1. Overview

This report is a wrap-up summary of the investigation carried out through the past year. The purpose of this investigation is to figure out the effect of customer service under the new business environment. Particularly, the question about to what extent Chinese take-away Royal China can improve its customer service for familiar customers in Crewe is examined carefully.

With great attention being paid to customer experience, the model of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has been focused these days. As an important aspect maintained by CRM, customer service is put in an important position. Empathica, Inc. conducted a poll in February 2010. The results from the poll indicated that the percentage of consumers who believe customer service is getting worse is 55%, while customers who haven't noticed any change in the quality of customer service only accounts for 32% of the sample surveyed. (Hawkins et al., n.d.). From the results, conclusion can be made that customers do care about customer service and the problem is more than half of them are not satisfied. When customers are not happy about the poker face of restaurant staff, or the restaurant manager does not take customer suggestions, the restaurant cannot keep customers. Based on a report published by Ipsos (Keiningham et al., 2005), acquiring a new customer costs five times more than keeping an existing customer. Therefore, maintaining good relationship with existing customers by providing quality customer service reduces cost and enhances the profit of the restaurant (Winser et al., 2009). The positive financial result attracts any business owner. In this investigation, customer service provided by Royal China is looked into and defects are picked out to help Royal China improve customer service at least to some extent.

More detailed discussion on research area, literature review and methodology of this investigation can be found in the following paragraphs.

1.1 Research area

As an important soft power, customer service is playing a more and more vital role in today’s business competition. Restaurants not only deliver quality food when they are facing their customers but also can create exceptional value through their daily contact with their customers. It is supported by research results (D'Antonio, 2012) that such exceptional value will bring benefits and help restaurants make a name for themselves and stand out in the fierce competition.

One research conducted by Harris Interactive interviewing a sample of 2,291 US adults concludes that 89% of U.S. adults shift to alternative companies due to a company’s poor customer service and 86% of U.S. adults are willing to take more out of pocket if they enjoy the contacting process with a company (D'Antonio, 2012). From the survey above, it brooks no delay for Royal China to take action to improve its customer service to attract new customers and retain existing customers so that Royal China can achieve the goal of increasing profits and standing firm among numerous restaurants spreading all over Crewe. 

Royal China adopts the business model of take-away which has the model’s specific research areas to be probed. These areas include the service Royal China provides in the form of take-away, the superiority the business model take-away possesses compared with other types of restaurants and the method and the extent customer service of take-away can be improved. To answer these questions, customer service of Royal China is examined carefully through interview with the restaurant staff.

For a better understanding of the research project, a brief introduction to Royal China is provided. Royal China is a 5-year-old Chinese take-away located at 165 in Crewe. The owner Mr. Lin has been in UK for nearly 13 years and is a veteran in the Chinese take-away industry with 10 years’ experience. There are three employees, a driver, a phone operator and a chef in the restaurant according to Mr. Lin’s description. They take order, then prepare and deliver the order to customers. Mr. Lin himself keeps an eye on the inventory and financial status of the take-away. According to Mr. Lin’s experience, British people like sweet Chinese food and are willing to order Chinese take-away at weekend. Due to the quality food which caters the taste of the local people and of course the efforts of the staff, Royal China has some loyal customers, most of who live in the Crewe neighbourhood. Mr. Lin also mentioned the fierce competition due to huge number of similar restaurants around Crewe area. Finally, Royal China is open 5:00 am to 11:30 pm, 7 days per week.