Teamwork to Enhance Service Quality: A Restaurant Industry Case

This essay explores the critical role of teamwork in enhancing service quality within the restaurant industry. It highlights that in today's competitive business environment, superior service delivery is essential for gaining a competitive edge, with many restaurants focusing on human resources to improve their service. The study emphasizes that effective teamwork, involving both front-line and back-line staff, is vital for sustaining customer confidence, loyalty, and increased revenue. It examines strategies for fostering teamwork, such as improving communication, changing organizational culture, and providing continuous training. The essay also addresses challenges like employee turnover and negative competition, advocating for quality service management systems that prioritize customer satisfaction and innovation. Ultimately, it argues that a strong, collaborative team contributes to minimizing errors, improving efficiency, and creating an enjoyable customer experience, thereby acting as a promotional agent for the restaurant.

Running Head: TEAMWORK TO ENHANCE SERVICE QUALITY IN A RESTAURANT
Teamwork to enhance service quality in a Restaurant
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Institution

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Introduction
In the modern competitive business environment, quality service delivery is substantial in
helping a business gain a competitive advantage over their competitors in the industry. Quality
service delivery is the focus of every restaurant business whether small, middle or large.
Developing an effective service delivery strategy in any market and especially the restaurant
business defines the industry winning approach which is to deliver quality service to their
customers. Most restaurants have therefore developed strategies to gain a competitive advantage
over their competitors through human factors which means they have focused on growing their
human resources to improve their service delivery (El-Said, 2014). Provision of quality service
in the restaurant business helps in sustaining customer’s confidence, customer loyalty and
contributes to increased performance regarding revenue. Therefore, there is a healthy
relationship between service delivery and the return of restaurant business. However, in most
cases service delivery is related with customer satisfaction and therefore it is the responsibility of
every restaurant business management team to develop customer service strategies which will
aid to improved service delivery since the performance of the restaurant business is measured
concerning the quality of services they provide to their customers. Improving quality service is
broad concept since different strategies can be adopted by any company to develop their service
delivery strategies (Guchait et al., 2015). Some of the most commonly applied approaches in
most businesses are through innovation and product development. However, it boils down that
improved quality service begins with the development of the human business factors, in this
case, the employees in the business. Many strategies have been developed to improve quality

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service delivery but failed due to failure to integrate human factors into the organization. This
study, therefore, aims at providing an understanding of how teamwork can enhance service
quality delivery in a restaurant business.
Literature review
Service quality has become very significant in the hotel and restaurant industry globally.
The success of any restaurant business is strongly linked to the type of service they offer to their
customers. Service quality management is a strategy that has been implemented by many service
provision businesses to improve the organizational performance. In the modern competitive
business environment and specifically in the service sectors has led to the development or
evaluation of an industry service provision strategies. In most cases, many businesses have used
service quality delivery as a marketing tool or plan for their companies (Ceschi et al., 2014). The
implementation of quality management strategies in most businesses has resulted due to the rapid
growth of demanding customers and business increased sense of customer satisfaction. Therefore
customer service has been identified as a critical factor that strongly impacts company evaluation
of its service quality strategies. Development of effective quality service management strategies
in a business does not only improve the business performance but also helps the business to gain
a competitive advantage over their rival competitors. The different organization uses different
mechanisms to enhance their quality service depending on the industry they operate. The hotel
and restaurant industry is guided by quality service to their customers and their general
performance in the industry is measured through the quality of services provided to their
customers and the level of customer satisfaction with the services offered. To achieve the

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objectives of quality service management, there is a need to take into consideration the human
factors in the organization. These are the people who interact with the customers on a daily
business, and therefore they play a significant role in sustaining customer confidence and loyalty
which is critical in measuring business performance in the service industry.
Organization of the human business factors includes; developing strategies to enhance
team working in the organization of business. The increasing customer demands and an
increased sense of customer satisfaction call for combined efforts of all the staff of the
organization including the management team. The development of effective teamwork in any
restaurant business does not happen by itself but takes planning, time and dedication to
continuous training in quality service delivery (Ceschi et al., 2014. However, it is also important
to understand that individual efforts and commitment to the group efforts is what makes a team
work. The primary objective of teamwork in any business is to help the company realize its full
potential despite any differences which may be happening amongst the employees. The
restaurant business has faced challenges including communication challenges amongst the
employees, lack of coordination of activities in the hotel as well as lack of team building
activities amongst the hotel or restaurant staff. Most of the successful restaurant businesses use
teamwork as a strategy to meet their daily targets or goals concerning sales and also to give
employees a reason to support each other through collaboration (Perna, 2016). It doesn’t matter
the strategies or concepts developed and implemented by the business such as the price point
strategy; it is the quality of service provided by the restaurant staff that sets the company apart
from other companies in the same industry. Customer service or quality service delivery starts

