Causes of Decline in Sales of Chasska Urban Indian Restaurant

This research aims to understand the causes behind the recent decline in the sales of Chasska Urban Indian Restaurant and provide recommendations for improvement. The report explores the literature studied already conducted on the restaurant sales and the industry based on which some factors of sales decline or consumer decision making were identified and used for constructing the survey questionnaire. The report presents the results of the analysis of the data obtained from the survey and based on the same, some recommendations have been made.

Causes of Decline in Sales of Chasska
urban Indian Restaurant
Executive summary
Aim of this research is to understand the causes behind the recent decline in the sales of
Chasska so that recommendations can be made for improvement in the situation. The
research uses a primary survey method for data collection and statistical procedures for data
analysis. There were 50 respondents including the customers who had not been visiting the
restaurant much in the last couple of days and months that has resulted into the decline in
revenues of the restaurant. The research first explores the literature studied already conducted
on the restaurant sales and the industry based on which some factors of sales decline or
consumer decision making were identified and used for constructing the survey
questionnaire. The report presents the results of the analysis of the data obtained from the
survey and based on the same, some recommendations have been made. These
recommendations can help the restaurant work on the problem of sales decline and recover
from it and work to enhance its customer visits.
Contents
Executive summary...............................................................................................................................1
Introduction and research problem........................................................................................................2
Literature review...................................................................................................................................3
Hotel & Restaurant Industry in Australia...........................................................................................3
Sales decline in Chasska Restaurant..................................................................................................7
Addressing the issue of Sales Decline...............................................................................................8
Research Gaps.................................................................................................................................10
Methodology.......................................................................................................................................10
Research Design..............................................................................................................................11
Data Collection................................................................................................................................11
Data Analysis..................................................................................................................................11
Ethical Considerations.....................................................................................................................11
Findings...............................................................................................................................................12
Discussion...........................................................................................................................................21

Recommendations...............................................................................................................................21
Limitations and Conclusion.................................................................................................................22
List of References................................................................................................................................23
Appendix.............................................................................................................................................24
Introduction and research problem
Decline in sales of restaurants is actually a growing trend in Australia. Several reasons that are noted
in the industry including decline in the cost of food consumption at home, higher bills of restaurants,
and budget pressures pushed by oil crash and other political issues. However, if the real reasons
behind these declining sales trends have to be understood, the customer would have to be asked who
consumes the food in these restaurants and can present insights into what is causing them to consume
less at these restaurants. Thus a research is needed to be done which could focus on a specific
restaurant facing the worse times so that the challenges that the industry is facing in Australia can be
revealed. If the causes behind sales decline can be identified then it would not just help the restaurant
that is studied but also the entire industry as they can also try to apply the recommendations to
improve their sales in the market. For the current research, a case of Indian restaurant has been
chosen.
Chasska is an Indian cuisine restaurant located in Western Australia. It provides Indian food to people
living in Australia through three branches that are located in carousal shopping center, Cockburn
shopping mall and Yangbup. The Yangbup of the company has recently faced a major decline in
sales. The problems that have caused this decline are required to be addresses. The brand currently
has 15 employees and they include six main chefs, waiters, accountant, and restaurant manager. If the
sales continue the declining trend, the restaurant would lose its foothold in the market and would not
be able to sustain. This can result into a complete failure of the branch and subsequently its closure.
The aim of this research is to explore the problem of declining sales of Chasska Urban Indian
Restaurant to find out the causes behind so that the problem of reduction in sales can be taken care of
and measures can be taken to increase the sales of the restaurant in Australia. The research would be
conducted on the restaurant, its operations and its customers to identify the causes behind the decline
in sales. To achieve this aim, following research questions have to be answered by the researcher
• What are the reasons of the decrease in sales lately in Chasska Urban Indian restaurant?
• What are the management methodologies that are needed to gain the stature of the restaurant?
• What are the marketing approaches that must be applied in order to advertise the existence of
the restaurant? (Rugg & Petre, 2011)

