Customer satisfaction ratings: Towards the development of a valid and reliable evaluation instrument for restaurant services

Abstract

This descriptive research sought to determine the factors associated with the customer satisfaction and develop a valid and reliable evaluation instrument for restaurant services. The study underwent three phases: Phase One: Determination of items through validation of the evaluation instrument; Phase Two: Testing the reliability of the evaluation instrument; and Phase Three: Development of a valid and reliable evaluation instrument for restaurant services. Conducted from December 2013 to January 2014, the study utilized 100 conveniently selected restaurant customers in Roxas City and Iloilo City. The items of data-gathering instrument were culled from Customer Satisfaction Rating Scale (Juhaweer, 2004); SERVQUAL (Parasumaran, 1988); and RATER Scale for Customer Satisfaction for Restaurants (Antilgan et al., 2003). The chosen items were subjected to factor analysis and submitted to reliability testing, and validation by experts. The accomplished questionnaires were collected, analyzed, and interpreted using mean, standard deviation, raw score, factor analysis, and Cronbach’s alpha as statistical tools. Factor loading equal to or greater than +0.40 was used as bases for the decisions to retain or discard items. The acceptable range of reliability coefficient was set at .70 to .90. Results of the study revealed that after jury and construct validation of the instrument, only 40 items from the original 75 items with five constructs were retained and with a reliability coefficient of .9448. These results showed that the developed Customer Satisfaction Evaluation Instrument for restaurant services was valid and highly reliable; thus, it was recommended to be used by future researchers and restaurant managers and owners to measure customer satisfaction in terms of food quality, service reliability, environmental cleanliness, interior design, and employee factor.