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the moment a customer sets his or her foot on the restaurant implying that every single action by
an employee in the restaurant affects the customers experience whether directly or indirectly.
Therefore, development of teamwork efforts helps in delivering quality services in the restaurant.
The restaurant business can be categorized into two main divisions regarding quality
service provision. The company has both the front line staff as well as the back line staff. The
frontline staffs engage mostly in interacting with the customers to facilitate effective service
delivery. They get orders from the customers and serve their warrants respectively (Kliegl &
Weaver, 2014). They are trained to offer exclusive customer service and therefore their
communication, their dressing and hygiene are very critical in creating the first impression to the
customers about the quality of service provided by the company. In most cases complains arise
from the customers who may be as a result of not meeting the customer expectations and it’s
during that time employees keep on blaming each other. Such blame games affect the efforts to
build teamwork in the hotels and contribute to poor service delivery. The development of
teamwork strategies between amongst the employees plays a vital role in service quality delivery
in the restaurant. One of the key factors to enhance effective teamwork is through effective
communication strategies between the front line employees and the back line employees who are
engaged mostly in cooking services and other management services such as accounting and
supply chain functions (Dabholkar, 2015). The first step to developing effective teamwork is to
change the organization or business culture from individual performance culture where each
employee strives to achieve his or her own goals and daily targets to a corporate culture which
recognizes that corporate efforts work magic in improving organizational and individual

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performance. Having a few relaxing moments for the employees working in the restaurant helps
in team building and also supports the employees to get to know each other outside of their
working relationships.
A committed team to the delivery of quality service helps in sustaining the customer's
confidence with the service providers, attracts more customers and contributes to increased
business growth by maximizing on the company profits and focusing on improving customer
satisfaction. Quality service defines the customer's overall impression of the restaurant (Kaura et
al., 2015). It is essential for the employees in the restaurant to understand the five dimension of
quality service including; tangible services, the reliability of the service, the responsiveness of
the employees to customer concerns, assurance of their services as well as creating empathy with
the customers. The success of teamwork will be determined by their capacity to understand this
five dimension concerning customer service. Every team member should be reliable when called
upon to offer services to the customers; he or she should be emphatic and responsive in meeting
customer needs and demands. The management of the restaurants should, therefore, develop
active team working strategies aimed at improving their service delivery. There is a healthy
relationship between teamwork and quality of services offered. The stronger the team efforts, the
higher or, the more quality the services provided are. Collaboration contributes to sharing of
ideas amongst the employees as well as improved decision making concerning customer service
in the restaurant (Aikins et al., 2014). It contributes to increased innovative power among the
employees which will enhance the restaurant quality service through the provision of exclusive
services and hence resulting in increased competitive advantage. Teamwork contributed to

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minimization of possible errors amongst the employees in their attempt to offer services which
help to improved business efficiency and productivity.
To enhance teamwork in the restaurants there is important to continuously offer training
to the employees on the importance of teamwork and the needs corporate efforts towards the
realization of the business goals. Lack of effective implementation of teamwork strategies is as a
result of the business culture that provides that individual efforts are more important in the
growth of a business compared to collective team efforts (Hussain et al., 2015). The
organizational culture of competition in the business where each employee competes with the
others to meet certain targets has negatively impacted on quality service. Competition amongst
employees contributes to decreased employee performance and consequently reduce their
motivation to offer quality services and especially amongst employees who do not perform well.
It also contributes to demoralization and negative energy towards work. There is a need to
develop quality service management systems which discourage negative competition in the
restaurant business and adopt competition policies which are aimed at improving customer
service delivery in the business (Gera et al., 2017). The strategies should be focused on
improving customer service and providing innovative solutions to create quality services in a bid
to meet the increasing customer demands and the company focus to achieve customer
satisfaction.
Teamwork in the organization has also been affected by the increasing employee turnover
in the restaurant industry. Most of the restaurant businesses are found to focus more their
profitability and therefore have recorded high turnover rates compared to other sectors (Hill &

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Alexander, 2017). Increased turnover destabilize the functions of the restaurant and impact on
service delivery on their customers. For effective teamwork in the business and achievement of
organizational quality service goals, there is a significant need for the management of restaurants
to balance organizational profitability goals, employee retention goals as well as the need to
enhance their quality service delivery. Training, learning and knowledge management
contributes to increased quality service delivery (Kasiri et al., 2018). Lack of customer service
skills amongst employees as well as lack of team working skills contributes negatively to the
improvement of service delivery to the customers. Team working skills include having specific
responsibilities for the team that is aimed at improving service delivery. Development of health
competition such as rewarding the teams which will attract more positive responses from
customer’s plays a more significant role in enhancing teamwork as well as quality service
delivery.
The role of team building in the restaurant business is to strengthen the bond between the
organizational or business staff. With increased teamwork, every member of the company or
every employee in the restaurant business is equally motivated to achieve organizational goals
and objectives. It contributes to improved quality service delivery through offering an enjoyable
customer experience. A satisfied customer with the services of the restaurant will act as an
indirect promotional agent to the restaurant by referring customers (Alzaydi et al., 2017). This
shows a direct relationship between quality service delivery, teamwork, and organizational
productivity. Team working helps to bring on board the lazy employees in the business and help
them develop their efforts and change their attitudes towards work instead of retrenching the