Considering these research questions, the research would be fulfilling following objectives:
 Explore the causes of sales decline in the Chasska Indian Restaurant
In order to achieve this objective of the research, the literature would be conducted through which the
factors would be identified causing sales decline and the same would then be tested using statistical
procedures that would be exploring the views of the customers.
 Explore the methods that can be used by the restaurant to maintain its sales
The previous literature would be explore to identify methods that restaurants are currently using for
improving their sales. Further, the results of the analysis of the survey data would be discussed to
come up with recommendations on what methods can be used by the current restaurants to increase its
sales.
 Explore various marketing strategies that can be used by the company to boost its sales
Based on the literature reviewed and the results of the data analysis, recommendations would be made
on what marketing strategies can be used by the company to attract more customers to the restaurant
and thereby increase its sales.
Literature review
In this section, the industry overview would be explored besides the specific company problems. It
would also include discussions on the theories related to marketing and restaurant industry
management that would help in identifying themes for the further research. The literature review
would explore the current trends and explorations already done on the industry and on the problem
and would identify the gaps in the research in terms of understanding the reasons for sales declines in
a restaurants. These gaps would be filled using the current research. The literature gap identified
would then be used for defining the methodology of the current research so that they can be filled
which would presented in the next section.
Hotel & Restaurant Industry in Australia
Hotel can be defined as a public establishment that welcomes visitors to take services like
accommodation and catering at a cost. However, the industry has seen some major structural
modifications across globe in past few years. Independent restaurants and fast food chains make a
large part of the industry now. Further, the services provided by the hotels have also become
customized as per the needs of visitors. They can be building their services that can vary as per
location, objective, type, grade or size.

The hotel business has some key characteristics that makes it different from other industries and they
include intangibility, variability, perishability, and inseparability. The warmth that the industry gives
to customers through taste and feel of food makes an experience which is an intangible concept.
Variability refers to the differences in the values of services with respect to their scope. Perishability
refers to the fact that the facilities that are provided by the food industries include delivery of
perishable goods. This is because the facility of the hotel or a restaurant cannot be separated from the
supplier of the food.
This channel encompasses many independent dining and function venues. The outlets are typically
independently owned and accordingly serviced by specialist fresh product and foodservice
wholesalers and distributors offering services to meet the frequency, cold-chain and specification
requirements of these retailers. Specialist meat, fruit and vegetable and seafood retailers service a
significant portion of the fresh product needs of these establishments.
Drivers of volume and value in this channel General factors • Growth in consumer preference for
casual dining reflected in the general increase in retail spending in the channel • Growth of coffee as a
focus for casual meeting and snacking occasions driving increased business into café channel •
Increasing consumer consciousness of cuisine • Improved variety of restaurant offering • Growth in
breakfast as a meal occasion • Growth in the numbers of outlets of coffee franchises and groups
Volume • Number of outlets • Seatings per night • Breadth of menu offering • Day parts, or meal and
social occasions, or events serviced Value • Average main meal price • Percentage of beverage in the
sales mix • Outlet location

Figure 1: Revenue-wise Establishments in Australia (The Intermedia Group Pty Ltd , 2017)
The number of establishments that provide dining or eating out facilities and the consumers visiting
them in Australia every day is difficult to capture. Absolute figures are difficult to gain but a research
has attempted to build a model of the industry which to some level of accuracy can give the
knowledge about the distribution. This was based on a primacy research conducted on the eating
joints in Australia. The revenue data was captured and compared for all establishments. It was found
that in June 2016, 85,284 eating outlets operated in Australia and most of these (34.5%) were the fasts
food joints followed by restaurants , café’s and then clubs. The total revenue gained by the industry
from all these joints was $45.3 billion with highest proportion (42.4%) going to fast food outlets
followed by restaurants, bars and pubs. The figures and percentage have been taken from the
Australian Hotels and Clubs Australia.
Figure 2: Cuisines/food concepts growth in %

