market survey answers the question of who? How? And where? The other significant intrigue is to know how Santa is performing contrasted with its main competitor Jose's.

Research Design

The data collection method utilized in this market survey is a questionnaire methodology where the respondents (customers) were selected by the use of a simple random method of sampling. Simple random sampling is a method where the targeted population to be studied for a survey have equal chances to participate. A mentioned above, the targeted sampled population for this market survey includes the customers who have dined both in Santa Fe Grill and Jose's Southwestern cafe previously. On this account, in case a selected participant in the research was found not to have dined in either of the two restaurants before, the respondent was dropped and another one selected. This is to ensure that market research is only based on the target of the customer. The data collected from the survey respondents (customers) was entered in statistical software (SPSS), cleaned, and later analyzed. In summary, the studied respondents are 405 in total, and variables labeled x_S1 to x_S4 that represents values of the four survey questions and variables X1 to X35 that represents the values of answered market survey questions.

Findings

Assessment 2: Basic Descriptive Statistics

The outputs from SPSS and an in-depth explanation of each collected data are provided in this section. Different statistical tools, for instance, descriptive statistics, crosstabs, ANOVA, t-tests, and correlation and regression is utilized to determine the relationship between Santa Fe Grill and Jose's Southwestern cafe and also other important information that Santa Fe Grill owners need to know about its targeted customer to be able to build and maintain its competitive advantage in the Mexican food restaurant market. Using variable x_s4 (Mexican restaurants most recently eaten at) shows most of the participants' students have recently dined at Santa Fe Grill as compared to Jose's Southwestern cafe. In general, it is practical to say Santa Fe Grill has more customer traffics as compared to its competitor based on its mean, as illustrated in the chart below.

When it comes to the number, Santa Fe Grill has a higher number of customers as compared to Jose's restaurant. N=405. The table below shows the frequency of the variable. I think it is most informative to the client. The frequency of eating allows the client to understand how frequently does the client comes to dine in the restaurant, if infrequently, what is the cause, and also the cause of frequent rates of dining in the restaurant. This variable allows the client to understand its customers in-depth.

Assessment 4: Cross Tabs, t-tests, and One-Way ANOVAs

Measure of Lifestyle

Below are the findings of a comparison of the two restaurants according to the lifestyle of the studied respondents.

The restaurants' cross-tabulation and the proportion of client's propensities for evaluating new things show that most clients of Jose's Southwestern and Santa emphatically concurred that they might want to attempt new things. But, as compared to Jose's southwestern cafe analyzed data, Santa Fe Grill had not many clients who strongly agreed to have loved to try different things that are new to them. In summary, based on the table of cross-tabulation above, the respondent's preferences to liking to try different things is average for both Santa Fe Grill and Jose's Southwestern Cafe.

In today's world, most people prefer eating healthy foods, which means less fried foods. As a result, vegetarian restaurants or those restaurants which offer both healthy vegetarian dishes and fried foods have most customers as compared to fast-food restaurants. Based on the above cross-tabulation table, more targeted customers of Santa Fe Grill avoided fried dishes as compared to customers who have eaten at Jose's Southwestern Cafe. The targeted customers who have eaten in Jose's Southwestern cafe none strongly agreed on not liking fried foods, while none of Santa Fe Grill customers strongly disagreed with not liking fried foods. On this account, the customers in Santa Fe Grill prefer non-fried foods more as compared to fried foods.

A well-served customer will always tell another customer. This is a slogan implemented by most organizations as a marketing strategy as when a customer is served properly by employees, he/she will always come back as his/her needs were satisfied. Based on the above cross-tabulation, the studied sample population slightly agreed about the employees of Santa Fe Grill being friendly. In contrast, none of them strongly agreed that the employees are friendly. On the other hand, none of the studied population strongly disagreed about the employees from Jose's Southwestern cafe being friendly. At the same time, most of them agreed on Jose's Southwestern cafe being friendly. Friendly employees are the most implemented factor in building the competitive advantage of Jose's Southwestern cafe.

