E-mail: editor@ijimt.org
Abstract—Today’s foodservice industry management must place a high priority on understanding the growing markets resulting from rapid urbanization and rising numbers of tourists. This industry has a huge impact on the global economy but it is affected by customers’ ever-changing preferences. Managers need to gain and sustain strategic advantage in this highly competitive industry, thus a local customer preference assessment is crucial. This paper presents the dimensions of customer preference in the food service industry, tested empirically for unidimensionality, reliability and validity using both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Factorial analysis confirmed five dimensions of customer preference, and using multiple regression, their order of importance are Halal (permissible in Islam), Price, Quality of Service, Branding and Tangibles. Knowing these dimensions relative influence may result in better allocation of resources for effective service delivery.
Index Terms—Customer preference, Satisfaction, loyalty, Food service industry.
All authors are with the Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450 Shah Alam, Malaysia (e-mail; fir@sarawak.uitm.edu.my; zainoren@sarawak.uitm.edu.my; jamil1@sarawak.uitm.edu.my).
Cite: Firdaus Abdullah, Abg Zainoren Abg Abdurahman, and Jamil Hamali, "Managing Customer Preference for the Food service Industry," International Journal of Innovation, Management and Technology vol. 2, no. 6, pp. 525-533, 2011.