The population of Australians in 2016 was 24 million and these Australians are used to eating out on
two to three days on an average which accounts to serving of over 2.5 billion meals each year. An
average household expenditure on eating out in Australia is $45 billion in an year. Food outlets and
restaurants is a large industry in Australia which gives these eating joints an average yearly income of
$480,000. The industry is competitive, has low cost to entry and has little regulations holding them.
However, it also faces challenges like getting and training good staff. A survey conducted on 1,009
eating joints from Australia in August 2016 revealed some major issues that these establishments
facing and these included marketing, staffing, and technology. Another survey had also taken views of
customers of these restaurants in 2017. The collective research report was prepared which presented
following findings:
o The industry faced staffing as a major problem because of lack of skills and difficulties in
managing them. It is hard to get people who have the right skills and are also committed to
delivering performance. Moreover, the industry being human resource intensive, a large
amount has to be spent by restaurants in compensating and training their staff which reduces
their margins thereby reducing the revenues. While finding human resources is one
challenging, retaining them in competitive arena is another challenge.
o Healthy food is becoming preference of most consumers and thus, instead of eating outside,
they are preferring to have their food consumed at home. Also, they look for food variety that
is more heathy to consume. Thus, traditional fast food items are facing a decline in sales as
more and more customers are looking for healthier food options. Less healthy food like steak
are on decline in sales.
o Tastes of consumers are changing and these are respondent to by the restaurants adding more
of fine dining options even in their fast food joints. Fine dining has thus become less
exclusive and thus, does not give any major competitive advantages to find dining restaurants
that are selling food at the similar range as fast food restaurants or are serving similar items.
o The pressures on the restaurants are increasing with increasing costs of operations as there are
dozens of cost heads including procurement, servicing, order management, staff management,
maintenance, rent, waste management , marketing, wage payments and so on. Because of this,
margins of restaurants are reducing
o With virtual world connecting to the physical world, many customers are making online
bookings or through phone calls which makes them explore the reviews posted online while
they take a decision to visit a restaurant. Thus, it becomes necessary for the establishment to
have not just the presence online but also good reviews posted by customers for which the
companies have to invest huge in marketing.
o More exposure and visibility is required and thus, marketing is gaining importance in the field
of restaurant. Good marketing can make a difference between the failure and success of a

dining business. Thus, organizations need to have better marketing strategies in place to
remain competitive in the market.
o Food business is a kind of show business which sells more with increasing appeals and thus,
ambience plays a significant role in establishments. The ambience has to be created as per the
customer preferences.
o Customers of today are hard to please as they already have so many options for dining and
thus, a lot of complaints may be received from them by the restaurants if they are not given
effective service
o Consumption of alcohol is declining because of which fine dining restaurants that have
alcohol based drinks offered to their customers are not able to sell them much. Australians
love to drink which is why most restaurants already have alcohols served in restaurants but
with this new turned of declining sales of alcohol, the restaurants are likely to face major
problems in stocking and selling
o More people are preferring to eat food at home and thus, home delivery services are gaining
importance in the industry. However, the actual meals that are delivered by the restaurants are
limited in quantity because of lack of sufficient services.
o Old style cuisines are on decline such that the old types of restaurants such as Italian and
Chinese are declining in popularity while modern Australian restaurants are preferred.
o Newer restaurants are coming up with creative ambience which puts a pressure on the
traditional organizations to invest more on the ambience to attract their customers. However,
this can increase the cost for them that has to be covered through the increase in pricing which
can upset the customers in the long run adding challenges of attracting more customer to the
restaurants.
Sales decline in Chasska Restaurant
Chasska Restaurants has three branches, two of which are located in malls that have good footfalls but
its Yangbup is located on streets and thus, suffers from a lack of familiarity in people around. Th
restaurant only serves the Indian food while other nearby restaurants also provide other Asian food
items. Indian food is specifically liked by the Asians but they are spread in small areas that are also
separated which makes it difficult for the restaurant to reach and create awareness in them about the
restaurant. The brand also does not provide a direct online delivery facility and uses channels like
ubereats, menulog, and eatnow for distribution to the online consumers. From the study of the
restaurant and the secondary data on it, certain trends have been observed such as:

o Less customers are visiting the restaurant in past few months which has been observed from
the company data and thus, for the current research respondents are chose from the database
of customers not visiting the restaurant very frequently for a few months.
o There is a continuous decline in revenues and despite the measures taken by the company to
attract customers through promotion, the sales are not increasing
o The staff working in the restaurant does not have the right skills to provide good services to
customers as most of them are either new or are not experience enough in the field
o The staff is a cost to company and with reduction in sales and shrinking margins, giving them
wages with perks is becoming a big challenge
o The rate of attrition is very high as the employees are motivated and leaving the restaurant
fast because of which the cost of human resource management is increasing day by day
The company is looking for increasing its sales for which the current study explores the views of
customers that can help in identifying causes of decline in sales so that appropriate recommendations
can be made for improvement.
Addressing the issue of Sales Decline
The previous researches were studied to identify some strategies that can be used for working on the
issues of decline in sales. Before identifying solutions, it wold be needed t discuss various challenges
that restaurants are facing today. These include:
o Customer preferences are changing and competitive landscape is getting more difficult as
brands fight intensely to gain their market shares
o Companies are fighting aggressively in the market and reducing prices and launching
aggressive promotions which puts pressures on the margins of the business
o More and more consumers are preferring to make booking online and thus, restaurants that
solely rely on the brick and mortar model are experiencing decline in sales and around 20% of
them have gone bankrupt in 2015 in Australia.
o Overheads are increasing for restaurants because of several cost heads that are involved
including rents, wages, promotions, marketing, operations, training, and so on.
o Companies are needed to focus on building their identifies and experiences for both offline
and online customers while communicating marketing messages to people. A sustainable
platform is required to be built which can be both time consuming and cost intensive.

