The effect of meal pace on customer satisfaction.

Restaurant operators who seek to increase table turns during peak periods may want to speed up the meal's pace. However, excessive speed may make customers feel rushed. A survey of 218 respondents found that too fast a pace does affect customer satisfaction with the meal experience, with fine-dining customers more sensitive to pacing issues than customers in casual or upscale casual restaurants. Regardless of restaurant type, too fast a pace during the meal itself diminishes customer satisfaction, but speed during check settlement is often appreciated. The effects on customer satisfaction of the pace of welcome, seating, and taking drink orders depend partly on the type of restaurant and on the meal type. Guests at fine-dining restaurants do not want these preprocess events to be rushed. Additionally, a faster pace during these preprocess events at dinner diminished satisfaction ratings as compared to lunch.

Keywords: restaurant management; revenue management; service pacing

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The goal of revenue management is to maximize revenue by means of variable pricing and duration controls (Kimes and Chase 1998). Revenue management has traditionally been applied in service settings where services are sold to the consumer for a fixed amount of time (e.g., a number of nights in a hotel or flights of specified duration on an airplane) (Kimes 1989; Hanks, Cross, and Noland 1992; Smith, Leimkuhler, and Darrow 1992). Restaurants have used a form of revenue management for years, notably with early bird specials and other pricing strategies to influence demand. More recently, restaurants have joined other services to use duration-based revenue management approaches. In this regard, restaurants face the same problem as, for example, health care facilities, casinos, and golf courses, in that the length of customer use of the service is not set in advance (Kimes et al. 1998; Kimes 2000; Secomandi et al. 2002; Kimes and Wirtz 2003). In a restaurant, where the duration of the dining experience can vary substantially, the goal of revenue management is usually to reduce or control dining duration, while not unduly interfering with check averages. If restaurant providers can reduce dining duration during periods of high demand, they will be able to serve more customers, which, in turn, will lead to increases in revenues generated.

A focus on reducing dining duration may yield favorable results, but it may have an effect on customer satisfaction. Any action taken by a restaurant operator to reduce dining duration may be perceived by the customer as a change in the nature of the experience (Kimes, Wirtz, and Noone 2002). To date, we have seen little empirical research that assesses the potential negative effect that increasing the pace of the dining experience may have on customer satisfaction. Other businesses take steps to control the pace of service. Theme parks, for instance, use queues to control the pace at which guests can enjoy attractions, but long queues can leave guests unhappy with their experience. Golf courses employ marshals who regulate the flow of play to reduce delays for fast players and enable the sale of additional tee times, but casual players may feel forced into an undesired increase in the pace of play. If customers feel unduly rushed or delayed, they may be dissatisfied and discontinue their patronage (Kimes and Wirtz 2002; Wirtz et al. 2003).

Before applying any type of revenue management approach to reduce dining duration, it is important that restaurant operators understand how consumers perceive and react to manipulations in the pace of the dining experience. The primary purpose of the research described in this article was to empirically test the relationship between the pace of the dining experience and customer satisfaction. In particular, we wanted to determine whether consumers are sensitive to changes in the pace of different service stages. We begin by examining the potential revenue and customer satisfaction implications of increasing the pace of the dining experience. We then present the results of a survey that we used to examine the relationship between pace and customer satisfaction. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings for restaurant operators.

Pace and Customer Satisfaction

The advantages to restaurant operators of reducing dining duration during peak demand periods include shorter wait times for tables, reduced likelihood of losing customers due to excessive waits, and an increase in covers and revenues. While these outcomes are appealing for operators, the benefits to consumers (other than shorter wait times) are less clear. A key issue to consider, from the customers' perspective, is whether increasing the pace of an experience will diminish their satisfaction with that experience.

Most of the research that has been done in relation to the time aspect of service experiences has focused on wait time. Lengthy wait time has been shown to diminish customer satisfaction and customer evaluations for such services as restaurants, banks, and airlines (see, e.g., Taylor 1994; Tom and Lucey 1997; Pruyn and Smidts 1998). Furthermore, it has been shown that it is perceived wait time, not actual wait time, that has the greatest effect on customer satisfaction (see, e.g., Katz, Larson, and Larson 1991; Pruyn and Smidts 1998).

Given evidence that wait time contributes to customer dissatisfaction and reduces evaluations of service, approaches to influencing wait time have been investigated in the operations management and marketing literature. Focusing on reducing wait time, operations management researchers have proposed several approaches, including improving service process and workstation design, forecasting demand more accurately, reducing set-up times, and cross-training employees (Sill 1991; Davis and Maggard 1994; Jones and Dent 1994; Sheu and Babbar 1996). Marketing researchers have examined practices that influence perceived wait time, including altering the service environment (e.g., providing a news board, memorabilia in theme restaurants), managing employee visibility, filling customers' time (e.g., providing menus in restaurants), and providing information regarding the waiting times. A number of studies have empirically tested whether such actions improve service evaluations (Katz, Larson, and Larson 1991; Hui and Tse 1996). Retailers and service operators are also increasingly adapting technology such as self-checkout lines, pagers, and remote-ordering terminals to make waiting more palatable (New-Fielding 2002; Higgins 2004).

While faster may be better for convenience-based services, this may not hold for pleasure-driven services. For example, in service environments such as restaurants (perhaps with the exception of most quick-service restaurants), theme parks, and golf courses, customers probably will not want to minimize the duration of their experience. In fact, they might even want to maximize their enjoyment by extending their experience.

A number of articles published in the popular press provide anecdotal evidence of customers' dislike of practices intended to speed up golf play or restaurant meals (Szuchman and Tesoriero 2004; Bhatia 2002). These anecdotal findings underscore the necessity to gain a clearer understanding of the relationship between customers' perceptions of the pace of a dining experience and theft satisfaction with that experience. We propose that an inappropriately slow pace leads to feelings of anxiety and frustration as the customer is waiting for the next step. Conversely, when the pace is too fast, the customer is unable to linger and savor the experience.

Service Stage, Pace, and Satisfaction

Research on wait time has also shown that customers' reaction to waiting for service often depends on the stage of the experience. The dining experience can be broken into three stages: (1) the preprocess stage, which extends from a customer's arrival at the restaurant until he or she orders the meal; (2) the in-process stage, which involves placing an order and consuming the meal; and (3) the postprocess stage, which begins with check settlement and ends when the customer leaves (Dubd-Rioux, Schmitt, and Leclerc 1989). Customers have been shown to be more upset when a delay occurred during the preprocess or postprocess stages of the dining experience than when a delay occurred during the in-process stage, even though the delay was of the same length in each stage (Dube-Rioux, Schmitt, and Leclerc 1989). Although our research is about speeding up the pace, the findings on reactions to delays suggest that customers may be more amenable to a faster pace during the preprocess and postprocess stages of the dining experience than during the meal itself (the in-process stage).

Restaurant Norms, Pace, and Satisfaction

Previous research has shown that customer satisfaction is influenced by experience-based norms (Woodruff, Cadotte, and Jenkins 1983). That is, customers' experience with a service generates expectations that serve as a framework for evaluating the service on subsequent occasions. Any confirmation or disconfirmation is related to those norms, as is satisfaction.