Factors Influencing Customer Retention: A Study of WWW Café's Business

This research proposal investigates the factors influencing customer retention at WWW Café, a vegetarian café in New Zealand facing competition. The study focuses on customer satisfaction, switching costs, and relationship quality as key determinants. It aims to create a model to promote the café's business. The research methodology involves a descriptive approach, gathering data through questionnaires distributed to local residents, tourists, and international students. The proposal includes a Gantt chart outlining the time horizon for the research, which involves literature review, research design, data collection, and analysis. The expected outcome is to provide insights that will help WWW Café improve customer satisfaction, service quality, and ultimately, customer retention, ensuring its sustainability in the competitive dining industry.

Running head: FACTORS AFFECTING CUSTOMERS RETENTION IN WWW CAFÉ
FACTORS AFFECTING CUSTOMER RETENTION WWW CAFÉ
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

Abstract:
It is very important for an organization to manage the customer relationship effectively
for the expansion of its business. In the study of customer relationship concept, the factors
influencing customer retention are important as it has implications in the business of an
organizational scheme and controlling policies. Many research has previously surveyed the
intention behind consumers’ repetitive purchase, however there is no integrated point of view
regarding the factors influencing customer retention, and ways of its valuation and purpose. The
main purpose of this research proposal is to construct a hypothetical model of consumer retention
to promote the business of a café in New Zealand. The experimental research consequences
exhibited that there is a statistically substantial encouraging connection between factors
recognized in the theoretical model: customer satisfaction, switching costs, relationship quality,
and customer retention.

Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................3
Background and Scope of the Study................................................................................3
Customer Retention and Customer Satisfaction..............................................................4
Research Questions..........................................................................................................5
Research Methodology....................................................................................................6
Project Implications, Ethical Approval and Feedback for the Participants of the
Research.......................................................................................................................................6
Ethical Approval..............................................................................................................7
Time Horizon (Gantt Chart)............................................................................................8
References..........................................................................................................................10

Introduction
The following research proposal discusses the problems for the maintenance of the
customers of WWW café as it is facing a tough competition from the other well-built restaurants
of the area. WWW café built in the year 2016 is pure vegetarian café with a very few handful
members sustaining the production of the café. The proposal will highlight some factors
affecting the growth of customers in order to raise the frequency of clients’ revisit to the WWW
café. This research will be extremely important, as it will give an opportunity for the
organization to come up with a decision to gain profit for its employees and establish it as a
locally positioned food chain.
Background and Scope of the Study
The scope of this study about WWW café located near the Centre Mall in New Zealand
focuses at three main elements of the business for its promotional activities. The three main
influencing factors for the business of WWW café that will be discussed here are quality,
consumer satisfaction and service quality offered by the café. Although the three factors are
interrelated with each other, the research will describe only the factors that are responsible for
the retention of customers (Arts, 2014). However, the three factors together will boost the
production of the business as a superior quality food bring satisfaction to the customer which in
turn will help in retaining the customers by WWW café.
The dining industry of New Zealand is one of the main sources of the growth of the
economy of the nation. From a recent research, it has been estimated that more than 6 billion
employees work in more than one lakh food industry. According to Restaurants and Cafes
(2017), it has been observed that more than 3 lakh people visit the restaurant sector in and there

are more than one million take away orders every week. In spite of such numbers of facilities and
weekend amenities, the success of WWW café greatly depends on the flavor and preferences of
clients who buy foodstuff or hot drink from the café.
The town being busy only on the weekends and in time of spring, which attracts tourists
and students from across the world, is scarcely populated with only a population of more than
65000. The town due to some big restaurants and cafes, 90% of the small and medium food
industry is facing number of difficulties to survive in the long run (Danesh, Nasab, & Ling,
2012). Individuals from various backgrounds including students as well make it an attempt to
meet at the coffee shops to interact on different personal and common issues. Coffee is also
recommended to many individuals especially to old people for biological causes to prevent
diseases like Parkinson’s disease, dizziness, and eradication of rectal cancer. Coffee is also
preferred by many individuals as it is said that coffee prevents various types of diabetes. On the
other hand, the young generations like students from universities consume coffee to remain
rejuvenated and focused for most of the times. This is the reason why a large number of students
and professors of universities prefer coffee shops that remains open on 24*7 basis. Therefore, the
revenue of the coffee shops is totally apprehensive with the service provided to the customers
regarding quality of the food and service.
Customer Retention and Customer Satisfaction
According to the authors Shoemaker and Lewis (1999), customer retention is a term that
arises in the market when the loyalty of old customers fetches new customers to adapt an outline
of base of the customers that shows the regularity of the consumer and thus provides positive
outcomes for the organizations (Al-Tit, 2015). Since every organization’s future business profits
depend upon the customers, it is the responsible of the managerial body of the organization to