o There are some inherent issues that are causing decline in sales such as shifting preferences of
consumers, challenges in management of supply chains, addition of newer brands, and
struggles in marketing legacy brands.
o Significant decline is caused in the brick and mortar models of restaurants that do not have
online presence as they are not connected well with the information on the values and needs
of modern customers as they are not connected through social network sites and thus, do not
have exposure to the expectations of customers that modern restaurants have.
o Companies need to focus on customer convenience and their value perceptions which
traditional organizations are unable to do because of lack of awareness of how the modern
consumer preferences are shaping.
o Prices are reducing while costs are increasing which results into shrinking margins
o Digitization provides rich information about the customers to the restaurants that have
presence online. However, these insights cannot be obtained by the traditional restaurants.
o Relationships between customers and restaurants is no more only transactional and restaurants
are required to cate a brand experience that gives them more of an emotional connection
which requires them to understand their customers.
The strategies that were discovered from the previous researches include the following:
o The target customers and their preferences can be understood using online data that is
available with the industry. The data has to be evaluated thoroughly by the companies in
order to understand how customer preferences are changing how customers are perceived by
customers.
o Marketing strategies can be built based on the analysis of this data which can be obtained
through consumer research. The data that would be used by the companies for understanding
customers and their own presence include net promoter score, aided brand awareness and so
on that would be obtained through various touchpoints.
o Restaurants can conduct surveys on consumers to understand why some of their customers are
loyal while others are not preferring them over others.
o The companies should build an online presence and manage it well so shape the perceptions
of consumers through appropriate marketing strategies that can be used for engaging
customers.
o The restaurants should conduct researches or use customer feedbacks to understand the gaps
in services and the reputation of the company based on which the company can build
strategies for improvement in the top line of the company
o Consumer experience gaps must be understood which can be understood by exploring the
differences between the goods and service offered toc customers by traditional and modern

bands so that standards required to be adopted by the old restaurants to catch up with the
newer establishment can be identified and adopted.
o Researches have shown that 60% of consumers do not make purchases if they have a poor
customer service experience and thus, restaurants can focus on improvement of their service
to enhance the experience of their customers so that the decline in revisits of the customers
can be reduced.
o Legacy brands may have some weaknesses that are posing challenges which is why they are
not able to catch up with the market needs. These weaknesses can be exploited by company
but if they are understood well then the organizations can take steps for improvement.
o Integrated strategy can be used for shaping the experience of the restaurant consumers so that
the consumers can be provided better services.
o Restaurants should take efforts to better understand their customers so that management can
understand their needs better and accordingly build branding and marketing strategies that are
effective for the restaurants and can help in overcoming the challenges of sales decline.
o Organization can use innovative processes for improving their services for customers so that
the perceptions of consumers about the brands can be improved
o Core attributes that are important for customers need to be understood and step must be taken
by the restaurant management to build strategies for improving their experiences.
o Restaurants need to be more transparent for which the communication strategies can be used
by the restaurants
o A restaurant must build a personality and give voice to it so that a brand story can be created
and leadership can be established. A lifestyle can be created around a brand to enhance their
experience through increase in ecommerce offers and smart phone applications to reach out to
customers.
o Social media can be used for leveraging on them so that consumers can be engaged with the
brand and companies can better interact with their customers and understand them as well as
market them directly (Mackinac Partners, 2016)
Research Gaps
The past research conducted on the restaurant industry gave a few insights like the changing trends of
the restaurant industry and the changing preferences of consumers. It also gave some insights on what
strategies can be used such as use of digital media for engaging consumers, use of analytics to
understand them, and improvement in services based on this understanding. However, the reasons of
decline in sales of a specific restaurant was only superficially covered as the researches did not
explore the industry or the restaurants of specific types that could reveal the causes behind decline
that is experience by the industry in the Australia today (Halej, 2017). This research gap would be
filled with the current research in which data would be collected from the consumers for a specific
restaurant that is facing a decline in sales to understand the underlying causes.

