IMMEDIATE CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN THE RESTAURANT SECTOR

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on conflict resolution between customers and restaurants when customers have a bad experience when visiting a restaurant. This study identifies the strategies used by a restaurant in resolving and dealing with customer complaints and determines how their staff handle complaints and whether the appropriate training has been provided for staff to adequately deal with customer complaints. Moreover, the current research analyses the customer's perspective on suboptimal service in restaurants, analyses the main problems customers face when they visit a restaurant and evaluates the importance that customers place on service and food quality. In addition, this research discovers how customers register their complaints in restaurants after a bad experience. This dissertation offers an in-depth discussion about the importance of customer recovery after a service failure and before the conflict escalates, and determines the main factors that would cause customers to return to the same restaurant. The mixed methods approach used in the research design of this dissertation comprises qualitative and quantitative data collection techniques. These techniques or strategies, as they are also referred to in the current research, comprise questionnaires that were distributed among customer-facing staff, interviews with general and assistant managers of a restaurant and a survey among members of the Irish general public.