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unproductive workers which may have further impacts on the image of the company and their
productivity. The development of active team working is therefore not a function of the
management team alone but also takes the collective efforts of all employees in the organization
as well as the management team.
Development of active team working strategies benefits the employees, the business
management team as well as the business customers. The employees of the restaurant benefit
highly from high performing teams as the employees can share their responsibilities with other
employees who help them to alleviate the burden of the whole projects in the businesses. The
employees can share ideas with each other and can adapt to various job challenges arising from a
sad day in the work which would have drained their efforts and attitudes towards work (Xu et al.,
2017). Increased collaboration contributes to enhanced quality service delivery. On the other
hand, the organization benefits from improved employee performance implying that they can
meet the organizational goals and objectives efficiently which contributes to increased
organizational productivity. Increased employee performance about business growth provides a
company with a competitive advantage over their competitors in the industry. The company or
businesses can develop regarding their service delivery in the industry and increased profitability
of the company. The company customer base will also increase helping the market to improve
their profitability. On the other hand, the customers can benefit from quality services from the
restaurant and have their expectations. Through the team, the customers can gain increased
customer satisfaction with the services provided (Hill & Brierley, 2017). The group helps the
management to reduce their efforts in governing their employees as the team can work

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effectively with each other and contribute to increased performance. The managers can,
therefore, focus on developing other aspects of the business other than concentrate on
supervising the employees. Consequently, the development of active team working strategies in
the restaurant business contributes to increased service quality service to the company.
Research Methodology
In the previous chapter of literature review it found that teamwork plays a significant role
in the quality service in most of the restaurants and consequently, a substantial number of
restaurants are trying to enhance teamwork. This chapter of research methodology presents
relevant data collected to evaluate the research topic (Abowitz & Toole, 2018). The section will
start with the introduction of the research, the methods that will be used in the data collection.
The chapter will also cover validity and reliability of the chosen techniques.
Research Design
Research design entails two broad kinds: qualitative and quantitative. This study will
adopt a mixed research design of both the qualitative and quantitative as it is the best for data
collection, analysis, and information in a single research study (Gurtoo, 2011). Additionally, the
mixed method is advantageous as it allows the researcher to identify some aspects that would
have been covered by one tool through another. The mixed tool will compose of the literature
review and semi-structured interview.
Literature Review

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Literature review forms a significant role in supporting how teamwork enhances quality
service in restaurants, majorly as an exploratory design and as descriptive design (Routray et al.,
2015). Through the use of qualitative research “why” teamwork enhance quality service in
restaurants will be realized instead of “how” since it focuses on developed initial understanding
out of the study. Therefore, in this study to get more understanding on the teamwork, quality
service and the impacts of teamwork on quality service in a restaurant, the researcher applied a
depth interview and to support the qualitative study.
Population and Sample Selection
The research study population consists of supervisors and managers from different hotels.
Therefore, a sample framework is drawn from the pool of the managers and supervisors through
random selection of a limited number of 200. As stated by Daley et al., (2018) that for any
sampling method. Legitimate and dependable research study, the sample should not be less than
25% pi its population. The sample size in this case will be 60 of which 30 to be managers and 30
to be supervisors.
In research study, sampling method provide wide variety of procedures that allow the
researcher to minimize the number of respondents and information collected by having the most
appropriate that will address the problem statement. The research will apply both the simple
random sampling and purposive sampling (Thomson et al., 2017). The simple random sampling
will be used to select the restaurants so as each restaurant stands and equal chance of
participation, while the purposive sampling will target only the supervisors and the managers of

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the selected restaurants to participate in the interview as they are the only people with first-hand
information about the impact of teamwork on the quality of services.
Data Collection Instrument
The primary data collection instrument is the semi-structured interview guide. The
interview is more appropriate for this study since it allows the respondents to provide feedback
that is slightly more elaborate and expansive than close-ended questionnaires. The meeting will
take place in two steps approach, whereby the first interview will identify and understand how
the teamwork in various restaurants affects quality service (Owen, 2014). On the other, another
second interview that will more structure aims to have the respondents to rate the quality service
items that will be identified in the first phase along with their level of satisfaction. The second
phase interview, therefore, focused on the critical aspects of quality service that will be
determined in the first phase (Lloyd & Hopkins, 2015). The interview guide will be administered
by the researcher directly to select respondents either by a person or by phone.
Pilot Test
Before the actual interview, the guide will be subjected to a pilot test. A convenient
sample of three respondents from among the managers and supervisors of the selected
restaurants will be chosen and interviewed. The result of this interview is used to test the
understandability and comprehensiveness of the questions designed to collect information and
make some approximate adjustments before the final data collection process.
Data Analysis