Methodology
This section explains the research philosophy, research approach, data collection methods, data
analysis methods, ethical considerations, and limitations of the research. The section explains the
choice of the primary research which would be conducted in the current research involving restaurant
customers. The section explains why primary research survey has been used as the primary method of
data collection in the current research, It would also cover the methods that would be used for
analyzing the data obtained from respondents. It explains the research, data collection methods, data
analyses methods, and ethical considerations that were addressed by the researcher while conducting
this research (Braun & Clarke, 2013).
Research Design
The research methodology can be decided on the basis of the objectives of a research, availability of
respondents and the concept of knowledge in the eyes of researcher or in general. The researcher
understands that there are specific reasons that would be causing a decline in sales. However, these
reasons can only be understood by considering perspectives of different customers of the restaurant.
Thus, a primary research method would be used in the current research involving a primary survey on
the customers of the restaurant. Survey is chosen as the method of research because it would provide
an opportunity to the researcher to understand consumers better (CRESWELL, 2000).
Data Collection
The data was collected from customers who have been customers of the restaurant but have not been
visiting the restaurant since the stage of decline began. The contact details of these customers was
obtained from the company database and they were called to request their participation in the survey
(GRAY, 2016). For the survey, the researcher had prepared a quantitative questionnaire which was
given to the respondents who agreed to take part in the research for data collection. For data
collection, a random sampling was used and names of 100 customers were selected from the company
database. The database was used to get contact details of these 100 customers who were not visiting
the restaurants but when they were called only 50 of them agreed to participate in the survey to
express their concerns and share their reasons of quitting the restaurant visits (Dul & Hak, 2013).
Data Analysis
For the analysis of data obtained from the questionnaire responses, statistical tools would be used
including correlation tests, cross-tabulation, pie charts, and ranking. The test would be run to
understand the factors that cause satisfaction or dissatisfaction in customers of the restaurant. The data
would be coded into SPSS data analysis software and analysis would be run on the same (Fielding, et
al., 2016).

Ethical Considerations
As this research involved primary survey conducted on the customers of the restaurant, some ethical
codes would be taken into consideration such as privacy, rights, and confidentiality of the respondents
(Halej, 2017). The research would not take any information from the respondents that can be used to
track them down. The data collection would only be used for the purpose of research and the same
would be communicated to the respondents during the survey with clear mention of objectives of the
research such that their responses would be taken only after they give their consent for participation
(Halej, 2017). Any personal data that would be gathered about the individuals would only be for the
purpose of the demographic understanding of the respondents and as soon as the research findings are
obtained, the same would be deleted by the respondent (Dongre & Sankaran, 2015).
Findings
The data collected from the restaurant customers was analyzed and the key findings of the analysis are
presented in this section. The section includes graphs, charts and test results that explain the
perspectives of customers towards restaurants. The findings would answer the key research questions
by interpretation of the SPSS analyses output. However, this data needs to be related to the literature
studied and thus, the finding should be explored in the next section of discussions to gain insights on
the research issues. The chapter includes the results of the analysis of the primary research data and
presents charts, tables, and insights. For this, SPSS software has been used in which the data is coded
and entered and used for analysis of the responses obtained from the customers of the restaurant.

Figure 3: Gender Distribution
44% of the respondents were found to be males while 56% of them were females.
Figure 4: Age Distribution of Male Respondents

The chart above shows the distribution of the age ranges in respondents. It was found that most of the
male respondents (22.73%) in the survey were between 21 to 30 of years of age followed by people of
ages between 31 to 41 and 41 to 51. This suggests that most restaurant customers who left coming to
restaurant are adults while only a small percentage (9%) of the female customers are young.
Figure 5: Age Distribution of Female Respondents
The chart above shows the distribution of the age ranges in respondents. It was found that most of the
male respondents (28.57%) in the survey were between 21 to 30 of years of age followed by people of
ages between 16 to 20 (25%). This suggests that male customers who left the restaurant were a mix of
people from different age groups with minority belonging to ages above 31. Thus, it can be said that
more of the young crowd from the male population stopped coming to restaurant.

Figure 6: Ethnicity of Respondents
The chart above shows the distribution of the respondent’s ethnicity or country of origin. It was found
that most of the respondents (20%) in the survey were from Africa followed by people from Asia and
South America that constituted 18% of respondents each. 16% of them were from Oceania and North
America each. This suggests that most restaurant customers leaving the restaurant were from Asian
and African regions.