According to the above cross-tabulation, most Santa Fe Grill customers were neutral about the restaurant providing fresh foods. In contrast, most of Jose's customers strongly agreed about the restaurant serving them fresh foods.

As compared to Jose's restaurants, Santa Fe Grill customers agreed on the prices on the prices of their products while the customers from Jose's were not sure if the prices of Jose's products were reasonable.

Many customers from Santa Fe Grill agree about the restaurant being a fun place to eat as compared to Jose's.

Independent t-test

The owners of Santa Fe Grill need to know if there exists a difference in satisfaction level between the female customers and male. The formulated hypothesis below is computed using an independent t-test.

H0: (male-female) = 0; the difference of the means is equal to zero

H1: (male-female) 0; the difference of the means is not equal to zero

Generally, since the significant level .001 is less than the 95% (0.05) confidence interval of difference, we reject H0 (null hypothesis) above and conclude that there is a significant difference between the means of male and female customers as per the level of satisfaction. Based on the results above (t179.954=4.241, p<.001), there exists a statistically significant difference in the level of satisfaction between female and male customers. The average level of satisfaction of males is higher by .517 as compared to the satisfaction level of female customers.

One-Way ANOVA

This test is utilized to compare who between the female and male are likely to recommend Santa Fe Grill to other customers. The first hypothesis compares the variable of gender and likely to recommend, while the second hypothesis compares customers of Santa Fe Grill and Jose's with the likelihood to recommend.

H0: There is no difference between female and male customers in likely to recommend

H1: There is a difference between female and male customers likely to recommend

Based on the output above, female customers have a higher likelihood of recommending the restaurant as compared to the male customers basing on the means 4.13 and 3.60, respectively. Thus, the likelihood of restaurants' recommendation to other customers is higher as the number of female customers increases. Therefore, since F1,403= 19.232, p<.001, we reject the null hypothesis and conclude that there is a statistically significant difference between female and male customers likely to recommend.

H0: There is no difference between Jose's and Santa Fe Grill customers is likely to recommend

H1: There is a difference between Jose's and Santa Fe Grill customers is likely to recommend

Since F1,403= 14.435, p<.001, we reject the null hypothesis and conclude that there is a difference between Jose's and Santa Fe grill customers and their ability to recommend. Basing on the mean in the descriptive table, Jose's has a higher mean of 4.07. Thus, it means the customers of Jose's restaurant recommend the restaurant to more customers as compared to Santa Fe Grill's customers. In a managerial perspective, Santa Fe Grill needs to implement various strategies that attract more female customers.

Assessment 5(Part 1): Correlations and Regression Analysis

Pearson Correlation

H0: There is no relationship between the satisfaction level of Santa Fe Grill customers and the likelihood to recommend

H1: There is a relationship between the satisfaction level of Santa Fe Grill customers and the likelihood to recommend

From the table above, the correlation coefficient between satisfaction level and the likelihood to recommend is .776, which illustrates a strong positive perfect correlation between the two variables. From a managerial perspective, this means, if the satisfaction level of customers is high, the likelihood to recommend the restaurant to other customers is high and vice versa. Therefore, we reject the null hypothesis and conclude that there is a relationship between likely to recommend and satisfaction among Santa Fe grill customers.

Spearman Rank Order Correlation Coefficient

Generally, this method is often used in measuring scales (Hair et al. 2017). In this case, the Spearman Rank Order correlation coefficient will be used to provide insights to the owners of Santa Fe grill, which are the main factors (price, food quality, atmosphere, and service) that contributes largely to restaurant selection. Mainly, which is important between food quality and service provided.

H0: There is no relationship between factors of restaurant selection

H1: There is a relationship between factors of restaurant selection

The correlation coefficient between food quality and service based on the above table is -.130, which means a negative correlation. From a managerial perspective, this means there is no relationship between service provided and food quality, the c...