become attentive to the factors affecting retention of the customers. Therefore, the author Al-Tit
(2015) had said that various researches have been studied on the common factors that affects the
restaurant industries such as service quality, food quality and customer fulfillment (Kanta, &
Srivalli, 2014).
Consumer Satisfaction for any business plays a pivotal role as it builds a better
relationship of the customer with the business house. Consumer satisfaction can be measured at
the end of each year when the statement of profit and loss is published. Consumer satisfaction
mostly depends on the preference and choice of the products by the customers and their publicity
of the product for its affinity to the customer. The purpose of this research aims at identifying the
preferences and demands of the customers in order to operate on a wide range of products.
According to the authors Khan and Afsheen (2012), traits of brand distinctiveness presented by a
company establish the standard of customer satisfaction (Li,Ye, & Law, 2013). Therefore,
consumer satisfaction as opined by Malik and Ghaffor (2012), is defined as meeting the terms
and expectations of the customers in terms of limitations associated with satisfaction. The
following research proposal thus focuses on some of the features that affect customer satisfaction
like price, service, quality, ambiance and surroundings of the coffee shops and thus highlights
the issues that may help the WWW café to survive in a long-term production (Jahanshani et al.,
2014)
Research Questions
From the above literature review about the customer retention and customer satisfaction,
the research questions for the following research proposal will investigate the below questions as
follows:
1) Does the engagement of local public can increase the sale of WWW?

2) What are the benefits of managing customer relationship in WWW restaurant?
3) What are the retention policies that can attract customers for the WWW restaurant
resulting in the earnings of profit?
Research Methodology
The research methodology encompasses the different types of methods used during
performing the research. Research methodology enables understanding of different varieties of
methods implemented in the research. There are 3 types of research techniques- Exploratory,
Descriptive and Hypothesis.
The exploratory research is investigated when the investigator does not have any
perfect knowledge of the research topic (Mithas, Krishnan, & Fornell, 2013.)
The descriptive research is performed with the support of advanced equipped
technology and theory.
Hypothesis research is performed on a based hypothesis to prove whether the hypothesis
is correct or incorrect.
In order to study this research, the descriptive method of research will be adopted. The
relevant concepts that are discussed previously shall be taken into consideration at the time of
conducting the investigation (Sukwadi, 2015). The research will accumulate data from the
research questionnaires, as the sample of questions will be given to random numbers of
customers who will visit the café. The total set of samples will be divided into two halves. A half
of it will be distributed to the local communal and the other half will be distributed to tourists’
and to the international students who visit the café. This method will draw attention to the

demographic features of the respondents and will bring into light the sectors where the café
needs to improve (Oliver, 2014).
Project Implications, Ethical Approval and Feedback for the Participants of the Research
This research will benefit the WWW café organization, as the research will help the
manager to guide his employees for a better satisfaction of the customers while delivering the
reliable quality of service and food (Ryu, Lee, & Gon ,2012). This monitoring will improve the
present scenario and will bring more customers for the café. In order to communicate the
feedback with the interested parties and participants of the survey the café can implement visual
materials such as pamphlets, videos, verbal methods and digital media like social platforms.
They can also take the approach of blog posts, press release and journals (Sukwadi, Yang, &
Fan, 2012).
Ethical Approval
Prior to the performance of the research, the ethical approval will be taken from the
Departmental Ethics Officers. The interested participants will be provided with enough
information to make a decision of their own as to whether to participate in research. It will be
ensured that no coercion is made if any participant does not take part in the survey. It will be
informed to the participants that their decision should be completely their own and no
manipulation will be entertained (Zhao et al., 2012).

Time Horizon (Gantt Chart)
Timeline of the research
The first week will be used in the assortment of the subject matter with the guidance of
some tributary articles and records. In the course of this period, the investigator will collect the
knowledge required for the chosen topic. The second week will be utilized for studying on the
subject appropriately. This step will be followed by a relevant literature review performed by the
investigator. In the third week, the researcher will arrange the design of the research and the
method in which the investigation shall be performed. The primary data will be gathered in the
fourth week. Within this period, the investigator will accumulate the secondary data and the
primary data acquired in the step. During this week, the investigation will be able to mark
suitable assumptions of the research conducted. Lastly, in the fifth week, the researcher will
induce the penultimate conclusion of the research assignment.

Self -Evaluation of the Research Proposal
The entire research on the applied business helped me in many ways. The research
highlighted the many new techniques of conducting the research. Although these researches have
been taught in the class, a practical application of the research was a way more beneficial for
students like me. However, while conducting the research I had to struggle with few difficulties.
Quite a few numbers of the visitors and customers were not interested in the process and as a
result, few questionnaires were incomplete and thus the data that were gained are on an average.
Three major factors that are related to the customer retention are the quality and service of the
food, satisfaction of the customers, and the conduct and approach of the employee of the
organization. This research proposal will provide the organization to function effectively in the
business and can sustain their existence in the total hospitality sector.

References
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trust and switching barriers on customer retention in Malaysia
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