Figure 7: Frequency of Eating Out
32% of the respondents surveyed were found to be eating out for one or less than once a month. 24%
of them ate only few times in a month. 24% and 20% of them were eating once a week or more than
once week in an outside restaurant. This suggests that it is not just the Chassis restaurant that is seeing
a decline in the number of people visiting but it is an industry wide trend as more people are diverting
from eating out in a month.
Figure 8: Preference of Delivery Mode

32% of the respondents were found to be preferring home deliveries while 20% wanted to
place the orders online. 24% of the respondents wanted to visit a restaurant and an equal
number of them were found interested in taking parcel.
A cross-tabulation was run between the variables representing visits to specific restaurants
and the reasons for visits. Following results were obtained from the analyses:
Qualit
y
Locatio
n
Bran
d
Ambien
ce
Value
for
Mone
y
Goo
d
food
Recommendati
on
Variet
y
Good
service
s
Carousa
l
Shoppin
g Center
8 7 9 14 12 10 11 12 10
Cockbur
n
Shoppin
g mall
11 12 15 18 17 16 12 15 14
Yangbu
p
12 10 16 17 15 14 10 11 11
The table above shows the count of respondents who visited specific restaurants and had visited for
specific reasons like quality, location, brand, ambience, value for money, good food,
recommendations from friends, variety, and good service. The counts can be converted into
percentages to get better insights on the distribution as shown in the table below:
Qualit
y
Locatio
n
Bran
d
Ambienc
e
Value
for
Mone
y
Goo
d
food
Recommendatio
n
Variet
y
Good
service
s
Carousal
Shoppin
16% 14% 18% 28% 24% 20% 22% 24% 20%

g Center
Cockbur
n
Shoppin
g mall
22% 24% 30% 36% 34% 32% 24% 30% 28%
Yangbup 24% 20% 32% 34% 30% 28% 20% 22% 22%
As shown in the table above, among the restaurants visiting Yangbup majority of 34% visited it for a
good ambience which was also the case with the other restaurant of the Chassis across the city. 32%
and 30% of the Yangbup restaurants liked to visit a restaurant for a good brand and value for money
respectively. Only 20% of the restaurant visitors were concerned about the location. Based on these
figures, the factors that influenced decisions of the people on visiting a restaurant can be ranked as
follows:
Reason Rank
Ambience 1
Brand 2
Good Food 3
Quality 4
Variety/Good services 5
Location/Recommendations 6
Ambience and brand value make the top factors of influence for restaurant visits followed by quality
of food, variety and services.
The factors that prevented customers from visiting restaurants were again cross-tabulated with the
restaurants stopping to visit specific restaurants and the results of the same are shown in the table
below:
poor quality lack of variety far way bad reviews bad experience not value for money did not like food slow service uncooperative staff
Carousal
Shopping
Center
30% 28% 14% 12% 22% 16% 22% 12% 12%
Cockburn
Shopping
mall
46% 34% 24% 18% 32% 24% 18% 28% 24%
Yangbup 34% 32% 28% 20% 18% 26% 18% 24% 24%

The table above shows that majority of the customers leaving visiting Yangbup were
dissatisfied with poor quality of service (34%) followed by people upset with lack of variety.
Based on the results obtained above, the factors of dissatisfaction in people can be ranked as
shown in the table below:
Reason Rank
Poor quality of service 1
Lack of Variety 2
Far away location 3
Not value for money 4
Slow service or cooperative staff 5
Bad reviews 6
Bad experience/ did not like food 7
The top factors that cause dissatisfaction in customers include poor quality of service and
lack of variety followed by far location and not getting value for money products.

The chart above shows the distribution of the past visits of the respondents to the Yangbup
Chassis restaurant. 26% of the respondents could not remember their last visit which means
that they must have visited the restaurant long back. 30% of the respondents had visited the
restaurant few months back while 22% visited a few days back. 12% and 10% of respondents
visited the restaurant in last week and last month respectively. As per these figures, it can be
said that a majority of restaurant customers stopped visiting Yangbup a few months back.
A correlation test was run between the variables representing visits to the Yangup restaurant
and the ranks for the reasons to like a restaurant in order to find out what factors had
influenced customers of Yangbup and could have been reasons behind their visits or non-
visits after experience. There was no significant and positive correlation was found between
visits of people and the factors of consideration. Thus, it can be said that the factors identified
were not responsible for customers deciding their visits to the restaurant at the Yangbup
location.

To understand to what extent the preference of the mode of food delivery affected the visits
of the customers, a regression test was performed. It was found that average customers
preferred taking orders online. The R square value was found to be 0.034 and he significance
value was less than 0.05. Thus, it can be said that the preference of customers on the mode of
food delivery was contributing to their visit decisions to the extent of 3.4%.
Discussion
The findings were explored and analyzed critically with interpretations and the same are presented in
this section as discussions. The discussion is based on the understanding of the research that is gained
from previous researches as well as current study so that the researcher can understand the cause of
sales decline and come up with appropriate recommendations for improvement. The discussions
would reveal the answers of the research questions that include exploration of the causes of the
decline in the restaurant sales and identification of strategies that can be used for countering the
challenges.
Most respondents selected in the survey were females and thus, the dominant view of the
research is female oriented. Most of the male respondents are adults while most female
respondents were found young. Most respondents in the survey were from Africa, Asia, and
South America which suggests that that people who visit an Indian restaurant are mostly from
these regions.
The survey also studied the visit patterns of the respondents in the recent times and it was
found that most of the people were visiting restaurants to eat out only once or less than once a
month which suggest that the whole industry is witnessing a slow down in the number of
people going to restaurants in Australia. Some reasons that were identified in the literature
review that could have contributed to this pattern include reduction in the cost of consuming
food at home and higher prices of restaurant food.
To understand if there were any specific factors that affected the visits of the people in
Chassis restaurants, it was found that most people preferred to order from home and many
were interested in placing orders online. As the company does not have an online ordering
facility, the reduction in sales figures could be justified to some extent. It was found that
mode of food delivery did contribute to taking decisions on visits to some extent.

Recommendations
In this section, the research presents some recommendations for increasing sales at the restaurant
which would be based on the insights gained during discussion of the research results. The
recommendations are made for the restaurant in case so that it can use for making improvements in its
current situation so that the sales decline problem can be addressed and the company and build
strategies to increase their sales. Based on the data analysis and discussions above, following
recommendations can be made for the company to improve its sales:
 The company should ensure that it provides right variety of food as it can be a determining
factor for considering visits to the restaurant
 Quality of service and quality of food also make important factors. Thus, the restaurant must
work to improve the quality of food and the services offered at the restaurant.
 Many customers today are preferring to place orders online and thus, the company should
build systems that can take online orders from their customers. The company can begin
development of a website and implementation of a payment gateway with it.
 While customer service and variety in food make the must components for customers,
ambience adds value to the services. The company already has a good ambience that ids liked
by its customers, it can be used as a marketing tool to attract more and more people to the
restaurant.
 The restaurant can increase the variety of food that is offered in the restaurant for which more
suppliers can be added into the system
Conclusions and Future Possibilities
The aim of this research was to understand what was causing a recently observed decline in sales
in the Chasska restaurants in Australia. The research involved a primary survey that was
conducted on the restaurant customers who had recently stopped visiting the restaurant. The
research discovered a few factors that were important for the customers while taking a decision to
visit the restaurant and these included service quality, variety of food, and ambience. Some
reasons that were causing decline in sales were discovered and these included lack of online
ordering facility, decline in the general preferences of consumers across industry, lack of value of
money offers for customers, and lack of variety of food in restaurants. Based on these findings,
some recommendations were made for improvement such as introduction of online ordering
facility, increase in the variety of food items offered, and improvement in its services.
Discussion outcome: Factors that were found to be important for people visiting restaurants
included ambience, brand, and value for money in the same sequence of descending order.
Quality of food, availability of variety and the customer service would make the important
factors that can cause dissatisfaction in customers. Thus, these factors are important to be

taken care of while ambience and value for money would add to motivation in customers
visiting the restaurant. Poor service quality and lack of variety were two major factor that
caused people to stop visiting the restaurant. Most of the visits to the restaurants stopped a
few months back.
However, the research has some limitations that can be overcome in future researchers on the
subject such as:
o A very small sample size was used involving only 50 respondents and thus, the results
cannot be generalized to a wider audience. A future research can thus be conducted
increasing the sample size of the survey.
o As the questionnaire included close-ended questions, only limited views could be
obtained from the customers on the factors that were earlier researched. If only the
customers were allowed to freely express their views, additional factors could have been
identified affecting customer satisfaction
o The research was conducted only on one restaurant and thus, the results could not be
applied to the entire industry. A future research can be conduced including respondents
from the entire industry.
o The recommendations made for improvement were based on only the already know
factors of consideration in the restaurant industry because it was a quantitative survey and
thus, the results lack understanding of more factors that could have influenced their
decisions.
o The data analysis conducted mostly involved basic test procedures and thus, could not
deliver major insights that could have been obtained from other types of advanced tests
such as Chi-square and ANOVA. This it is recommended that in future , the variables
identified in this research could be explored in more depth and an extensive quantitative
study may be conducted.
o The views taken from the customers involved voluntary participation and thus, the
distribution of the sample was not truly representative of all the customers of the
restaurant. Properly selected sample with random sampling method can deliver more
accurate and relevant results in a future research.
o The company can make use of online data that gives in sights on customer preferences
and sue the same understand customers and build strategies for improvement of their
services to better serve their customers.

List of References
Braun, V. & Clarke, V., 2013. Successful qualitative research: A practical guide for beginners, s.l.: Sage
Publications.
CRESWELL, J. W., 2000. RESEARCH DESIGN: Qualitative, Quantitative, and mixed methods
approaches, s.l.: Semantics Scholar.
Dongre, A. R. & Sankaran, R., 2015. Ethical issues in qualitative research: challenges and options,
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India: Sri Manakula Vinayagar Medical College and Hospital.
Dul, J. & Hak, T., 2013. Case Study Methodology in Business Research, s.l.: Elsevier.
Fielding, N. G., Lee, R. M. & Blank, G., 2016. The SAGE Handbook of Online Research Methods. SAGE:
s.n.
GRAY, D. E., 2016. DOING RESEARCH in the REAL WORLD, s.l.: Sage Publications.
Greener, S., 2008. Business Research Methods, s.l.: Oxford Brookes University.
Halej, J., 2017. Ethics in primary research, s.l.: ECU.
Halej, J., 2017. Ethics in primary research (focus groups, interviews and surveys), s.l.: Equality
Challenge Unit (ECU).
Kaiser, K., 2009. Protecting Respondent Confidentiality in Qualitative Research. Qual Health Res, pp.
1632-1641.
Mackinac Partners, 2016. Insights: Essential Steps to Address Declining Sales in a Turnaround –
Restaurant and Retail Brands, s.l.: Mackinac Partners.
Rugg, G. & Petre, M., 2011. A Gentle Guide To Research Methods. s.l.:McGraw-Hill Education (UK).
The Intermedia Group Pty Ltd , 2017. Respondents SUmmary: Eating Out in Australia, s.l.: The
Intermedia Group Pty Ltd .
Appendix
Questionnaire
1. Age:
o 1-15 years
o 16-20 years
o 21-30 years

o 31-40 years
o 41 – 50 years
o Above 50 years
2. Gender
o Male
o Female
o Undisclosed
3. Which region do you originally belong to?
o Africa
o Asia
o Europe
o North America
o South America
o Oceana
4. How often do you eat out?
o Once in a month or less
o Few times in a month
o Once in a week
o More than once a week
5. Which of these modes of food delivery do you prefer to use?
o Home delivery
o Online ordering
o Restaurant visit
o Take home
o Others (Please specify)_________________
6. Give reasons why you would visit a restaurant:
o Good quality food
o Nearby
o Good brand presence
o Good ambience
o Value for money
o Good food
o Recommended by friends
o God variety
o Good service

o Any other (Please Specify)_____________________
7. Give reasons why you would avoid a restaurant:
o Lack of variety
o Poro quality of food
o Too far
o Bad reviews
o Bad Experience
o Not value for money
o Food is not good
o Slow service
o Staff not cooperative
o Any other (Please Specify)_____________________
8. Which of these Chasska restaurants have you visited in past?
 Carousal shopping center
 Cockburn shopping mall
 Yangbup
 None
9. From where did you get to know about us?
o From a friend
o Online search
o Online advertisement
o TV/Radio Ad
o Print Ad
o Discovered while walking
o Others (Please Specify)_______________________
10. When was the last time you visited these restaurants?
Restaurants Never I can’t
remember
Few
months
back
Last
month
Last
Week
Few days
back
Carousal shopping
centre
Cockburn shopping
mall

Yangbup
11. Please rate the restaurants from 1 to 5, 1 being poorest and 5 being excellent on the following
parameters. Write NA if not visited.
Parameters Carousal shopping
center
Cockburn shopping
mall
Yangbup
Food
Variety of food
Food Quality
Décor or ambience
Cost
Value for money
Price
Cleanliness
Service
Service Quality
Speed of service
Staff
Friendliness of staff
Helpful staff
12. How likely are you to start visiting our restaurant if our services are improved?
o Never
o Highly unlikely
o Neutral

o Likely
o Most Likely
13. Are you open to receiving offers from us on mobile or over email?
o Yes
o No